After living in London for close to a year, I found myself back in the Bay Area with the telltale sign of a discovered love for English Ales...a greatly expanded waistline. Pretty disgusted with myself, I became determined to drop some lb's. I started with a test of my discipline...a 10-day juice cleanse diet. Surprising to everyone around me, it was successful...12 pounds shed in 10 days. But the inevitable post-cleanse weight gain started showing its ugly face and I knew that I needed to get my butt back into shape ASAP.

As I normally do at the start of a training cycle, I laced up my running shoes and hit the trails. For some reason, I couldn't get back into it this year. Unfortunately, my trusted running partner, Olive (our dog), was not able to join me as she just recently started showing signs of arthritis. My motivation level plunged. Then I noticed that a friend was posting his running workouts on Facebook. Intrigued, I investigated further and eventually found what I was looking for...a watch. A small and mundane item transformed me from a de-motivated sloth, to a six-pack sporting marathoner (slight exaggeration).

I purchased a Garmin GPS-enabled training watch, which, combined with connectivity to Garmin's online activity tracker, has been a game changer for me. Since my first run with it on Sep. 16th, I've logged 51 miles and burned 6,500 calories. Thinking about my other hobbies, it's interesting to note that having that "key item" is often times what I need to accelerate a pursuit. Whether it's a highly portable camera to photograph with more often, or a stylish pen & notepad that I'm compelled to jot down thoughts and ideas with...for me, having that key item really helps to drive a desired behavior change.