"Earning your treats" mentality?

I see no problem with it. I work hard all week on fitness and watching calories, and on Friday, I sit back and enjoy a glass of wine.

CICO, therefore, it's fine as long as you aren't delusional about how much of a treat you've earned.

I thinks it's probably usually harmful, as most people tend to overestimate the workout they did, and underestimate the calories they're consuming.

The time I mentioned it on MFP (suggesting a person could take a walk and eat an apple as she was still hungry and out of calories) I was told my thought was disordered. So I don't suggest that anymore. Lol

50% of the reason I run is for calories, aka beer, wine, and chocolate.

I think it could be negative for some people to think that way... like they might overeat and beat themselves up over it or push themselves to exercise a lot to compensate for overeating.
I have a exercise plan. I eat some of my exercise calories. It isn't about deserving the food. I want it and I have the calories for it.

It really depends on the person. Some people can take too far, and and for some people it just won't work. I'd say for most people it's ok.

I thing the use of words like "treats" creates a rewards and punishment mentality around food that keeps people regard food as something much more emotional than it should be.

In terms of earning calories I see the CICO situation much like a bank account.......

If you spend money you haven't got you will get into debt and it will sooner or later cause you trouble. So either you earn the money before you buy something, or you buy something on loan but pay it off as soon as you can.

Likewise, if you're into instant gratification and you carry on eating calories you haven't really got or that you don't burn off afterwards you will get fat... Simple as.

So are you trying to imply that everyone who actually applies CICO is mentally unstable?

It's a budget thing for me. I budget XYZ calories for the day. If I eat too much, I "owe". If I'm "uderbudget", I get to eat more. I track as precisely as I can for any given situation, and err on the side of "this cost more", because more work hurts less than too much food.

Usually I fit my sweet and savoury treats into my daily calories. Most days I'll have a small chocolate bar at school or a cookie with my coffee. But I tend to eat very light breakfast and lunch, so I can have those treats. In the evening, I pre-log my main meal and the push the numbers around until I can fit another treat in if I feel like it.

If I know there will be pizza I try to eat less earlier during the day but I don't always have time to work out to "earn" it. But if the lovely parents of my boyfriend are making pizza, I'm ok with going over my goal. It's not something that happens too often, after all. But there are also days like last Friday when I got home, the sun was shining, spring was in the air... I went for the first run in YEARS and then put on different shoes and walked 4km to the bakery (even though there's a perfectly good one next door to my place). I got about 15km of walking and running that day and thoroughly enjoyed my steak, sweet potato, salad, beer and Ben&Jerry's that night. If I hadn't walked that much I would've eaten less of the yummy things.

It simply means an appropriate balance based on one's individual statistics of calorie consumption versus calorie output. Whether you create that balance every day or as some do across the week is immaterial, but simple recognition of the fact that if you carry on "treating" yourself to more calories than you are expending, weight will not be lost.

Of course some people have the mentality to use that simple truth to create a stick to beat themselves with, but that doesn't make it any less true. So if you want excess calories you either earn them before, burn them later or simply accept that you'll gain weight.

I don't really look at it as rewarding myself with specific treats. Since I've been exercising consistently and trying to hit over 12000 steps every day, I'm getting between 400-600 extra calories a day. Having that much extra wiggle room has been tremendously helpful. I get to eat the foods I love instead of trying to find foods that make me feel fuller, I don't feel like I'm starving and by the time I go to work to start my night shift I'm not already almost out of calories for the day AND I'm losing weight. It also keeps me from going on a binge due to depriving myself. So for me, exercising gives me the ability to stick to my diet AND feel satisfied every day. It's more than just an extra cookie ☺

Unless you were active BEFORE your "lifestyle change", I would say use that as an approach sparingly.
Given that for most, workouts are the first thing to fade out of the new lifestyle.

A true lifestyle is a big picture thing.

To me, it's one thing to say: my workouts, which I do for my health, give me extra calories (generally), and another to say: I'm working out because it's pizza night....

Building treats into the big picture makes the most sense to me.

But, I'm sure it works for some. Heck there's a whole Facebook group called "I run to drink".

Personally, I don't. I have in the past but I stopped because tracking calories out (incorrectly) caused me to gain weight, so when I stopped tracking exercise calories I stopped eating them back.