"Earning your treats" mentality?

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  • cafeaulait7
    cafeaulait7 Posts: 2,459 Member
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    I think it's good to think of calories as fuel as far as weight is concerned, so using exercise to 'earn' calories can show that someone really gets that.

    But folks can get batty with it, yeah. Don't do that ;) And don't do the reverse, where folks eat whatever they like because they got on the treadmill last Sunday, lol. Keep the actual math in mind :grin:
  • MikaMojito
    MikaMojito Posts: 680 Member
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    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.
  • Springfield1970
    Springfield1970 Posts: 1,945 Member
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    I see treats as a byproduct of exercise, and I value them more when I'm counting calories.
    Luckily, everything I eat is a 'treat' as I love my food with a passion.
    I see going to the gym and all my other exercise as a treat too.
    I've had a tough life.
  • CollieFit
    CollieFit Posts: 1,683 Member
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    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.
  • joinn68
    joinn68 Posts: 480 Member
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    zyxst wrote: »
    That sounds normal and logical until you're doing a 6 mile walk around town at 2 am because you misjudged how many calories in that cookie.

    No seriously you've done that? I would find it very funny if as you said it wasn't a slippery slope.

    To answer OP, I really try to separate exercise and food. Food for weight. Exercise for health regardless of weight therefore shouldn't be used as a bargaining tool for treats. However when I am going to eat more (nights out) I'll try to bank a few calories of exercise beforehand
  • lindathom209
    lindathom209 Posts: 19 Member
    edited March 2016
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    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 ☺
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,134 Member
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    joinn68 wrote: »
    zyxst wrote: »
    That sounds normal and logical until you're doing a 6 mile walk around town at 2 am because you misjudged how many calories in that cookie.

    No seriously you've done that? I would find it very funny if as you said it wasn't a slippery slope.

    Yes, I have. It's why I don't go tell someone who went over calories to go burn it off in the gym.

    I don't remember saying it wasn't a slippery slope, not in this thread.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    edited March 2016
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    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".
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    I think it depends on one's overall relationship with food and fitness. Exercise bulimia is a very real thing and extremely unhealthy and a horrible mindset. I would also say doing a bunch of unplanned exercise because you ate something or want to eat a particular thing isn't the healthiest mindset either...it may not be full on exercise bulimia, but the mindset is pretty similar and you're kind of heading down a bad path there.

    I exercise regularly and my training is pretty much on a schedule...I do it primarily for my fitness and to achieve my fitness goals...but I also exercise regularly because I know it give me a lot more latitude for things like beer and wine and pizza and whatnot than I would have if I didn't exercise.
  • StealthHealth
    StealthHealth Posts: 2,417 Member
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    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.
  • besaro
    besaro Posts: 1,858 Member
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    it helped me in the beginning in two ways. one it got me out away from the frig and snacking and it got me out walking.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
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    I workout so I can eat more as a whole. My diet after that is not directly related to the exercise I'm doing.
  • emmycantbemeeko
    emmycantbemeeko Posts: 303 Member
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    For most people I think it's not a productive way to view things. It can both contribute to overeating (from overestimating how much you've "earned" from exercise) and to disordered eating/thinking.

    I eat what I enjoy within my calorie budget, which generally means I have something "treat" like about once a day. More than that I tend to get hungry and feel not-great from not eating enough protein (since most of my treats are just carbs). Less than that and it becomes hard to stick to the plan due to cravings. If I earn extra calories through exercise, I eat back around 50% of them (sometimes more if I'm hungry), but usually the extra calories are more nutritionally dense food- I don't eat twice the ice cream because of going for a run.

    I try not to associate the two with each other. If I know I'm going to have a high-calorie day or not be able to track accurately for some reason, I try to increase my exercise to minimize the damage, but I really try not to link the two- exercise and indulgence- mentally very closely. I think that way a lot of potential problems lie.
  • pluto2626
    pluto2626 Posts: 31 Member
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    The whole time I am running, I think about the delicious food I get to enjoy! No shame!
  • KathyApplebaum
    KathyApplebaum Posts: 188 Member
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    I use it to play a mind game with myself. "Before you have this cookie, you need to run for at least 30 minutes today." By the time I've run for 30 minutes, I've forgotten all about the cookie, which I probably only wanted because I was stressed or bored.

    Conversely, if I did a 10 mile run in the morning, I've got plenty of calories left for the cookie at night so I eat it while giving myself a high five.
  • MalkinMagic71
    MalkinMagic71 Posts: 1,433 Member
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    I do this sometimes.

    Today I've done almost 2 hours of cardio on the bike. This gives me a buffer to enjoy the huge *kitten* steak and cheese hoagie and firies I just ordered for delivery and not have to worry about being over for the day.

    I workout because I like it. Honestly I love how I feel after I work out, but there are times like today where working out is to not only feel good but to enjoy guilt free the food I'm going to eat later because I know I've worked my *kitten* off today.
  • laurenjennifer1987mfp
    laurenjennifer1987mfp Posts: 55 Member
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    I've been fitting my treats in to my calorie allocation (2 weeks in, its going well), but today I deliberately took a 90 minute hilly walk in the attempt to slightly offset afternoon tea at a baby shower. (I also ate a bit lighter for breakfast and tea). I think it's more about working with what you have, exercise gives me a bit more wiggle room to accommodate extra calories where they are wanted / needed... and I feel better after doing it.
  • Larissa_NY
    Larissa_NY Posts: 495 Member
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    Like anything else about dieting, it's fine if you can do it rationally and responsibly. If you can't... well, that's where all the threads about "I washed dishes for ten whole minutes today, how many calories can I reward myself with?" come from. Activity becomes nothing more than a way to game the system so you can stuff as many calories down your throat as you can get away with and still have the numbers come out right at the end of the day, forgetting that the relentless pursuit of any and all excuses to eat was a big part of the reason the person wound up on a weight loss board to begin with.
  • amclain93
    amclain93 Posts: 64 Member
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    I think it depends on your own state of mind. I've always had ED tendencies, so I try to stay away from that mentality before I start needing to 'earn' every meal. But I know it works for other people without getting out of hand.
  • CrazyMermaid1
    CrazyMermaid1 Posts: 341 Member
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    Exercising for extra calories is the only way I can keep it up long term.

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