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Milestone rewards
CarvedTones
Posts: 2,340 Member
I doubt I am alone in this. Today I am at my second milestone. When I first started the diet, this was goal. But then after I got on track I decided "no half measures" and I changed the goal to getting/staying under a BMI of 25, which is 20 more pounds. But I digress.
At my first milestone, I have a fun size York peppermint patty and a KIND mini. I had cut out snacks completely until I hit that milestone. I also started allowing fruit snacks at that point. Today I am having a cookie and another KIND mini. I am upping my calorie goal and lower limit as I really haven't been eating healthy enough in my impatience to lose the weight. I am also opening the menu up; nothing is off limits now, though there are some foods I am choosing to avoid because of binge history and some from personal preference. I will keep tracking, of course, and any treats have to fit and still allow me to stay at or under goal.
I am curious about others; do have milestones at all? Do you have milestone rewards? If so, what?
At my first milestone, I have a fun size York peppermint patty and a KIND mini. I had cut out snacks completely until I hit that milestone. I also started allowing fruit snacks at that point. Today I am having a cookie and another KIND mini. I am upping my calorie goal and lower limit as I really haven't been eating healthy enough in my impatience to lose the weight. I am also opening the menu up; nothing is off limits now, though there are some foods I am choosing to avoid because of binge history and some from personal preference. I will keep tracking, of course, and any treats have to fit and still allow me to stay at or under goal.
I am curious about others; do have milestones at all? Do you have milestone rewards? If so, what?
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Replies
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I don't treat myself with food, that's part of how I got to 387lb
Instead I've had treats such as a hair cut ( cut my own for years ), New earrings, nail polish, fancy underwear ( then I fell pregnant lol ), good books etc
I'm 154lb down with about 90 to go so no doubt I'll acquire more nice things before I'm done11 -
I didn't do milestone rewards actually.
I feel that me losing the weight was great but if I wanted a new haircut/color I got it...new clothing I bought it...a trip...I went, If I wanted snack I ate it..
I decided this time (yes I yo yo'd for years and used to reward myself on milestones) that it was life I was living and that if I was going to live this way for the rest of my life I needed to live life...not wait for the "reward"...
I think that can lead to let downs once you reach goal...what reason will you have for the reward then???
Just my perspective.
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These rewards sound sad. A piece of candy and a nut bar are things I would eat without batting an eye on a regular day if they fit my calories.
Good luck incorporating some of these foods back into your diet. Keep us posted on how it's going.16 -
I have in the past... but I'm not currently making enough progress (at least not in the right direction) for rewards to be on my radar. But I digress...
Personally, I don't make them food rewards as that's a slippery slope for me. I'll do things like new running socks for small milestones, or sneakers or bike tires for bigger ones. Maybe new headphones for gym-related accomplishments, etc. New gear helps keep me motivated, so it ends up being a win-win.5 -
I have had milestones, but no rewards - I considered it, but never bothered. Now I'm glad it never came about; the way I think now, is that healthy behavior, which leads to improved health and happiness, is its own reward, and that rewarding behavior that I should be doing anyway, gives the wrong message; rewards implies that I've somehow suffered, and in reality want to stop doing what I'm doing. Also, rewarding the results, and not the behavior, when the results are only the effect of the behavior, feels wrong.
What I've done, is loosening up on rules as I've become more confident; but I always have to look out for over-confidence.
ETA: Food rewards is just totally wrong in every way, in my opinion. A small one is sad, a large one can wipe out many days of calorie deficit. My advice would be to make food a normal thing, not something to be feared, but a necessary pleasure.6 -
When I was losing, my only "milestone" was my ultimate goal...and there was no reward when I got there, except the satisfaction of a job well done. Then I set new goals focusing on my lift progression...where self satisfaction and the number on the bar is my "reward".2
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I don't do milestone rewards, the reward for me is hitting the goal itself. But I also don't abstain from eating particular foods and so I don't feel the need to "treat" myself.5
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I think that can lead to let downs once you reach goal...what reason will you have for the reward then???
I am in the mode of dieting without additional rewards and without off limits foods now; that is part of the milestone reward. The satisfaction of reaching goal will be its own reward.
I also have a yoyo history and I am a procrastinator when it comes to starting diets. Setting some hard rules with a goal that wasn't terribly far away with a reward made the decision that I had started the diet more firm. Also, I wasn't using MFP or tracking when I started; I just cut out all between meal snacks and tried to eat light at meals. Rules and rewards made sense to me in the absence of any other plan.3 -
My reward for reaching a goal is usually clothes or shoes, I like rewarding myself because reaching that goal makes me happy. For me it's a little like celebrating that I achieved what I set out to do.4
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In my mind it is my goal to get to my goal, which is turning back 25 years of neglect. I know it is not going to melt off and in my mind right now is I will see when I get there. I am thinking ultimately if I feel better then I even do now I might try to work on building more muscle and seeing if I can get a pretty decent looking set of muscles for a guy my age.0
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If I'm doing great and reaching my goals, I'll sometimes reward myself with a nice steak and a small glass of whiskey. I don't think this reward is at all problematic, however, as I'm rewarding myself with a higher quality meal rather than with extra calories (I still meet my daily caloric goal).1
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I've done little rewards for myself as I went along. New shiny water bottle at 20lbs lost, workout clothes at 30lbs down, a bracelet at 40lbs, ect. Nothing crazy or expensive, but just something that's a pat on the back for a job well done. I try to stay away from food as a reward because it's just an excuse for me to eat more which is always a slippery slope.6
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CarvedTones wrote: »I doubt I am alone in this. Today I am at my second milestone. When I first started the diet, this was goal. But then after I got on track I decided "no half measures" and I changed the goal to getting/staying under a BMI of 25, which is 20 more pounds. But I digress.
At my first milestone, I have a fun size York peppermint patty and a KIND mini. I had cut out snacks completely until I hit that milestone. I also started allowing fruit snacks at that point. Today I am having a cookie and another KIND mini. I am upping my calorie goal and lower limit as I really haven't been eating healthy enough in my impatience to lose the weight. I am also opening the menu up; nothing is off limits now, though there are some foods I am choosing to avoid because of binge history and some from personal preference. I will keep tracking, of course, and any treats have to fit and still allow me to stay at or under goal.
I am curious about others; do have milestones at all? Do you have milestone rewards? If so, what?
a fun size candy and a mini bar as milestone rewards?? sounds kinda sad - I incorporate stuff like this almost daily to make this lifestyle managable - can't imagine torturing myself for weeks/months to be rewarded with a fun size bar :-(9 -
For me, my rewards are in fact more like necessities. Every 10- 15 pounds lost I get myself one or two items of clothing. This is the rate at which I seem to drop a size. I will get one or two really nice things to replace ones that are falling off me. I always donate these as they are almost new. These "rewards" are actually very motivating to me because I have a hard time seeing my results otherwise. At the same time it forces me to get rid of my "safety" clothes. The ones we keep just in case we get fat again.9
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I do milestone rewards at every 10 pounds. Bigger things that I want, like in the $500 range. So they are meaningful, but I have to work for them.2
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Your milestone reward of trying to develop a permanent way of eating is the best reward of them all!!!
You can add me too to the camp where I view the results of the process as my reward for embracing the process.
Thinking back at the things that I couldn't do or had more difficulty doing that I can now do with ease.
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I started at just over 200 lbs. My big milestones were 175 (25 lbs lost), 154 (top of healthy BMI zone), and 150 (52 lbs, my goal for that year.) I bought clothes along the way but my rewards for the milestones were footwear. Boots and other shoes have been my reward of choice for years (for my master's degree, new jobs, etc.)2
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When I started, I set up 45 mini-goals (milestones) for my journey. At the beginning, it was a great way to keep me motivated. While I still have those goals and still reward myself for them, I'm not dependent upon them to keep me going. My rewards for hitting these goals have also changed a bit (though I never used food as a reward). When I first started, they were things like going to a movie or getting a pedicure. Now my rewards are things like 5K entry fees and workout equipment/clothes.2
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After decades of denying it and deploying it, I've finally accepted the carrot and stick approach does not work for me. Not food, not treats, not material goods, not trips, not even money. Not even a little. I sure wish it did but it does not.
This time I have no milestone except to arrive at my goal weight. When I do, the reward for doing so is I get to figure out what my daily caloric intake for maintenance is.
I will never get rid of all my fat clothes again. I did in the past and ended up having to repurchase more than once. Or store them away out of sight/out of mind. Instead, it'll be like nicotine/tobacco. The reason I have never caved since quitting it in 2006 is because there is not a week that goes by that I don't think/have some dream about it. The clothes will be that regular reminder.2 -
I haven't celebrated milestones up until now because frankly, I didn't have the money available for any meaningful type of rewards (even an afternoon at the movies would have stretched my budget.) Now that I've lost a significant amount of weight and have a job, I think I will occasionally do something nice for myself to mark certain things, but I don't want it to be strictly weight related.
I recently tried on an old shirt when I had nothing to wear, and to my amazement, it not only fit but was kind of loose. So when I get to 75 lbs down which I'm pretty close to, I'm going to try on everything that's even close to fitting, then get myself some new earrings and go out in my "new" outfit.
It's been 57 days since I missed logging a meal (I use another site for my "main" logging), so I'd like to mark my 60 day streak with a little something and then my 90 day streak, etc. I'm thinking a matinee movie.
But mostly, the journey is its own reward. I feel so much better. I look better. I even sleep better. I feel happier and each day when I plan/cook/log my food I get the pleasure of knowing that I'm taking care of myself.4
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