Rewarding yourself

How do you reward yourself as you make your progress? Or do you? Is it with food, clothes, activities? Let's face it; we deserve a reward!! This is awfully daMn hard work!
I haven't really done a lot of that but tend to think of using indulgent food as a reward but am so afraid of it backfiring. If I treat myself to a cookie or ice cream, I can just see myself not stopping. :( I have a friend that allows herself 1 piece of peanut butter. I'm thinking how do you do that?? :(
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Replies

  • etherealanwar
    etherealanwar Posts: 465 Member
    I tend to treat myself with new clothes when I hit certain milestones and it helps since I would need better fitting clothing at those points. I have never chosen food as a reward for weight loss goals though.
  • Machafin
    Machafin Posts: 2,988 Member
    I reward myself with ONE cheat meal per week, that is it. If I do a whole day, I feel terrible and you can easily ruin week progress with a full day of poor eating. I also will occasionally buy myself new things as a reward, but don't really need to. Years of doing this has taught me that discipline and consistency are key, and its best to try to completely remove old/bad habits because they are easy to fall back into one goals are met.
  • Lobsterboxtops
    Lobsterboxtops Posts: 92 Member
    Hmm. I haven’t figured out a tangible reward yet...mostly I let myself really enjoy all the small victories. I think I focus more on my fitness goals...I bought a small pin after finishing the C2 dog days challenge. That was hard! I posted a copy of my 1m meters rowed certificate to Facebook on the day I got it. And on another site I frequent, I have a bit of a daily updated thread/blog that I track everything, and have a good group of people to share my successes with.

    Honestly for me the weight has always been secondary to the fitness. And the weight milestones are becoming a pain in the butt since I don’t enjoy spending the money on new clothes.
  • Shortgirlrunning
    Shortgirlrunning Posts: 1,020 Member
    I never reward myself with food. I think it just sets up an unhealthy relationship with those foods. For awhile all my rewards were fitness related - a new workout mat, new headbands, new leggings. At this point though I’m not giving myself little rewards anymore, they just aren’t that motivating for me and just seeing the number go down on the scale, my clothes fitting better (or in some cases getting too big), feeling stronger and healthier all of that stuff that just comes from losing the weight really is enough of a reward.
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
    I'm kinda at a point where the weight loss (and more in shape body) is its own reward. But when I was rewarding myself earlier, like for hitting 30 pounds and so forth, it was clothes. Definitely not food. Rewarding yourself with food for losing weight is a terrible idea on so many levels, not much different than rewarding yourself for six months of sobriety by having a beer. Clothes make a lot more sense, because you're treating yourself to something you couldn't wear before, so it all fits together in a mutually reinforcing positive experience.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,937 Member
    LyndaBSS wrote: »
    The scale, my improved health and well-being, my increased physical abilities. Those are my rewards. 🥳

    ^^This! The progress is the reward. I don't care about getting a lollipop because I was a good boy.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,257 Member
    It's a process. If you have an unhealthy relationship with food to begin with the reward concept isn't going to work at all.

    Just as a financial reward for straight A's is doomed for failure, but engaging in this may cause one to recognize that success is it's own reward.

    There's nothing unhealthy about thinking about rewards - it's very human, but I would not begin with this early on.

    I run long distance and would keep a bag of Skittles in a pocket and chew one every mile or so. Early on I thought of this as a reward. As I continued running I didn't think of this as a reward anymore, but just fuel - part of the process.

  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,950 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    This may sound Pollyanna-ish, but for me, weight loss was kind of its own reward, in the form of things like less knee pain, more physical flexibility, sense of self-mastery, normal blood tests/blood pressure, etc.

    It never would've occurred to me how many rewarding mini-successes happen along the way. It's amazing! Great thread about that here:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1275030/whats-your-most-recent-nsv

    Like others, I think food rewards are a bad plan. Experience-oriented rewards (trip, spa, massage, concert, etc.) or indulgent non-food purchases are a better idea.

    ^^ So much this. Being able to bend at the waist to tie shoes without having so much belly in the way that I have to hold my breath, being able to squat down to pick something up off the floor or get a pan from the bottom cabinet and stand up again without holding on to anything for leverage, and not having those scary numbers in my bloodwork and BP -- those are the real rewards for me.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    Firmly in the ‘progress is my reward’ camp!

    The days when the scale shows the next pound has gone give me the best feeling and although I know I can’t possibly look thinner just from that most recent pound I feel thinner!

    Food based rewards are dangerous territory!
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    Clothes, running shoes and accessories and races, experiences. Not tied to specific weight loss goals, but when it feels right.
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,467 Member
    Another 5 minutes in front of the mirror, loving how I look, puts a bigger smile on my face than anything else I could imagine.