Does anyone use tokens (like real, physical tokens)?

Try it, it may be effective it may not but you will never know until you try.

(I am someone who enjoys a drink, almost daily, but am not alcohol dependent so probably don’t read the post the same as someone who may be/is.

I also know what it is like to try and fit a drink into a deficit (and a pretty low maintenance) without compromising my nutritional needs and can see how this visual token/cue thing could work on a weekly basis.
(Artist, visual person, what can I say)

I couldn’t do an exercise for extra/carry over, I liked working on a weekly calorie goal. I am not a numbers person, so am a big KISSer.

When losing/logging I logged a glass of wine and 2 cups of coffee daily. It was the only pre-logging I did. If I didn’t drink the wine, or coffee, I would have something else, or drink it later in the week, but I knew I had ‘my basics’ (nutrition) covered for the week.

Got to say that, above, is a generalization, there were the odd weeks where calories were blown to the wind for an occasion, event, or cruise, but they were pre acknowledged.
(I’m not a saint)

Cheers, h.

middlehaitch wrote: »

Try it, it may be effective it may not but you will never know until you try.

(I am someone who enjoys a drink, almost daily, but am not alcohol dependent so probably don’t read the post the same as someone who may be/is.

I also know what it is like to try and fit a drink into a deficit (and a pretty low maintenance) without compromising my nutritional needs and can see how this visual token/cue thing could work on a weekly basis.
(Artist, visual person, what can I say)

I couldn’t do an exercise for extra/carry over, I liked working on a weekly calorie goal. I am not a numbers person, so am a big KISSer.

When losing/logging I logged a glass of wine and 2 cups of coffee daily. It was the only pre-logging I did. If I didn’t drink the wine, or coffee, I would have something else, or drink it later in the week, but I knew I had ‘my basics’ (nutrition) covered for the week.

Got to say that, above, is a generalization, there were the odd weeks where calories were blown to the wind for an occasion, event, or cruise, but they were pre acknowledged.
(I’m not a saint)

Cheers, h.

This is pretty much me, too. I enjoy a 6 oz glass of wine (measured out carefully) or 1 beer most nights of the week with my dinner. That's not a hard and fast thing..sometimes I just don't want it..but I make it work within my calorie budget.

Anyway, without knowing OP's relationship to alcohol, it seems a bit presumptuous for others here (not the poster I quoted above, just to be clear) to imply that there is more hidden beneath this question than what is on the surface. Perhaps OP will return and provide some insights.

lemurcat2 wrote: »

Speakeasy76 wrote: »

Outside of the idea of whether or not alcohol use may be an issue if one has to moderate oneself with tokens or rewards, I personally steer away from using external motivators or rewards. I mean, we all have external motivators to do things--a lot of us go to work for the paycheck and wouldn't work for free, right? However, I feel that (at least for me), if I want a behavior to stick, I've gotta find some kind of internal motivation or drive. It may work short-term and maybe by doing this you can build up the internal motivation and not have to use the tokens.

I also have a different perspective on using tokens, coming from a background of working with children with special needs and having kids of my own. It is quite common to use tokens or rewards to encourage behavior, although most newer research will say that even for kids using tokens can backfire--ESPECIALLY if there isn't a plan to decrease the use of them over time.

I'm wondering about this as a general thing, and so am broadening the discussion beyond OP's approach (although I'll note that she's not "getting" tokens -- which presumably have no inherent value anyway -- from someone else, but using them as a way of keeping track for herself, so I am confused as to why they would be an external reward vs a way to enforce an internal motivation)?

Beyond that, I can think of a lot of analogous examples that I would consider internal and, in any case, perfectly fine, so I bristle a bit at the idea that not using such trackers is inherently better. For example, for working out, I have a longterm plan and then a weekly schedule that I create each Sunday (it starts on Monday). I have a planned workout(s) per day, but know I might move them around depending on things I cannot control (I tend to adjust indoor vs outdoor workouts depending on weather or whether I can do think during the day vs night, etc.). I have a weekly checklist, and I check off each thing when I do it (I include things like closing the rings on my watch and my personal daily step goal). My motivation for all this is internal (no one else sees what I do), but it's satisfying to check things off and this adds incentive, as well as making it harder for me to not see if I'm doing less than planned.

Same with logging, really: when losing, for example, I allowed myself ice cream after dinner if and only if I had the cals (and only within my cals). To me, that seems almost identical to the token thing.

Before MFP, I used a plan for the week and write it down system at one time -- this was when I first started cooking a lot and was forming my understanding of what was healthy. I'd have servings of veg and check them off, and I'd have more dessert-type foods (fewer per week) and check them off. I realize that might sound obsessive and weird, but it wasn't anything other than internal motivation. It's more a way to visual things that otherwise we might need practice at or have trouble being mindful about. In fact, I'd call all these tricks to encourage mindfulness.

I'm also not sure why eating/working out must be different from other things -- if I budget money for different uses and check it off and use that as a hard limit, no one would say that was an external motivator or reward and that it's better if I don't use anything outside my own head, would they?

(I would agree that with some of these things over time the tricks might not be needed as mindfulness grows, although I think many of us may find such things helpful over time and that doesn't mean it's a failure or wrong.)

After reading the OP"s post more thoroughly, I agree that her use of tokens is more of a visual tool to help her stay accountable, with the exception of earning additional tokens through more walking so she could earn another drink. When I see the word "tokens," I think of a traditional token system where one earns tokens for positive behavior, which he can then "trade in" for a larger reward. We tried implementing something like this for my son when he was younger, upon advice from his therapist at the time. It worked short-term, but long-term was something that was not sustainable.

I don't see the tools you use for exercising, food or budgeting money as external motivators, actually. I see them more as tools for planning, staying on track and organized and holding yourself accountable. Those are strategies that work for you and are related to your goals that you are motivated to achieve for yourself, I assume. I see external motivation as anything that encourages someone to partake in a task that they don't really like, don't have any real reason to "do it for themselves," or don't find any joy or fulfillment out of it. It also might mean doing something to avoid punishment from someone. It can be tangible or intangible (like verbal praise or being "scolded" by by your boss in front of your coworkers for being late). It's often not directly related to the task at hand.

I think we all use external motivators for things we don't necessarily want to do, and I don't see anything wrong with that. For example, I don't really like writing reports, so I'll tell myself if I work on one for XX amount of time, I can do something more enjoyable after that. I also don't need to do this every time, just when I need an extra boost.

Some of us need more external motivation than others, and my son (11) is a perfect example of this. Due to his brain wiring, he has a very difficult time starting tasks that he finds "boring," "too difficult," something that will take too long, or generally just something that does not really interest him. As you can imagine, this can make school challenging, despite the fact that he is quite "booksmart." At the beginning of the school year, since he was doing at-home learning, I could monitor this. He constantly was going on YouTube instead of working, so I implemented a token system for a very specific behavior.
I told him he'd earn a token every time I caught him actually doing his work . Each token earned him 5 minutes of video game time after school. This worked well, but we got to the point where we didn't need to do this (although if he weren't going back to full-time in-person learning, I may have to re-implement). If, instead, I used a visual checklist that he could check off every time he completed a task, I would consider this a tool to help him stay on task rather than an external motivator, even though checking off the items can be motivating in and of itself. I would think checking off the boxes could not only help keep him on task, but also help him develop a sense of accomplishment (internal motivation).