Choosing The Right Rewards To Keep Your Fitness Moving Forward!

Everyone loves an incentive, right? I know I do!

I like to look forward to something upon completing a task - and even if the completion of the task itself brings its own reward, I’ll often tack on a little something extra for myself just for fun!

I like to give myself as many reasons as I can to keep reaching for my goals, and I prefer to be motivated by indulgence rather than fear or guilt. I mean, seriously - who doesn’t prefer that?!

However, when “indulgence” only comes in the form of food, it’s pretty easy to get ourselves into trouble.

I hope together we can redefine our incentives to include things that aren’t exclusively edible, so that we can all keep making progress toward our health and fitness goals!

What I’ve seen through my work as a fitness coach, especially with clients who are struggling to lose weight, is that food is so much more than fuel for some people - it represents comfort, consolation, companionship, pleasure, relief…

When we grow to rely on food for emotional fulfillment of any kind, the habit becomes SO much harder to break.

Even if the goal of losing weight is a life or death matter, the desire to justify returning to old habits can be extraordinarily strong, because logic and emotion are often such separate entities that have a tendency to compete with one another.

I’ve seen it more times than I can count - a client will have a great week, and then decide that since they’ve been so “good” that they “deserve” that piece of cake, or those slices of pizza, or that burger and fries. This is a very common but, in my opinion, dangerous way of thinking - at least as it pertains to long-term goal achievement.

Here’s an example - you’ve been spending a lot of extra money the past few months which has gotten you to a place where you’re not where you want to be financially, so you put yourself on a specific, well-designed budget. You’ve begun this thoughtfully frugal lifestyle so that you can get ahead, and arrive at a place where you’re comfortable, happy and confident. Makes sense, right?

So you’ve left your old spending habits behind for a couple of weeks and now you have some extra cash on hand, so you figure you deserve to splurge and you go and buy yourself a sports car - your savings are gone, and you’re back to square one (or worse).

This example might sound a little extreme, but you get the point.

It might feel great to drive that sports car off the lot, but the more you think about it (and see the effects on your bank account) the more you realize that your progress has been stalled, or even reversed - not the most motivating feeling in the world, at least for me!

I think we’d all agree that taking two steps forward and one step back isn’t the fastest way to get from point A to point B.

This is exactly the same when it comes to weight loss and fitness - why would we “reward” ourselves with things that provide short-lived immediate gratification but have the potential to destroy all of our hard-earned progress?

Old habits die hard, I agree. And everyone “deserves” to be rewarded for hard work, in my opinion! Nothing wrong with that way of thinking.

But I would also argue that everyone deserves to keep making progress, keep moving forward, and to achieve the goals that are important to them - so let’s keep our eyes on the prize!

We all deserve to succeed!

So what I’m proposing here is to keep the concept alive, but to substitute goal-detrimental rewards with other enjoyable incentives, whatever that means to you.

While weight loss, and fitness in general, comes with its own set of pretty awesome rewards built in (feeling better, more energy, improved capability, etc.), I am always in favor of taking the celebration of progress one step further.

Set some small goals, put them down on paper, and commit to rewarding yourself when you hit those milestones! Maybe you get yourself a massage, some fresh flowers, a manicure, go shopping, take a walk on a beautiful beach, go to the movies, take a nap, take a long bath… These are some of the things I like to use to motivate myself, but you might have a whole other list entirely!

With a little thought, I’m sure we can all find tons of non-food treats for ourselves that can make reaching our fitness goals that much sweeter :)

Today is a great time to start breaking the cycle of relying on rewards that undo what we’ve worked so hard for. It may be tempting, but it just doesn’t make much sense.

Here’s to making equally fulfilling but progress-promoting choices this week!

What will you choose for your rewards?

Please feel free to comment, upvote, or resteem - all feedback and support is greatly appreciated :)