A little weight-loss treat

Ongoing motivation is one of the challenges of weight control. Online weight loss coach Andrew Cate shares how “rewards” can help us to stay in shape.

Health and fitness can sometimes be associated with pain (think “no pain, no gain”) or avoiding negatives (“I need to exercise so that I won’t get fat”). This can also involve a constant battle, dealing with your inner voice that nags at you to stop being lazy or keeps urging you to achieve perfection. Feelings of guilt, shame and self-loathing are not uncommon. But this kind of motivation is rarely successful over the long term. 

A rewards-based incentive is far more motivating. Positive reinforcement can be a constant, driving force that will help you achieve your healthy lifestyle goals. It’s a way to offer yourself support and encouragement, even if it’s for the many baby steps that you’ll need to achieve certain milestones.

Done correctly, rewards can help reframe your mind such that a healthy lifestyle becomes less about receiving prizes and more about enjoying the process, creating a feeling of doing something because you want to, not because you have to.

The thought of celebration often goes hand in hand with food and drink, especially around Christmas time. But for the health-conscious, this can sabotage your good work. 

For example, a slice of Christmas cake may feel well-deserved, but it can take 40 minutes of walking to burn off the kilojoules you got from it. Choosing the right kind of rewards is vital. You can treat yourself without overindulging, doing such things as taking a hot bath or buying some flowers for your living room, a magazine or a DVD. 

Even better is to reward yourself with things that will actually help you get results, such as a massage, a personal training session, new running shoes, a healthy recipe book or new workout gear. Bigger rewards that may be suited to larger achievements could include a treadmill, a trekking holiday, a healthy-cooking class or a mountain bike. 

To set up a system of rewards that can motivate you to lose body fat, start by writing down some short-term goals. Make sure they are challenging yet achievable. They also need to focus on the process rather than the outcome.

Short-term process goals such as “walk five days this week” will help you to maintain control over your achievements, whereas long-term outcome goals, such as “lose 10 kilograms in the next 12 months,” are vulnerable to things beyond your control. That’s why it’s important to reward the process and not just the result. 

Once you’ve recorded your short-term process goals, write down the actions needed to achieve them and a suitable reward you can give yourself once you’ve reached them. Choose rewards that mean something to you, that you know will inspire you and keep you on track. It’s also important to make sure your rewards are realistic and achievable; otherwise they can be demotivating.

Exercise not only depletes your body of kilojoules; it can also deplete your self-control. People often feel angelic after a workout, but this halo effect may lead to indulging on food-related rewards. This has been termed postworkout-reward syndrome, a phenomenon in which people binge on unhealthy foods after exercise, negating the weight-loss benefits of their activity. 

In reality, postworkout-reward syndrome may be just as much a psychological response to exercise as it is a physiological hunger response. People may feel that they deserve a reward after exercise. In other words, when you feel great after completing a workout, it’s harder to resist food temptations and treats afterwards. 

While regular exercise may allow you the occasional extra indulgence, don’t make it a habit. Get to know how many kilojoules are in the foods you eat (which may be more than you think) and how many kilojoules you’re expending during exercise (which may be fewer than you think).

Following are eight strategies to help ensure that the reward system you choose will be effective.

 As you keep to these simple strategies, you will notice your reward system changing your habits and your biggest reward will be a healthier, better you!