For example, do you ever tell yourself that if you achieve some diet goal, like eating healthy for a week or losing 10 pounds, that you can eat something tasty but unhealthy?
Is this a good strategy? A bad strategy? Why do you think so? What experiences have you had?
Very bad idea. Food shouldn’t be viewed as a reward for achievement. I much prefer to reward myself with other things, and keep food separate. That doesn’t mean I don’t have cheater days, but it’s not a reward for something.
Seconded. I think it would create bad habits to see food that way.
If, for whatever reason, I really want a chocolate muffin, then I’ll have one.
But as someone who’s kept to a diet for years now, I find many foods like that too stodgy or sugary for my tastes now anyway.
I think everyone should do whatever works for them but I personally think this is a destructive attitude. It’s better to accept that eating and food is one of the most basic enjoyable parts of being human.
Of course it’s possible to eat to fill some emotional hole, but don’t construct your life as if you’re cheating or winning depending on whether you allow yourself to enjoy good food. A healthy attitude about food involves enjoying the pleasure of eating it, not just the basic need for energy and nutrition.
brazil84’s plan isn’t good either though because he’s rewarding himselfwith something tasty and unhealthy. Instead, just reward yourself with something tasty.
If you lose 10 pounds, reward yourself with a perfectly cooked tuna steak. Or delicious NY strip steak. You’ve been carefully watching what you eat for weeks and you lost 10 pounds, so treating yourself to a special meal is going to be especially meaningful. But it should be a delicious healthy meal, not a Cinnabon.
When I was seriously reducing a few years ago (about 35 pounds), I never really thought of it that way. Once a week I’d give myself a completely free “cheat” meal (usually Sundays at my parents), and the rest of the week I’d stick to about a 2000 calorie diet with plenty of exercise (about 5-6 miles a day, on average). I would eat more calories and indulge more on long run days (12-15 miles), but that’s because my body needs them. I never thought of it as “oh, I lost 10 pounds, I could slack off a bit.” And I would still eat “junk” from time to time–a McDonald’s double cheeseburger was a not anunusual lunch for me. But I was aware of the caloric intake, so I’d skip the fries and just get a diet drink with that (or no drink at all.)
The strategy that worked best for me is maintaining a diet that you actually want to eat, not keeping any foods off-limits (but limiting my intake of them or being very aware of how they fit into the day’s caloric needs), and just being aware of portion sizes and how calorie-dense different foods are. I’m lucky in that I don’t have a sweet tooth, I love to cook, and my food tastes are very broad, so it was not difficult for me to find a satisfying and sustaining diet that helped me lose weight.
I agree, but eating food that is high in calories and without nutritional merit (as the OP suggests) is a poor choice for rewarding yourself for a fitness or weight goal. When I was losing weight I was changing my relationship with food. The idea of getting a carton of Ben and Jerry’s as a reward for hitting my 50 lbs weight loss goal would have been the exact opposite of what I needed. I found it worked best for me (and for others losing weight with me) if you didn’t use food as either a reward or a punishment.
Plan your diet, be aware of what you are consuming, and make appropriate choices. Don’t establish the connection between bad food and reward; nothing good comes from that IMO.
I sort of do reward myself with food. I am on the 5:2 diet, where I eat what I want for five days of the week, and do a modified fast (500 calories) on two days (Monday and Friday, usually). On the “off” days, when I can eat what I want, I find that I do not have the urge to splurge, and I eat pretty normally. On the other hand, the rule for those days is that there are no rules – nothing is off limits, and I do not count calories. So once in a while, I will splurge. That might include something sweet, like an ice cream cone.
And on the day after a fast day, I always start off with a cup of coffee with one teaspoon of sugar. I drink coffee on fast days, but not with sugar, so I guess that first cup of coffee on the morning after a fast day is like a reward for making it through the fast day.
This works for me. I think I can stick with this eating plan for the rest of my life. (Once I lose all the weight I want to lose, I will maintain by having just one fast day a week.)
I’d never heard of this until now. I see that it’s called “intermittent fasting.”
How has it been working for you? You seem pleased with it. What do you normally eat on your 500 calorie days?
I don’t think it’s a good idea. The whole point of dieting is to get off the bad food and stay off. And to lose weight. You lose 2 lbs., have cake and boom you might gain them back.
It worked for me. When I had lost 10 lb, my wife and I went to one of our favorite restaurants. Same at 20, 30, 40,…,80 and I have stabilized there. Actually, more like 85. As a matter of fact, I am going to that same restaurant in an hour to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our first date (the day of the March on Washington). All I can say is that it worked for me.
Not unless you eat a whole lotta cake (like about two whole chocolate cakes.) A little bit of cake here and there is okay, just don’t think of it as a reward and control your portions.
Johnny Bravo, I had never heard about it until a couple months ago, when my husband watched a PBS program featuring Michael Mosley, a physician who follows the diet. I have not seen the program myself (although I think this is it, so maybe I will watch it), but I was interested in what my husband had to say about it, and bought Michael Mosley’s book. I think the book is titled FastDiet. Anyway, I liked what I read. The simplicity of it appealed to me.
On my fast days, I keep it super simple. I really love cream in my coffee, so I have two cups with 1 tablespoon of cream in each cup. That eats up 100 calories right there. Then I have a mid-day “meal” of two pieces of mozzarella string cheese and some berries (blueberries, strawberries, whatever we have in the house). I have the same thing in the early evening, and that’s it! Oh, I also drink a lot of water.
Sometimes I think about getting more ambitious and making a salad for one meal and an omelet with lots of vegetables for another. But I like how easy it is to just grab a couple sticks of Polly-O string cheese and some berries.
want2befree, that doesn’t happen. Michael Mosley cites a bunch of studies that have shown that people who do intermittent fasting do NOT pig out on the non-fasting days. For me, I think it’s that knowing that I can have food – even sweets – if I really want to takes away the craving for that kind of food. I really don’t eat many sweets or other unhealthy food these days. In the past, when I was on a regular 7-day-a-week reducing diet, I was constantly craving food, and would often fall off the wagon and eat, like, a pint of ice cream in one go. I never do that now, on the 5:2 diet.
The weight loss isn’t dramatic, but I have been losing a steady one pound a week. That’s fine with me!
Food cures hunger. Nothing else.
When I am hungry, I ask myself “What do I want to eat?” And I eat it, whether it be carrots, corn chips, or cookies.
That’s a good rate. For most people (unless you’re on a medically supervised diet), 2 lb/week is really the most you should push it. A pound a week is seen as a good, sustainable rate.
I don’t reward myself for results, but I modify my behavior to eat things I like. I eat a little less during the week so that I can eat a little more on the weekends: I walk more so that I can eat more. I often go on a nice long walk to the ice cream cone store: it’s a win-win.
Food is fuel.
I appreciate all the comments here - I know sticking to a plan is hard work. After watching my parents die young from weight-related illnesses, I realized I had to change my relationship with food. Their relationship with food was more along the lines of celebration, soothing, and yes, reward. Hunger was to be avoided at all costs. I realized those can be unhealthy associations, and as I became more athletic, I changed to view food more as fuel for what I want to do when I am not eating. Sort of a means to an end – not an end. I think “this meal is going to work well for my run tomorrow morning”; not after a run “OK, that was a great run, I have permission to eat anything I want!”
I do like good-tasting food like anyone else, but I pay attention to portion size and think about how this meal is going to impact what I eat at the next meal. A slice of chocolate cake is fine as a treat once in a while, but not as a reward for achieving a fitness or weight-loss goal.
There is a sign I recently saw: “Nothing tastes as good as being fit feels”.
My son is cycling through different diet plans. They all work for him, and for anyone else that he can drag along; he just finds it easier to stick to a plan in the first few months, so he switches up.
One plan required that one day a week be assigned as not on a diet day. The promoter said that he, personally, also made one off-day a month into a eat everything you want day. But that some people couldn’t do that and be successful.
The idea was that your body will adjust your metabolism to conserve weight when you diet, causing a plateau. But if you keep popping in higher intake days, your body doesn’t turn down the thermostat. Also, you don’t feel quite so deprived and tend to cheat less on the other six days.
It was a fairly strict diet. It’s been awhile, so I can’t list all of the requirements, but there was a whole list of things you couldn’t have any of and you were supposed to measure and control portions of most of the things that you could eat. Having a day off was a good rest from the planning and measuring, too. That could get old.
My primary approach to losing weight was to eat less of the things I liked eating. I didn’t want to see food as good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, treats or punishments. I felt this mindset would be easier to stick with in the long run. So no, I would never reward myself with food. It would reinforce the ideas I’m trying to shed.
My rewards are usually new clothes or gadgets – tangible objects I can look at and remember are rewards for doing well.
I always use food as a reward.
Today I biked 4 hours and as a reward I am going to eat 4 bean burritos tonight.
Tomorrow I am going to run for 2 hours and as a reward I am going to eat 2 pancakes and spaghetti with ketchup.
I will only eat food after I have burned the equivalent calories through exercise or if I am under my daily basal metabolic rate of 1450 cal/day.
It is? That’s news to me. I thought the whole point of dieting was to be less fat.
Bizarre. So you never eat unless you exercised first? And then you only eat as many calories as you’ve calculated as being burned off through that exercise? You always exercise on an empty stomach? How do you determine what point you are at in your daily basal metabolic rate?