I have battled with my weight for years… no, actually I haven’t. I’ve basically said fuck it, ate whatever I wanted, and was content knowing my grandma got more exercise than me. Four doctors, one a cardiologist, told me to lose weight or die. Did I listen? No.
No more. My wife has told me time’s up, and I need to lose ten pounds to start with, just to prove to her and myself that it can be done. Admittedly, this was my idea, but wasn’t too serious. Thankfully she ran with it. She said lose ten pounds or… well, no need for details. But there is a reward involved.
Obviously, the reward of losing weight for its own benefit hasn’t been enough to convince me, so I have decided to reward myself after meeting certain milestones. My ultimate goal is quite a lot, so I’m thinking of a reward every ten pounds, since my wife has already declared the first reward to be granted after a ten pound loss After that, though, its up to me. So, I appeal to you: what would make good cheap rewards for weight loss? Has anyone ever done this? How did it work out in the end? And has anyone set, and got, a BIG reward for meeting their goal?
My wife, incidently, is also trying to slim down, so ideas from women would be appreciated.
As someone who was overweight all her life and lost a seriously significant amt several years ago … rewards never worked for me. If it was something I really wanted (a CD, a book, a massage, whatever), I would get it anyway. If it wasn’t something I was going to get anyway, it wasn’t enough of an incentive.
Sooooo … I know rewards work for some people. I would just say that you have to pick something that will be worthwhile to you, but you won’t cave and get it anyway.
Also, I’m opposed to scale-watching in general – I found it more discouraging than encouraging because of hormonal issues. Living and dying by the scale can lead to obsession, and as in my case, discouragement because it never moves as fast as you want it to. Even if you do keep tabs, weigh no more than once per week – you’re going to see natural fluctuations day to day that can fuck with your head. Once a month is better, but most people can’t go that long. Whatever you do, never never never tie a deadline to a weight loss. Your body isn’t going to perform on command.
Basically, all this to say, you have to set yourself up for POSITIVE reinforcement. So many common weight loss tropes and memes and practices give you a 50/50 shot at best at negative reinforcement.
Well, I’ll chime in here. I lost over 65 lbs. starting in my mid-70s. I had done some yoyo dieting during my lifetime, but I got serious and finally accomplished the job.
I’m keeping those lost lbs. off, too. I weigh myself daily, every morning. This helps me maintain my weight loss. If I see the lbs. creeping back on I do something about it. Yes, there are daily fluctuations, but they don’t bother me. I watch what I eat, exercise as much as I can, and enjoy life. I am 85.
But the original question had to do with rewards. Yes, indeedy! I am a female, and I reward myself with new clothes. Even us old ladies like new clothes. We like to look as nice as we can.
But any person wanting to lose weight has to figure their own path. We are such individuals, what works for one won’t necessarily work for another.
Best of luck to you on your weight-loss journey. And best of luck to your wife. One thing is for sure – it ain’t easy!!!
I lost about 45% of my body weight a couple years ago. Right this minute, I’ve technically gained a chunk of that back, but I am 30 weeks pregnant, so that’s ok. My advice:
Reward behavior, not results. Behavior you are in perfect control of: results, especially over the short term, are a lot more erratic. Rewarding results encourages you to stick to a super, unsustainable austerity plan until you hit a magic number and then go back to your old ways. Rewarding behavior teaches you new habits.
There will be times when you eat a big meal and show a loss the next day. It’s tempting to them think that you got away with something or that it didn’t hurt. But that’s water fluctuation. It doesn’t mean anything. Other times you’ll be perfect for a week and nothing happens. That’s depressing, and can lead to overeating.
So ask your wife not to reward you for ten pounds, but rather for a month of exercising every single day that you planned to, no excuses. Or for sticking to your eating plan, whatever it is, for two or four or six weeks.
As far as weighing goes, I actually find daily weighing less depressing than weekly or monthly: if I weight less often, I start to get my hopes up too high, and then get discouraged over what is perfectly reasonable loss. Or, if you weigh once a week and that’s a day you are retaining a lot of water, you can get depressed about it. Daily weighing taught me to recognize normal fluctuations and take them in stride. I liked weighing and recording my weight daily, but tracking my seven-day rolling average. As long as that trended down, I was happy.
Following MandaJo:
Choose how many times per week you want to exercise. Keep track of progress with a journal and a jar. in the jar, put some trivial (on a daily basis) amount of money that will be not-so-trivial if you,ve been adding to it regularly. A thousand or a hundred, whatever is a decent amount.
At a set time, whatever your short-term goal is, do some math with your journal. Made your goal? Great, indulge in whatever other suggestions are made. Don,t make it? The money goes to something painfull. Like politics? Donate it to the opposite party.
There are a lot of ways to tweak this, get creative.
I’m sure you are joking, but that is what has worked for me. I can diet for quite some time, and in my case it requires eating almost nothing because I can’t really exercise, if I know at such-and-such weight I’m going to get a banana split.
There is actually a diet that kind of incorporates that concept. It is usually called “The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet” or the Heller diet. Google it to learn more - essentially, you eat two low-carb meals per day and have one “reward meal” where you get to eat pretty much what you want as long as you consume it within 1 hour’s time.
I hesitate to recommend the diet wholeheartedly because the original diet book itself is mediocre - poorly written, goofy, and not supported by rigorous independent study. Nonetheless, if you ignore the bad writing and apply the techniques along with your own knowledge about what is involved in healthy eating, it is a WONDERFUL and effective diet, and you really can eat that chocolate cake. I use it whenever I see my weight creep up; in fact, I’m on it now. I’ve lost 5 pounds and want to lose 5 more. Here’s today’s menu:
Breakfast - grilled salmon and red pepper slices.
(I cheated and ate a small banana 15 minutes before my workout; that seems to work okay for me as it gives me a little extra energy and doesn’t make me hungry later).
Lunch - salad of spinach and watercress topped with hard-boiled eggs, olives, and a dab of cottage cheese.
Dinner - beef and vegetable stew, brown rice, salad, applesauce, red wine, modest serving of coconut cake.
Note that there is no portion control; the point is that this kind of eating is supposed to keep your appetite under control, so it is fairly easy not to overeat.
“The Carbohydrate Addict’s Cookbook” is not bad - although the Hellers (a husband and wife team) don’t do much in their original diet book to discourage dieters from indulging their junk food preferences, they themselves seem to prefer unprocessed “real” food. So their recipes are pretty good, although not necessary if you are already an experienced and creative cook.
This would work very well when your workout is done between lunch and dinner as the carb loading at dinner would refill muscle glycogen and help with recovery, also means carbs are all getting used up and not preventing the fat intake from being used (in incredible simple terms, for someone who doesn’t know, if carbs aren’t fully used up, this means that no fat is used for fuel and is thus stored. If carbs are used up, fat has to be used as well - again this is incredibly over simplifying things).
One of the best things you can do to lose weight is to understand how the body works, what you can do to make weight loss happen and why it happens.
At it’s simplest level, calories in vs calories out is the most important aspect, but understanding the smaller details can help you make more of a difference.
As for rewards, I’d say reward the behaviours not the results. One cheat meal a week (at maintenance Kcal or below, just not totally clean food) for sticking to the diet all week. One BJ from the missus for sticking to the exercise plan all week.
(Keep at it and Sunday night is steak and bj night, every week! :p) If you don’t keep to the plan, you’re only allowed 1 plain (no seasoning whatsoever) chicken breast and your least favourite veggy for dinner, and after you have to go down on the wife until she comes and then you get nothing, just blue balls.
You’ll soon condition yourself to stick to the plan
I’ve battled weight all my life. And have been successful several times, with great effort. And gained it back.
Two months ago, my wife asked me to try to lose weight…and that she wanted to help educate me by controlling what I ate, and having me measure and count calories and so forth with her suggested meals. So the idea was that I put her in control of what I eat.
I agreed. And in the last 6 weeks I’ve lost 18 pounds. No obsessing over food, which I tended to do when on my own. And it has been easy compared to the several times I’ve successfully lost weight in the past.
I asked if I could sign up for another month!
Maybe this could be a way for others…it is working for me.
After that, though, its up to me. So, I appeal to you: what would make good cheap rewards for weight loss? Has anyone ever done this? How did it work out in the end? And has anyone set, and got, a BIG reward for meeting their goal?
