Goals and Rewards

When you've had a good day or week, how do you reward yourself? Or do you?

For the little things, like meeting my weekly challenge goal, I don't reward myself for. My opinion is that in five years, I won't still be rewarding myself every week just for doing what I'm supposed to do to stay fit and healthy, so why do it now?

Besides, being able to walk further, or craving water instead of soda, or find an obscene amount of pleasure in my chocolate protein mix with 2% milk are rewards themselves.

That said, there should be some kind of rewards for hitting milestones in your journey to being healthy and fit. I was in Weight Watchers for a time, and the first real reward was a gift when you lost 10% of your weight. That's a big milestone and gifts are great rewards.

Side Note: You know what are not great rewards? Food or beverage rewards. The kind where you justify eating that extra piece of cake, or having a nice 3,000 calorie sit-down Olive Garden dinner as a reward for losing 5 pounds. Food should never be a reward. Ever. It's one thing to occasionally indulge because 95% of the time, you're doing what you should. It's another to make it a special event as a pat on the back for being healthy. That's a horrible habit to get into, which results in a spiral leading back to 95% bad habits and 5% healthy eating. If you are rewarding yourself in this way, I plead with you to stop right this second.

Back on track... Rewards are an important part of getting healthy. Bad food rewards your brain with chemicals that make you feel good, so you need to replace that carrot-on-a-stick with something else.

For example: Set a series of major goals you want to meet throughout the 12-Week Shape Up! challenge and beyond. They could look like this:

• At the end of the 12-Week Shape-Up!, I want to have lost 12 pounds.
• By Halloween, I want to be fit enough to do the Run Like Hell marathon.
• Between November 15th and January 15th, I want to maintain my weight or lose.

Make them big goals. Shorter than long-term goals, but longer than short-term goals. Something achievable within a handful of months. I consider short-term goals something achievable within the space of a month, like our weekly challenges. I consider long-term goals something that will take a year or more to reach. Medium-term goals would be something you may take 3 or 4 months to achieve.

Reward for the medium- and long-term goals, and make the rewards something you find fulfilling and maybe even decadent. Some ideas:

• A manicure and pedicure.
• A full-body massage.
• A new outfit.
• New shoes.
• A new bike.
• A kayak.
• And 35 more ideas.

And make the goals something that tie back into your health and self-image. If you lose 30 pounds and instead of getting a rocking new outfit that shows off the loss, you get new wallpaper for your bedroom, that might be nice, but it doesn't really play off the hard work you did. Or instead of getting a new $2000 road bicycle for losing 75 pounds, you get a big screen TV, you're just setting yourself up for ... well ... sitting.

Have you set any medium- or long-term goals, and rewards for those goals?

(Note: I'll be posting my own set of goals and rewards this weekend.)