Non-food rewards to motivate you towards your weight loss achievements
We all know that losing weight, making changes and keeping up with our new plans to stay healthy can be challenging. Seeing small changes in our bodies and experiencing improvements in our wellbeing will be rewards in themselves but to keep us motivated it’s important to build in small rewards as we mark progress towards our goals.
As part of your planning, why not write a list of the rewards that will motivate you and serve as a reminder of what you’re working towards? Think about the small milestones along the way you can use to measure your progress and when you would reward yourself. Perhaps you could build in a reward for every 1kg (2.2lb) you lose, for achieving 150 minutes of activity in a week, achieving a goal you had set or perhaps fitting into an item of clothing that has previously felt a bit tight. And since this is also about improving wellbeing, maybe also think about building in a regular reward for just simply staying with the programme regardless of whether your weight has changed or not. It doesn’t matter what the rewards are. Just choose ones that will inspire you to keep on track and that don’t involve food and drink to undo all your hard work!
Here are a few suggestions:
- Go to the cinema – making time for yourself is important
- Make some time at home to watch a film or a few episodes of a new TV show
- Treat yourself to a professional beauty treatment or massage
- Pamper yourself at home with a relaxing bubble bath
- Buy some new cosmetics or nail polish
- Give yourself permission to read a book or magazine
- Listen to your favourite music or have a proper sing-along (with hairbrush as mic) when everyone else is out of the house
- Drive to a new place to have a walk or discover somewhere you’ve always planned to go but never got round to
- Spend a part of your day outside and enjoy the extra time in nature
- Plant some seeds or bulbs that you can look forward to enjoying as they grow
- Buy some new fitness clothing or a new pair of trainers
- Try a new exercise or dance class, either in person or online
- Sign up for a walk or running event to support your favourite charity
- Plan a lazy morning, just pottering around at home, or an afternoon nap
- Try a taster session for a new hobby or interest – lots of clubs offer them, from art classes such as water-colour painting, pottery, mosaic-making to more active things such as archery
- Go and watch banger racing
- Listen to a podcast on one of your favourite topics
There will be many more potential rewards. Remember think about your life and what you enjoy.