Halfway there....& reward time

I reached my halfway point on the morning of June 17th (Tuesday) and I'm very happy. My weight loss slowed, not because of the diet plan but because of my neglect in monitoring it closely. I was still probably between 1200-1600 calories daily, but dropping down towards 1200 may have put my body into starvation mode, and my weight loss slowed down a lot.

So I reaffirmed my resolve, started looking at the poster I put up on my wall more often, turned on the coaching software again, pulled out the measuring cups and scale rather than eyeballing it, and found I probably wasn't meeting my calorie requirements all the time. I also have to be more careful about taking the supplement that comes with the plan, I skip it sometimes by accident. I had stalled around 170-172 lbs. I started paying attention and reached my halfway mark.

I'd like to address rewards. I decided to break my reward marks down into 1/4 goal marks. I figured out the total goal of my weight loss: 64lbs. I divided that by 4: 15.5lbs. So I've been rewarding myself every 15.5lbs. For you, it might be every 5 lbs, it might be every 10. You'd have a lot more reward mileposts than I do, and I have to say my posts are spread too far apart. At an average loss of 1.5-2.5lbs per week, it's approximately 2 months between rewards for my goals. It's too easy to slack off due to lower motivation and life distractions. I'd say make smaller and larger mileposts with a variety of rewards.

But what should the rewards be? I think they should entirely avoid food as a reward. If you were raised with food as a reward for good behavior, and many of us were, it's not time to indulge that learned need. Healthy nutritious food is delicious. Cake, candy, pizza, ice cream, etc. are giving us too many calories in exchange for poor nutritional quality, and they're all higher in readily-available energy that we don't need (and will turn into fat). I don't consider it a good reward to indulge myself and set myself back from my goals.

So my reward for my 25% mark was a couple albums on iTunes. One album of music I liked as a child (Godspell Original Broadway Cast Recording -- back to childhood-like rewards there LOL), and one album that is excellent background music while I'm working or relaxing (Steve Roach, Core). Cost, only about $20. But unlike food, this is a reward I can enjoy over and over again and think "I earned this music by reaching my goals".

My halfway mark goal -- I was hovering in weight for weeks, I reached 168.2, I started telling myself "It's close enough, you need the reward...." but I kept up my resolve. As soon as I stepped on the scale at 166 I ran to iTunes and purchased everything waiting in my shopping cart :) That was the soundtrack to Evita (Original Cast Recording, a double album and one of my other childhood favorites), Young Frankenstein (Original Cast Recording -- the movie was a childhood favorite, and the musical tracks are funny), Electric Ladder (more good working music), The Shaman's Heart (meditation/journeying music) and an iPod game (Sims DJ).

Using my music collection and iPod as a reward system can only go so far. When I set my goals, I realized that, so my 75% mark has a reward of "New shoes" -- although I'm going to be desperate for new clothes soon, I recognize that my overall body loss hasn't stopped and buying new clothes now is silly. I'll spend $30-60 at the thrift shop and call it a day until I reach my 100% mark -- then it's time to shop for real, and go on a maintenance plan. I'll stick to a strict maintenance plan throughout the holiday season because that's the toughest time of the year, and that should give me time enough to get used to what I can and can't do to maintain my weight.

So my advice would be to set up rewards every few weeks (2-3) that are NOT food based rewards. When we say "I've been good, I can have that dessert" we're only setting ourselves up for a week of 1.5 vs 2.5lb loss, not doing ourselves a favor. If we can learn to say, "Wow, that's a great looking dessert, but I want to lose 2lbs this week so I can buy myself that new sweater I've been looking at in the Macy's catalog," we will succeed in reaching our goals. I may work on my reward system to have minor rewards built in, because 2 months is too long.