How to Reward Yourself Without Food-The Ultimate List of Ideas

A common thought that myself and many of my clients have is that food is a reward. Food is for celebration. You eat food when you are happy. You eat food when something good happens.

And really a closer look at where this thought comes from and you will see that it makes sense why so many of us reward ourselves with food. Think about it:

You did a good job on your test and your parents took you out for ice cream.

The start of a new job; lets go celebrate with dinner and drinks at your favorite restaurant.

You turned a year older, lets celebrate with some cake.

Weather it is tradition or culturally our brains have been conditions to use food as a reward. These traditions are NOT bad. And please make sure you hear me on this one: Celebrating occasionally with food is NOT bad. But what happens is we start to transfer these thoughts and celebrations over into our every day life.

You had a hard day; reward yourself with a treat for making it through without losing your shit on your coworker or boss.

Your kids are crabby, whiny, and just will not stop fighting; reward yourself with a glass of wine for making it through another long day.

What starts to happen is these rewards don't become celebratory, they become a comfort. And that nightly comfort turns into you not dealing with the root of what is causing the need for you to have that ice cream or those couple of glasses of wine.

Those rewards cause you to not get the results that you want when it comes to your health and fitness goals and now you have a PROBLEM and are looking for a SOLUTION so you can change.

Full disclosure this list is not going to solve the problems of your emotional eating. That can only happen when you take a look at your currently thoughts and emotions and start changing them or modifying them. And it takes a shit ton of practice. Like DAILY practice...scratch that it is like hourly practice.

This thought you have that food is a reward and food is for comfort is so deeply ingrained in you that is is going to take time and consistency to modifying and eventually change it.

And this thought modifier "You are not a dog, stop rewarding yourself" is a nice start to helping you start the process. So just keep reminding yourself you are not a dog {insert crying, laughing emoji}

And in the meantime start thinking about what non-food items you can use the next time you are ready to reward yourself for hitting that milestone in your journey.

A Side Note:

So if you are anything like me your brain is probably saying "Yeah but all of this stuff cost more money, then a donuts or cookie would." Especially if you are living on a tight budget it is hard to spend money on a reward.

But this is just another thought you need to change. There is an underlying thought there that you don't deserve to spend money on yourself. That you deserve quick and cheap. If you can't spend money on yourself then find something that fills your soul and gives you some time to reflect and reward yourself with time instead of monetary things. There are plenty of things that don't require money that you can reward yourself with. You might just need to get a little bit more creative.