I do well with rewards, and now that I’m caring about my fitness and health again, it seems like a good idea to set some goals and tie some rewards to them.
This go-round, I’m going to do three types of rewards: “doing the right thing,” metrics, and performance-based treats. Here’s what I have in mind…
“Doing the right thing”
Sometimes it’s easy to fall off the bandwagon when I’m not immediately seeing results, so I’m going to give myself some rewards just for doing the right things, regardless of results, in hopes that this will keep me doing them.
Here are my daily “right things”:
- Logging my food
- Logging my weight on Physics Diet
- Putting my shoes on in the morning (no excuses for not walking, etc.)
- Maintaining a 500-calorie deficit on non-biking weekdays, break-even on weekends and biking days
Weekly:
- Minimum of two strength-training workouts (the SELF Challenge workouts)
- Minimum of three half-hour cardio workouts (most of my bike rides are significantly longer)
The rewards
I know I’m not perfect, and only rewarding myself when I am will definitely backfire, so the criteria for a reward will be five consecutive days doing the right things. I will get one of the following rewards (in order!) for each successful round:
Metrics
These are a little more straightforward: I hit the goal, I get the prize. For each number, the goal is considered “hit” when I maintain it (according to my daily average on Physics Diet) for seven consecutive days. (For the record, these rewards are all going to be modified if I get pregnant!)
Performance-based
This is the most nebulous, just because I need some input from Daniel. What I’m thinking: when I can do the road ride up to the local ski hill in a certain number of minutes, we get a mountain tandem. (But that’s why he needs to be in on it, too.)
I’ll update this post as needed.
(for all future weeks until I come up with other rewards 