12 Non-Food Weight Loss Rewards to Stay Motivated

Weight loss rewards can be a powerful way to maintain motivation when on a weight loss journey or could be the cherry on top of the end of one. Here are different options to consider.

No matter where you are in the process, rewarding yourself for your diet and exercise efforts can be your biggest friend. Or your most harmful enemy. Here's how to approach weight loss rewards correctly according to a dietitian.

How Can I Incentivize Myself To Lose Weight?

To start, how can you get the weight loss ball rolling? Even though weight loss incentives, or rewards, aren't required to maintain weight loss, they can be helpful for those who need approval (even if it's from themselves).

It’s a way to show you’re on the right track. These rewards can come in the form of experiences, money, or even food. Consistently adhering to a diet and exercise regimen is not easy.  It’s a lot of hard work that sometimes requires sacrifice of one’s favorite meals, restaurants, and certain social outings.

Leisure time may partially be used for exercise and meal planning instead. This is why giving yourself credit and rewards for prioritizing your health are sometimes necessary. For some, it can be the main thing that keeps you going.

Non-Food Rewards For Weight Loss

Now, let’s talk about food rewards versus non-food rewards. Many people trying to lose weight may favor rewarding themselves with their favorite dessert, fast food, or other indulgent treats for their efforts. It makes sense in theory, considering a weight loss plan often entails reducing intake of these foods. So, it’s easy to see the rationale of rewarding these treats because you “earned them.”

The Problem With Food Rewards

Dieting can also increase hedonic hunger which is the desire to eat certain foods even if you aren’t necessarily hungry or in need of energy. This hunger can lead you to talk yourself into having foods that may not be aligned with weight loss efforts. While this is okay now and then, it can turn into a slippery slope. 

For one thing, rewarding oneself with high-calorie foods too often can lead to excessive energy intake. This can slow weight loss or even cause weight regain. It can instill the message that you are only “allowed” to have these foods after a super intense workout or as a pat on the back for skipping that happy hour date with friends. It can promote a bad relationship with food if one falls into the habit of making diet and exercise unpleasant for “earning” foods you enjoy. 

Non-Food Rewards: What Science Says

On the flip side, one recent study showed that even modest financial incentives, rather than food incentives, produced better weight loss outcomes in study subjects. Half of the subjects increased their exercise frequency by 9% to 27% and the subjects that received financial rewards lost more weight overall than the control which received no rewards at all. 

Weight Loss Reward Ideas

So, if food isn’t a great weight loss reward, what are the alternatives? Diet and exercise, especially in the initial days, can seem overwhelming, stressful, and take up a bit of time. Thus, taking time for yourself and focusing on pleasant experiences that don’t involve food or the gym can be very rewarding. They also provide a break from actively thinking about losing weight 24/7. Here are 12 weight loss reward ideas to consider for yourself. 

1. Get a New Haircut

Maybe you want to lose weight for health purposes, or maybe your goals are purely aesthetic. Whether you have a wedding planned, want to look great for a beach vacation, or think it’ll help your confidence overall, it’s important to look beyond weight. 

Maybe you can try a new hairstyle you’ve always thought you could pull off. Conversely, maybe you want to keep your current hairstyle but can try getting it professionally redone to look healthier or more formal. This can boost your confidence in many ways and prompt you to follow suit with your weight. 

2. Vacation or Staycation

Another good idea is to promise you’ll treat yourself to a nice vacation after you’ve lost a certain amount of weight. In light of the financial commitment involved, this may be a reward you save for when you have lost a substantial amount of weight or when you reach the end of your weight loss goal. Take a long trip to the beach you’ve been meaning to visit or just treat yourself to a nice hotel right in your hometown. Either way, a change in routine could be just what you need. 

3. New Clothes

Shopping can be the most rewarding thing to do for some people, especially for those who use it as a form of relaxation. Another layer to buying new clothes as a reward, though, is if you’ve lost some inches around your waist, this may call for a new wardrobe! When you get new clothes that fit your new body size, you may find it rewarding and satisfying in many ways.

4. Have a Movie Night

The stigma of going to the movies alone needs to go away! Treating yourself to a nice night out or even a weekend matinee can be such a treat! Check out the theater near you to see what is playing. 

Maybe even look at upcoming releases, such as a movie that’s coming out in two months, and challenge yourself to lose a certain amount of weight before then. If you achieve your goal by the time the movie releases, you can reward yourself with a night out to enjoy it. 

5. Go Dancing

There are several benefits of going out dancing, whether you are trying out a new style of dancing or just letting loose after a challenging week of diet and exercise. It can help build your confidence or just help you to let go of some stress from work, family, or other “outside noise.” Remember, stress can also keep you from losing weight due to increased cortisol levels, so use some dancing to let some of it go. 

6. Go to a Local Sports Game

If going to a movie alone isn’t your thing, get involved with a crowd at a sporting event! You can use the date for a home game as a timeline to reach a weight goal and enjoy a day out getting involved in some team spirit with your local community. 

7. Enjoy a Massage

This is a great reward for people who have trouble controlling intake due to emotional eating or stress. Getting a massage isn’t just a way to let go of these negative and heavy emotions, but can also help you to get out of your head. 

Sometimes weight loss that seems slow can can impact motivation. Giving yourself space, like you can during a massage, to just empty your thoughts and fully relax can make a big difference in helping you hang in there. 

8. Get a New Pet

No, you don’t have to invest in a puppy. However, something small like a hermit crab or a goldfish can make a difference in giving you some extra serotonin while on your weight loss journey. 

Giving yourself the duties such as playing with your new pet or feeding them can give you extra tasks that aren’t diet or exercise-related which can be just what some of us need. 

9. Donate to a Food Bank

It can be both fun and rewarding to attach your weight loss progress to charitable donations. For example, you could pledge that, for every pound you lose, you’ll donate $1 or one pound of food to a local food bank. Honestly, you could do this for any charity you feel strongly about and it can be motivating to know that your efforts are improving the lives of more than just one person. 

10. Take a Relaxing Bath

Self-care practices like a bath, manicure, pedicure, or facial are great rewards as sometimes we are hesitant to just do these things on a whim if they are not a part of our normal routine. 

Most of the time, people feel the need to have a reason like an event or holiday. You can turn something like a bubble bath or putting that bath bomb you got for Christmas to good use as a reward. Perhaps its for things like staying consistent with your workouts or doing your meal prep the fourth week in a row.

11. Go to an Amusement Park with a Friend

This is a great one for busy adults and professionals. Especially if you’ve found that your friends like to do things that don’t align with your goals, so you have to cut down those interactions. 

Something like a trip to an amusement park can be a wonderful bonding activity to do with a friend that doesn’t necessarily have to involve high-calorie meals. This can be a wonderful way to make up for lost quality time with a friend; spending all day with some adrenaline-fueled fun. You can also chat with your friend about your journey and get some encouraging words that can stoke your motivation.  

12. Do Absolutely Nothing

It might sound anticlimactic. However, for some of us, taking a day off from doing anything at all can be extra rewarding on its own. For busybodies who are constantly working, entertaining children, taking care of the house, cooking meals, or spending time in the gym, slowing down to a stop might be just what you need to keep going! Get a babysitter to pick up the kids or take a flex day from work, curl up on the couch with a blanket and some tea, and watch some mindless television. You deserve it. 

Try a Weight Loss Reward Chart

Now that you’ve seen some weight loss rewards ideas, you may want to try more than one. This actually isn’t a bad idea, as you can opt for smaller rewards for smaller achievements and bigger awards for the more milestone-level achievements. For this, you might want to use a weight loss reward chart.

Weight Loss Reward Chart Example

A weight loss reward chart doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but can be helpful to make sure you are accountable for rewarding yourself along with disciplining yourself! This can be on a spreadsheet or just a chart drawn in a journal, but it might look something like this:

It does not have to look exactly like this, but this can be a starting point. Just make sure that your goals are realistic and measurable. This is important so you don’t set yourself up for failure and discouragement. 

It’s also important that you have clear parameters of when your goal is met which will prevent you from arbitrarily and prematurely rewarding yourself. Finally, it gives you a more definitive roadmap to set your sights on for you to measure how far (or how close) you are from or to your goal. 

The Bottom Line on Non-Food Weight Loss Rewards

Studies show that non-food rewards for weight loss progress may result in better weight loss than food rewards. Using food as a reward can also result in an unfavorable relationship with food, which isn’t great from a mental health standpoint, but can also hamper your weight loss maintenance. 

Speaking of maintenance, you don’t have to stop rewarding yourself after you’ve reached your goal. Maintenance of your progress, meaning the ability to keep the weight off, is arguably the most important yet difficult stage of weight loss. 

It has been shown that half of those who lose weight after two years will gain it back, and more than 80 percent will gain it back after five years. So, consider adding a reward in your chart for keeping the weight off after 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and so on. In this way, you may be more motivated to avoid slipping back into the old habits that originally contributed to your weight gain.Finally, it must be noted that, although food rewards may do more harm than good, this does not mean you should avoid all of the foods you find indulgent altogether. Allowing yourself to have a fast food meal or your favorite dessert once a week to have a break from your diet is perfectly fine if it is planned into your diet and not seen as a reward for adhering to a diet plan. If you need a dietitian to help you construct your own diet plan, complete with rewards tailored to you for motivation, contact me today.