Resolutions, Rewards and Restraint

In order to resolve to do something, I need a reward, but in order to reward myself, I need to exercise restraint. A piece of chocolate can’t work as a reward if I eat a box a day. I have to restrain myself until I hit my resolution.

I know that my will alone will not propel me to a goal. How do I know? The number of times I have willed myself to do something and failed. Even within my Weight Watchers journey, I have had weeks in which I just flat-out failed. Life ain’t always pretty. But when my goals and rewards were clear, I push passed the messy, vagueness of the failures. **As an aside, "failures" aren’t reason to beat ourselves up, but ways to learn about ourselves. We know this didn’t work, so what does?**

When I first hit my goal weight, I had a list of things that I did as a reward, but that meant saving those things for that special moment.

1. I got my wedding rings resized because they were too loose to wear. That meant I had several weeks that I couldn’t wear my rings at all. That was tough for me.

2. I got a new drivers’ license. I got a new picture and recorded my actual weight. It happened to be 15 pounds lighter than my fake weight before Weight Watchers.

3. I bought a brand new outfit that was not on sale. This was especially hard when I got within 2 pounds of my goal. I had my outfit picked out and my credit card warmed up. Well meaning people in my life mentioned that 2 pounds would not change the way the clothes fit. And although they were right, it was a reward I set aside for my goal weight. I had to wait the two weeks to make it worth it.

4. I added real butter back into my diet. Don’t get me wrong – spray butter has its place in this world, but I absolutely adore using real butter. I purchased the butter and it sat untouched in my fridge until the day I walked home with my goal weight obtained. It was very hard to leave it alone, but this was a big deal for me and I wanted it to be special.

So, now, I sit with my 5 pound holiday weight gain -- yes, still. I had been pretty apathetic towards losing it, but I realized it’s because I am not exercising restraint. I have nothing left to reward myself with.

I have consumed several donuts since the holiday weight gain. Last Friday, I reached my low point and ate 3 ½ donuts. To be more specific, they were Top Pot, hand-forged doughnuts (that someone else paid for!). If you are unfamiliar with Top Pot, these are the best, the largest, and most amazing donuts in existence. I had an old-fashion cinnamon-sugar, a Peppermint Snowdrift, a Raspberry-filled glazed and half of a Chocolate Bavarian Cream. I stayed away from the Apple Fritter due to the high point value. (What?!)

These are the donuts that I vowed would be used as a reward after weight loss or maintenance in my DON’Tnut blog in August. I would buy one, cut it up and have a piece of it every day. I robbed myself of my reward by treating it as commonplace.

As hard as it’s been, I’ve been Top Pot free for 7 days. I have my reward back and am motivated again. This dog won’t run if the rabbit isn’t out in front. See you at the finish line.