NON-FOOD REWARDS

As a clicker trainer, I am constantly teaching clients how to recognize and acknowledge the little things their dogs do right and how this effects their relationships not only with their dogs, but also with their families, children, friends and employers.

When we start noticing and acknowledging the small things that are going well in our lives - it opens us up to really paying attention to the way we treat ourselves and others and what we find acceptable in how others treat us.

In terms of weight loss - it is so important on this journey to have things not related to food to reward ourselves with (non-food rewards - NFR) and acknowledge those things not related to the scale and our weight specifically (non-scale victory - NSV).

For a long time, I had difficulty with this in my general life - but especially surrounding weight loss.  It took me a long time to feel it was okay to be proud of an accomplishment and doing or saying anything that drew attention to me physically (like rewarding myself with clothes/jewelry etc) was a definite no-no.

Having a visual representation of our progress is a great way to stay motivated.  I started putting marbles in a jar as I lost and I really enjoyed the victory of moving those marbles over...it was something I did for myself, by myself and I will do again!

Weight Loss Tracking jars are all the rage now

I forgot about these until today and am looking forward to picking up a set to decorate tomorrow.

Since I am in the van a lot as well - I wanted something to take with me.  I decided to use a bracelet and add beads for every major marker and 5lbs lost.

I will hang it from my rearview mirror as my visual reminder to not eat out on the road or sit in the van and hide.  I put one of these beads on tonight as a FRESH START marker and then I have ordered 50 of the ones below from WISH (I love Wish) that should arrive any day now as my 5lb markers.  I have other non-food rewards for milestones like road trips and photography excursions, dog training supplies, things on my Amazon wishlist etc but this is a micro reward plan that I enjoy.