Rewards and Consequences

Today's weigh in was great! I was down 4.4 this week making a total of 12 even for the year. Very encouraging that my hard work paid off...I know it won't always, but this week I'll own it. Then I briefly debated...take the day off from working out, or enjoy 3 tacos and a 3 mile hike. It took less than 5 minutes to realize that I actually wanted to walk today and did not want to break my momentum. Then for about 45 minutes I struggled with the brilliant idea of doing the hike without the tacos. Rewarding hard work with more hard work...what a concept! In the end, I decided to go for the tacos, not because I necessarily wanted or "deserved" them, but because I knew if I didn't have them today, I'd still be thinking about them tomorrow. I fell into this pattern last month, when my reward entailed going to a late night movie on Saturday....I finally went on Monday. Mentally it was not the right decision for me. I chased that reward for 2 entire days, and replaced it with little "slips" along the way telling myself "it's okay, you never took advantage of your reward." BIG MISTAKE! So today I looked within, identified behavior patterns, weighed the reward versus the consequence, and chose accordingly. Ideally I'll get out of this reward mentality, or at the very least replace it with something non-food related. But for today I'll enjoy those 11 point tacos, after all, I have to eat! Oh, and my 3 miles were exhilarating! I felt incredible afterwards, like a new woman. I downloaded some new tunes today, and can't wait to hit 3 miles again tomorrow. Aiming for 4 next weekend!