reward

It’s true for anyone trying to lose weight that if you keep your routine fresh and interesting then you’ll continue on a path toward success. On season two episode two of Style Network’s “Ruby,” the Savannah sweetheart finds herself in an all-too-familiar rut. Ruby’s trainers aren’t moving her far enough beyond her comfort zone and the monotony of treadmill and weight routines is weighing on her.

Ruby seeks outside advice, which pits the professionals in her life against one another. And as is Ruby’s style, she leans on her support group of friends to help her sort through the trainer confusion.

When you are in a habit of rewarding yourself with food treats for a job well done, what do you do when those treats no longer fit in your daily diet? After all, when you are trying to lose weight, it goes against all you are working toward to celebrate that five pound weight loss with a big slab of cheesecake. (Not to say that it may not taste delicious, but that slab of cheesecake might set you back more than 500 calories – are you ready to run for an hour to burn that off?) As you work to lose weight, staying motivated can become very difficult. Here are some non-food ways to reward all of your hard work:

• Buy a new exercise DVD
• Try a new class – if you are walking, try a spin or martial arts class – think outside your comfort zone!
  

When explaining the formation of a habit, I mentioned reinforcing behavior that you want to encourage. Our behavior is shaped by the consequences of our choices. Behaviorism discusses positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment as the major ways to shape behavior. In this theory, positive means adding something to a situation, negative means removing something from a situation, reinforcement is used to encourage a behavior, and punishment is used to discourage a behavior.