Often when you exercise and go on a diet, the pounds you lose is a reward in and of itself, but it takes a long time to get to your goal. So how do you stay motivated until you reach your goal? One trick is to set an achievable short-term goal and reward yourself every time you achieve it. For instance, let's say I lose a pound at the end of this week. To reward this achievement, I'll treat myself to a very pretty pair of earrings that cost only 5 dollars. The reward should reflect the size of your achievement, I think. After all, you might gain that pound back the next week, so you might change things to reward yourself only when you lose 2 or 3 pounds.
Rewarding yourself on a daily basis is also good. On SparkPeople.com, there is a group that starts off with a simple daily goal and each time you achieve that goal, you give yourself a penny. You do this one goal for a week and the next week, you add another goal for the week. So if you achieve both goals on a daily basis, you are now earning 2 pennies a day for the week. Each week, you add another goal and eventually, you won't be able to afford to reward yourself! That's when you can take your savings and pamper yourself with something big, like a spa treatment. I absolutely love this particular method and really want to give it a shot!
So I'll start this week with a goal of clocking at least 20 minutes of exercise every day. I've already clocked this much time on Sunday and yesterday on the Wii, so that's two pennies already. Haha! Am ready to earn my third penny today!
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