Food often comes tied to success and celebration. Birthdays bring triple chocolate layer cakes, and report cards bring trips out for ice cream. Closed the deal at work? How about going out for a steak dinner to celebrate? Wedding anniversaries bring champagne and a nice meal, and successful trips to the pediatrician deserve a stop at the bakery.
Life is full of victories big and small, and they’re worth celebrating—especially the ones you get while following a healthy eating plan. We tend to use food as a reward because it’s accessible and is often tied to emotions and memories. But there are a lot of healthy ways to celebrate success and give yourself a reward without food coming into the picture. Read on for some of the non-food activities we recommend.
Why Rewarding With Food Can Be Bad For Your Health
Life brings lots of reasons to celebrate, but developing a habit of rewarding yourself with food at the end of a successful day can be harmful to your health. That’s because when people are using food as a reward, they aren’t necessarily hitting the fruit bowl. Most food rewards showcase themselves in one of two ways: 1) Sugar, or 2) Grease, so it’s safe to say that many contain little to no nutrition. Many food rewards are treats that are often high in sugar and filled with empty calories. While there’s no harm in indulging in a treat every now and then, getting in the habit of a high sugar, low nutrient diet can lead to many health problems including type 2 diabetes, weight gain, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
If health problems aren’t enough to let the air out of your cupcake celebration, there is also the danger of emotional eating. If you choose to eat foods as a reward, you are ultimately developing an unhealthy connection between feeling good and eating certain foods. Too much of this can also lead to eating out of stress or boredom.
In addition to emotional eating and unhealthy nutrition, people also tend to sabotage their healthy eating habits when rewarding themselves with food. If you had lovely plans to make yourself the healthiest and most colorful salad for lunch, but instead you choose to celebrate a success with a bowl of french fries or a huge cupcake (pick your poison), you have created a situation where you are less likely to go enjoy that salad. Number one, you will be full, and number two, you know what goes great with french fries? A burger. What goes great with a cupcake you may ask? How about a scoop of ice cream?
Consuming lots of sugar and unhealthy foods builds poor eating habits by establishing a strong desire for sweets. When one cookie turns into five, you may need to pull the reins back before you slide into an eating pattern of bad habits. We should also note that alcohol is also a common factor in many celebrations. Just as people reward themselves with food, it’s important to be careful not to create a habit where alcohol is consistently part of the celebration.
21 Ways To Celebrate Success Without Food
When choosing healthy ways to celebrate success, think of what you are trying to get out of the experience. Is your end goal the actual eating of the food? Are you wanting to be social and have a shared experience with others? Or is it simply to commemorate a job well done? The key to learning how to reward yourself without food is to pinpoint the experience you are looking for, and then finding a way to fulfill that need in a more healthy way.
Here are a few of our favorite non-food celebration ideas:
- Decorate your space with balloons and a celebratory banner
- Give yourself the gift of an experience
- Plan a mini-vacation (or staycation) to give yourself a break
- Take the day off
- Treat yourself to a trip to the nail salon
- Book a facial or a massage
- Enjoy a shopping trip for new clothes, toys, or furniture
- Find a museum and explore for the day
- Take a trip to the park
- Swim at the beach
- Play a game
- Take a nap
- Go to a movie
- Get your craft on and create an idea you have been saving on Pinterest
- Schedule time with a friend
- Go for a walk or hike
- Enjoy time in nature
- Dive into a book you’ve been wanting to read
- Plan an outing or adventure with friends
- Take a relaxing bath
- Turn the music up and dance and sing to your favorite song
Healthy Ways To Celebrate Success
The list of healthy ways to celebrate success without bringing food into the equation, or eating to celebrate, is simply a compilation of suggestions. It’s important to find what feels like a celebration to you. Events and people deserve to be celebrated in the most special way possible. And it is possible to create a celebration not specifically based around food.
Create your own list of things that make you feel good. They can range from big to small, simple to elaborate, and free to break-the-bank extravagant. Post it somewhere you will see it often. When you hit a goal or milestone and need to live it up, you can celebrate without food by picking an idea off the list and giving yourself the praise you deserve.
Be conscientious of how you personally celebrate success and work towards healthier habits where you stop celebrating with food. Create your own list of healthy ways to celebrate success with non-food activities.
And if you haven’t tried Xyngular’s 8-Day Jumpstart, and you’re looking for something to celebrate, see how it can help you reach your goals and support your healthy lifestyle. Contact your Xyngular Distributor, or log in to your Xyngular account and get the Xyngular 8-Day Jumpstart today!
More on Healthy Eating Habits From Xyngular...
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Emotions, Stress, Appetite: Balancing Your Health in Uneasy Times
