Episode #52: 5 Rewards Better Than Food

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Summary

I’m bringing you on another walk on today’s episode and talking all about rewards and pleasure. All of us desire and need reward and pleasure in our lives, but it’s time to start separating that from the food we put in our bodies. So, today’s show is all about finding new ways to reward yourself that are better than food.

Rewarding yourself without using food is an incredibly powerful exercise, not just for you, but for your children too. If you’re in the habit of using food as a reward, whether that’s candy after a doctor’s appointment for your kids, or going to a restaurant after working hard all week, this episode is for you.

This episode isn’t about villainizing using food as a tactical reward, but it’s here to point out that there are other alternatives that you might just like better. Reward and pleasure are important, so tune in this week to discover five things that have nothing to do with food that I love to offer myself and my children as a reward. 

To celebrate one year of this podcast, I'm hosting a giveaway for all of my listeners. To enter, head over to your favorite podcast platform and leave a rating and review. Take a screenshot of your review and follow the simple prompts here to share it with me and submit your entry. One lucky listener is going to win pair of Apple AirPods! The contest ends on Tuesday, April 18th, 2023, at midnight and I'll be sharing the winner shortly after. Thank you so much for celebrating with me!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Why we use food as a go-to reward for ourselves and for our children.
• How untethering food from your reward system creates more ease around weight loss.
• Why this isn’t about villainizing using food as a reward for your kids.
• What happens if you don’t offer yourself reward and pleasure on a regular basis.
• How to take back control of reward and drip it in on purpose daily, instead of saving it for special events or achievements.
• 5 ways to reward yourself or your children without using food.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Featured on the Show:

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• Episode #41: Habits and the Motivational Triad
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Full Episode Transcript:

Click here to download the full transcript

• Hey, this is Dr. Priyanka Venugopal, and you're listening to The Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast, Episode 52, 5 Rewards Better than Food. I'm coming to you today on another outdoor walk, so if you hear some occasional cars driving by bird tweeting or children playing, that is why. And also, my voice is a little bit raspy, but I didn't want to wait to record this episode because it is so top of mind for me right now, which is when I really love to record these episodes for you in real time.

  Also, if you want to join me on this walk, you can head on over to theunstoppablemombrain.com/52. Grab your sneakers and come on a walk with me before we get into the five ways to reward yourself that are way better than food. I wanted to share something really, really special with you. The podcast is almost one year old in just a few weeks.

  The Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast is celebrating her very first birthday, and I am celebrating with a really fun giveaway. To enter the giveaway, you simply have to leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Grab a screenshot and then share it with us over at theunstoppablemombrain.com/celebrate.

  Ratings and reviews of the podcast help this show become more discoverable, which in my mind is the absolute best way for us to celebrate our year together. The giveaway is live, and it is going to end on Tuesday, April 18th at midnight. The lucky winner is going to win a pair of Apple AirPods, which I think is incredibly fitting to have for having your favorite podcasts in your ear.

  It's going to take about 30 seconds to leave a rating and review for the show and then drop the screenshot over for us at theunstoppablemombrain.com/celebrate. I am so incredibly grateful for your support, and I love that we are in each other's orbit. Okay, let's get to walking. If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life.

  I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories, or crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and in my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching.

  Ready? Let's get to it.

  Today's episode is really all about thinking about reward and pleasure for us, that all of us want, all of us really desire a need, but to understand, reward, and pleasure in a way that separates it from food. I really cannot wait to share what we're gonna talk about today. I'm going to be talking to you about five ways to reward yourself without food.

  I think it's an incredibly powerful exercise, not just for you, but for your children. And if this is something that you are loving to learn about, I want to hear from you. I want to know if this type of episode resonates with you, and I will do more of these, but this is what I actually have been thinking about a lot in my own life, and so I can't wait to share it with you.

  So let me just start with a little bit as we do on these walks. Right. So this podcast episode is not scripted. It is just something that is very meaningful to me and important, and so I'm just sharing everything that I share with you on the cuff. I already have my five things that I really like to offer myself and my children as rewards separate from food, and I wanna tell you what inspired the story.

  I actually shared some snippets of this over on Instagram. If you are not following me over on Instagram and you are enjoying this podcast, absolutely go and start following me on Instagram, especially Instagram stories. I really share a lot of my real life, my little behind the scenes moments, little takeaways, little nuggets of wisdom that you can incorporate into your life.

  So just wanna put a plug for that. I'm @theunstoppablemombrain over on Instagram, but separately, I was sharing recently about how my daughter had to get four vaccines. So, at the time that I'm recording this episode, we are getting ready to go on a big trip. We're going to India for two weeks, and I have not been back to India in about 10 years, my kids have not been at all. So, it's a huge trip for us. It's a big deal as I'm actually even recording this episode in advance before we go on this trip to be prepared as we're, because we're not gonna be here. So, one of the things that had to happen was to make sure that my kids' immunization records and their vaccines were up to date.

  Now, they generally are totally up to date, but because of a lot of our moving and our travel, I wasn't sure whether my daughter who was four and a half had everything she needed, and when I checked her records, we like had to reach out to the pediatrician's office and had them send everything over.

  There were a few things that she probably would've gotten at her next annual visit. But we leave for India in two weeks, and they recommend some of these courses of vaccines to be completed. So, I was like, okay, there's like four things missing here. And I mean, she's gonna have to get a lot of shots. So, I had to take care of some things with my son.

  He had soccer practices, the very first soccer practice of the season. And my husband, who is like, seriously, he's so good with her when it comes to vaccines. He's like the vaccine whisperer, but you better believe we kind of bribed her with some candy, some like treats. And this is not uncommon, right? So, if you do this like welcome, this is what we all do.

  I, well, not all of us, but many of us do. And I, I think that a lot of us were kind of raised in this way. I know. I was like, if you're good and you get this vaccine, like we're gonna go get you ice cream or we're gonna go get some candy. And I think there are so many examples that I can think of whereas a child as I was growing up and definitely in my young adult life, I used food as rewards.

  I'm sharing this example, my daughter was like, oh, okay, I can handle the vaccine. I wanna get to pick up any candy, any, any, any candy. And my husband was like, yeah, you can pick anything out. So, she complied with our desire for her to get into the car and for her to go get her vaccine. So, we kind of used this treat, this reward as a way to have her comply with what we wanted her to do.

  And I think this is super common, right? It's like a little bribe. Like if you comply, then you're going to get this treat. I think that it works. It was very effective. She got four shots. She got four shots. Her little arms were so sore. The next day she got four shots and she absolutely got to pick acid, sour patch gummies.

  She came home and she was proud of herself for getting the vaccines, but she was really happy about those gummies. And what I wanna say in the intention of this episode is not to villainize this as a tactic. Again, I think it's very effective, right? To use food as a reward. It totally is, and I want to tell you that if you do this, it's okay.

  The intention of today's episode is actually just to offer to you that there are other alternatives that you might actually like better. And I'm going to tell you why you might like them better, what might be better about them. And then you just get to decide whether you want to fold that like your strategy into your family life.

  And I also wanna offer this, especially because if you are someone that wants to lose weight, if you struggle to reach your ideal weight or you lose weight, and then to maintain it with ease, really untethering, your system of reward from food will be incredibly impactful. So that's the other side bonus to offer to yourself if weight loss is one of the goals that you have, and if you're listening to this podcast, it likely is.

  So, let me just give you one other example and I want all of you to think about it like, is this you, have you done this? Have you experienced this? And why untethering food and reward might be super valuable for you. I remember, I mean countless, countless Friday nights that I would have, especially in medical school, like having been studying really hard all week, maybe we had block exams. That was the way that we used to take exams in blocks, so block exams would be done or board exams, any flavor of like a hard job done, I used to reward myself with food. It wasn't even a thought. Like when I think about it now, it's kind of crazy how I didn't even think about not using food as pleasure.

  It was just like obviously we're gonna go out to eat. Obviously, we're going to go out to that restaurant. We're going to celebrate. We're going to reward ourselves for a job well done. And it's so interesting now with my perspective now, especially as a coach that works on this with my clients, how much I didn't even realize because it was so just so automatic, how much we use food as reward.

  Like anytime that I completed an exam or had a hard week, or even got through a challenging shift, not just that I'm even talking about celebration, like it was an anniversary or a birthday, like food was just the automatic, very first thing that my brain would go to. And not just my brain. This is like my friends, my husband, my family.

  It's like the first thing we think about is like, well, where do you wanna go to eat? What food do you want to have to celebrate your reward yourself, right? Like you know that phrase, treat yourself. Treat yourself is like really talking about food. Like, you know, you see a cupcake and it's like, treat yourself.

  You've worked so hard. Treat yourself. And all this shows is that our minds have really, really attached food with reward. And I wanted to paint that as a picture because when you want to lose weight, you are going to have to take some new actions. You are going to have to find ways to treat yourself well, to reward yourself without food.

  But if you try to do that, by the way, if you hear the cars and the birds, cause I'm outside again. I feel like I forgot to mention that, but if you try to lose weight and make changes to your action plan without having done this, weight loss is going to feel kind of terrible. It's going to feel very restrictive.

  And if you're going to really go down the road, I've seen this happen, which is why I wanted to record this. You're going to find yourself feeling kind of frustrated and annoyed, like, aren't I working hard? Don't I deserve to treat myself, right? Like see how we're going back to that phrase even if it's because the reason that weight loss is going to feel incredibly hard for you is because you have really attached, think of it like two thought patterns that are married that you haven't been able to separate.

  And the intention of today's episode is we want to not villainize that if you've been doing it, but I want to show you it is possible to untether reward and pleasure from food, you can use it. I want you to know it is not the only way, and it is incredibly important if you want to have more ease around weight loss.

  So that was my tangent, but let's get into really the five things, the five ways that I have recommended that I've thought about for myself and for my children, how I want us to reward ourselves without food. And one more tangent before I get into this. Why does this also matter? Why this also [00:11:00] matters is I want to have a plethora of resources for myself, and I want my children to have a plethora of resources where they know that they can always offer themselves pleasure, relaxation, and reward in many, many, many ways.

  They're not completely attached to just one way. They have many ways, and I think that this is important because then we stop being so fixated only on the food. Like if you don't get the food, if you don't get the food reward, do you find yourself getting into a little bit of a tizzy? I know I did. Like if food was taken away, you know, figuratively taken away, and I was like, wait a second, I was supposed to reward myself and somebody's trying to quote unquote take away the food.

  I would feel really pissed, really annoyed. And what that kind of goes to show the reason that was happening is simply because I didn't have other ways of rewarding myself. And this speaks to something that's really important. I have talked about it on the podcast before, and that is that humans are designed to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

  I talked about this in the Motivational Triad episode, so if you haven't listened to that, absolutely go back and listen to the Motivational Triad episode. But our permanent brains are designed for that. We're designed to seek pleasure and avoid discomfort, and especially when, especially if you're a high achieving working mom.

  You're doing so many things you have to learn and know on a daily basis how to drip in rewarding pleasure. Otherwise, you know what's gonna happen. If you don't give yourself reward and pleasure on a regular basis, your brain is going to find ways to steal it for you. That's when you're gonna find yourself randomly grabbing handfuls of chips out of the pantry when you're not even hungry, eating your kids like goldfish crackers when you don't even want them. You're going to find yourself sneaking ways of giving yourself pleasure when you aren't in charge of dripping it in on purpose. So that's another intention with today's episode. I want to help all of you listening to this to take control back over reward. Learn that you can drip it in on purpose on a daily basis. You don't have to save it for special events.

  You don't have to save it for holidays. You don't have to save it just because you did really well on an exam. I want you to think about what it would be like if you dripped in reward on a daily basis what that would be like. You would stop having to steal it later on. Okay, so that was my other tangent.

  I'm trying to paint a picture. I'm really trying to make a compelling case for why reward is incredibly important. It is not indulgent, and we just say that again. Reward is incredibly important. It is not an indulgence. I think of it as a baseline requirement to help you have the best quality fuel to show up in your life.

  If you're not rewarding yourself, you're going to get resentful. So let me get into, after all my rambles, after all my rambles, let me share with you all of the ways that I have been playing around with, and there are probably more. If you have more, I would love to hear from you and I would love for you to share them. Tag me on Instagram if you do any of these or if you like any of these, share your thoughts with me and tag me over on Instagram.

  If you listen to this episode and you found it useful. So, point number one is for you to actually offer yourself words of appreciation and recognition. This is simple. I know that it might sound incredibly simple like Priyanka, really, like you want me to say a good job to myself. I hear you. Like, yeah, right.

  That's not gonna work. I'm telling you it is. So yes, it sounds simple, but do not overlook the simple thing when you say those words to yourself when you really pause and pausing is important, when you pause long enough to recognize yourself and appreciate yourself, you are rewarding yourself. What is the reward?

  When you really think about what is reward, right? What is that? Reward is simply an item or an action or a behavior that allows one to feel a certain way. So, for me, when I am getting a reward, whether it's Sour Patch gummies, or a word of recognition, I feel good in my body. Now when I get Sour Patch gummies, like when my daughter got the Sour Patch gummies, she felt really good.

  She probably felt really excited and like, you know, I think excitement was probably the big one for her. But when I offer her words of recognition and appreciation, she feels proud. And let me tell you, pride wins out every single time. So, this example, let me give you the vaccine example, how I would implement point number 1.

  And really why it is so important. So, I want you to imagine that she has gotten her vaccines or your child has gotten their vaccines, or they've done something incredibly brave. And before you jump to the Sour Patch Kids or your version of whatever that would be, you pause, and you recognize their efforts to recognize what they just did.

  You appreciate them. And part of the language that I use here, which I think is important, that I wanted to highlight. I also really have her recognize herself. So, what I mean by this is I say to her, you must be so proud of you. Like look at you. You must be so proud of yourself. Like, wow, what do you think?

  And I pause. You guys have been hearing a lot about me, like silent, awkward pauses with my kids. The reason that I'm doing that and what I'm practicing is I don't want to always insert my pride in their bodies, my pride in their minds. I want them to learn the skill of generating pride and recognition and appreciation for themselves.

  And here's why this is so important. So many high achievers are so used to seeking external validation. We want to be recognized for our hard work by our parents, by our spouse, by our boss, by, maybe by a colleague, maybe even by your kid, right? You want to be recognized and appreciated. How many of you have ever felt like that?

  I know I have. And what I want to say is that I think of this as a serious problem that you're going to keep chasing. Why? Because then your pride or your feelings of satisfaction and appreciation are like on the line. What if your husband doesn't recognize you? What if your boss is, if you do like praise or accolades, what if your kid doesn't appreciate that amazing dinner that you cooked?

  Like, should you just go without feeling proud and satisfied and accomplished? No, but we don't have the practice. We don't have that muscle strengthened where we offer it to ourselves. But I promise you, doing this point number one, and teaching your children to do it is deeply gratifying. And here's the kicker, when you pause and you recognize yourself, when you are pausing you appreciate yourself for how much you're doing for everything. I'm saying for the littlest things, for the biggest things like you, did you fold the laundry? Like, look at you.  This is how I talked to myself. Listen, you folded the laundry, and you don't even feel like it and you did it anyway.

  Look at you. So good. I mean, how amazing are we? I'm exaggerating, but also, I'm not because just that act of constantly talking to ourselves in that way, knows what happens. It's a way better motivation than talking to yourself with a stick in your hand. I want you to try this, like, I think high achievers especially think we have to talk to ourselves in a way that pushes us really hard, that drives us to succeed and excel and has worked in many areas.

  But this is one thing that will work better. So, when you offer yourself appreciation and gratitude, when you teach your children to recognize themselves before you recognize them, it is a beautiful gift that you would just never have to rely on anyone or anything to actually feel good. I think of that as number one, as my number one form of reward.

  Number two, cuz I know I spent a lot of time on number one and I just did that because I think it's seriously the most important. Number two is actual physical contact. I think that physical contact for a child could be something as simple as a hug or a kiss where you hold them. If you really think about what is it that our child is wanting, it's to feel held right?

  And I think as adults we don't always know how to offer that to ourselves. Like you can try to hug yourself, but it might not be the easiest. I want you to just play with how you would want to create that for yourself. Like maybe you can ask your partner or your kid to give you a hug or to give you a kiss, like I want you to think about what that would feel like for you to incorporate physical contact as a form of reward.

  You do a really good job at something, or you're really proud of something that you've done or you did something that you didn't feel like doing. Got through it. You passed that exam, you got that presentation in, you took care of your kids, whatever it is. How might you want to incorporate, how could you incorporate physical contact as a form of reward?

  That could even be something like a bubble bath or a long hot shower, especially when you feel the water washing over you. I think that that is a physical contact and it's deeply gratifying. It's very relaxing to your nervous system when you are held like that and I just think it is such a simple, yet beautiful way of offering yourself reward.

  And again, I want you to notice that the trend with these first two points, they're both asking you to slow down, right? To be able to slow down and savor that moment requires that you slow your brain down. Now, jumping to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, which high achievers do a lot to really stop and slow down and pause to savor the feeling of reward in the simple, simple way.

  I'm moving on to the third thing. The third thing is like an actual item. So I'm gonna give you two examples of what I have done with my kids, with my daughter. She loves stickers so she could get the Sour Patch kids after vaccines. Or another fun thing that I love to do is to actually offer her alternatives, like stickers.

  So, she loves stickers. Do you guys know Lisa Frank? Do you remember back in the, I think it was like the eighties or the nineties, I was obsessed with Lisa Frank stickers. They had all the different kinds. I just loved them. I had a whole sticker book, oh my gosh, who had a sticker book. It was the best. So I remember for me, like stickers and sticker books and things like that were so fun, and they really did feel very rewarding to get something special like that.

  So, an example for my daughter, again, this is the kind of thing that depending on what it is that they do, you can play around with different levels of things. I'm gonna give you another example with my son, which is like a little bit more of a bigger example. So, for my daughter, if she does something like go to the doctor's office and get her vaccines, like we celebrate her bravery, we reward her with stickers.

  Now, before I tell you the second example, I want to touch on this one point which is speaking in transactional energy versus celebratory energy. So, I'm going on a tangent, but I think this is an important point, which is it's very easy to have transactional energy with your kids or with yourself that won't feel as good and will not feel as rewarding then if you practice celebratory energies. Let me just define what they both mean, and then I want you to play around with it. So transactional energy can feel a little threatening. It can feel like if you do this, then you're gonna get this. And the implication is like, if you don't do this, guess what?

  You're not getting it. And there's like this, like slight, it's subtle depending on how you do it, but it slightly can elicit a slightly threatening type of response, right? Think about how maybe you've done this even with food, or you thought, if I do really well, like if I lose 10 pounds, then I'm going to go out to my favorite restaurant.

  And it kind of has this strange relationship with the food, right? I, it's like the same thing with any item that you want to reward yourself with. To check in with how you're feeling when you are making that relationship. So with the sticker examples, like if you go to the vaccine, if you get your vaccine, then you're gonna get a sticker.

  It feels different than, you know, when you get your vaccines. I'm not even saying if I'm like, when you get your vaccines, I wanna celebrate you, and you get to go pick out your favorite sticker. It just feels different and you can feel it in the tone and the inflection of my voice but the reason for that is because I feel different when I offer it from both of those places.

  So I wanted to bring that up specifically on this point, because we're talking about a trade, right? It is technically a trade where I'm asking my child to take a certain action or do a certain behavior, and I'm going to reward her with another item or another action. It's like a bartering thing. So there is a trade happening, but I think it's valuable to come into a trade like that, a rewarding system like that from a place of celebration and not a place of threatening or transactional energy. Okay. That was a little side tangent. Let me give you another example. This was a way, way, way bigger deal that, I mean, it was very impactful, and I ended up having a lot of fun doing it.

  So, if you've been following along for a while, then you know that transitioning into second grade for my son was very challenging. Brand new town, new school, new kids, new everything. And one of the biggest things that was new for him was the school bus. So, he had to get on the school bus for the very first time.

  He felt nervous about it, but he doesn't always reveal his anxious thoughts or feelings in a very clear way. And the way that he did it with us was he would just like run off the bus. So, he would get himself all like pepped up and ready and that he'd walk off the bus and he would run off. So, this happened a lot.

  And the more that it would happen, what we noticed was it would make him upset for the rest of the day. And so one of the ways that we had a whole conversation with him about reward and the way that I used this and the way that I thought about reward specifically in this instance was I asked him, it was like an invitation.

  I asked him how would he feel if he didn't feel nervous or anxious about the bus. If he just got on the bus and he felt totally calm about it, how would that be for him? Would he want that? And he was like, oh yeah, that would be great. Actually, one of my friends is even on the bus. Like I want, he wanted to be able to.

  So, he said, okay, this is what we're gonna do. So now it's like I have a buy-in from him that he actually wants the result, or he wants the result of being able to get on the bus. It wasn't a result only I wanted, I had to get his buy-in that he wanted that result too. So, I think that that's an important point.

  Right? The same is true with weight loss. Like you have to actually buy-in that you want the result before you do the work of actually getting there. So, step one for me with him was buying it. He wants to be able to get on the bus. So, the next step with me and what I was talking to him about was to listen, I know you feel nervous getting on the bus, but how would it feel for you to practice being brave for those few minutes when you get on the bus?

  What would it be like for you and how would it feel if we celebrated? Right. So, you see my words, like the useless celebration, the you celebrate a lot, but it feels different for me than trying to be transactional or threatening. Right? So what I said to him was, listen, how would it be for you if we celebrated you getting on the bus for a whole semester. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's okay if it doesn't happen every single day, but like really trying your absolute best, you put your best effort in it to get on the bus, and we will celebrate at the end of the semester. And I will take you to a magic show. And a magic show is a way deal, right?

  This is number one, it's more expensive. It requires an investment of my time to find a magic show, to get tickets, maybe to take the whole family if I'm not just taking him. Right. So, this is like a bigger deal and I felt like it was a bigger deal. That made sense, right? Because what we're talking about him do, what I'm requesting of him is a big deal for him too.

  So, this was just another example. I wanna paint a picture of how wide of a variety of rewards you can have with things or experiences that are not food. So, for you and your family, take a few moments here and think about what are all the other ways other than food that you might actually want to reward yourself or your child that has nothing to do with candy or ice cream or cookies. Again, we're not villainizing the candy, the ice cream and the cookies over giving your brain better alternatives. Like an experience at the Magic Show is like so much better than Sour Patch gummies. It's so much better. Right? Or like stickers that you're going to have in your sticker book.

  I still have a sticker book from 1990. Is way better than like the three minutes that I'm going to enjoy Sour Patch gummies, right? So, this is just something that I think is really fun to do as an exercise for you. What are all the things and experiences separate from food that you might truly love as a reward?

  So that's point number three. And again, this one is the one to be creative, have fun. Think about your unique self, your children, what they might love, and even like to get their input on it. I think that could be super fun too. So those are the three points. The last two are a little bit harder, and I reserve them for the end.

  I think that they are some of the most impactful ways of rewarding yourself, but it requires practice, and it requires actual implementation and you're going to build like a muscle. So, number four is delayed gratification, which is delayed reward. What do I mean by delayed reward? I think weight loss is the perfect example for this.

  So, you take action now. You follow a way of eating that serves your body. You take action in the moment, even if it feels hard, even if it feels uncomfortable, you follow through anyway and you might not get immediate gratification. You're not going to drop 10 pounds overnight just because you didn't eat the cookie one day.

  You're not going to develop biceps just because you picked up the dumbbells one day. So, what we're talking about, point number four is highlighting and emphasizing delayed gratification. That means if you keep up with this action again and again and again, guess what? You are going to reap the reward. See that you're gonna reap the reward, but it will be delayed.

  And this is something I wanted to highlight specifically, is something that humans are not intrinsically designed to want. We are designed again by the motivational triad. We're designed for immediate pleasure, and we're designed to want immediate, immediate gratification. So, if you're hardwired for immediate gratification, not just you, but like all of us humans, that means that choosing delayed gratification over immediate is going to require some of your attention and effort.

  This does not mean it's too hard, it just means it requires her attention and effort. And I wanted to emphasize that because I think we sometimes think that we are too weak or not capable of waiting for delayed gratification, and that's not true. It is just simply unpracticed. So, think of it like a muscle that you haven't practiced, so it's not too hard, but if you actually practiced it day after day, it is a muscle that you can strengthen, where then delayed reward becomes like so abundantly plentiful for you because not only do you have the rewards?

  You have like the impact, the long-lasting impact of having those long lasting, delayed gratification. So again, I feel like weight loss is such a good example of this because it is the epitome of delayed gratification or fitness, right? Like if you think about trying to get physically fit, you're not going to get physically fit overnight.

  You're not going to be able to see lean muscle and biceps in a day or a week. It's going to take many days and many weeks of consistent effort to see that reward. So, point number four is really emphasizing delayed gratification as its own form of reward. And you have to do the work. And again, I think that this is why working with a coach is so helpful, but you have to do the work of proving to your brain that that delayed reward is better than in the moment gratification.

  So, with weight loss as the perfect example, why is reaching your ideal weight so much, so much night and day, leaps and bounds better than eating off your plan right now? You have to be 100% clear on that. If you're not clear on why that delayed reward is better for you, your brain's gonna wobble.

  You're going to give into immediate reward. There's actual data and studies on this that I think is so important to know. Nothing's wrong. You're not weak. If you are always going for the immediate reward, you're not weak for it. It's just very well practiced and you're like primitive brain's designed for it.

  Just being aware of that and knowing that you're not weak. You just haven't practiced this other muscle is super powerful to recognize and know that it's a muscle you can strengthen. So that was point number four. Delayed reward is sometimes the best reward. Okay, and then point number five, this one's maybe going to be a little bit of a stretch, maybe not, but sometimes no reward, like no tangible actual reward can be the reward. So let me tell you what I mean by that. Sometimes just doing the hard work, doing what you didn't wanna do, but doing it anyway. Or like doing that really hard assignment or completing that hard project, like taking care of the thing that you didn't wanna do. Something hard for you that you didn't feel like doing, but you did it anyway.

  Sometimes just doing the hard work on its own, can feel very rewarding. I think we've all experienced this. If you're a high achieving working mom, you have definitely experienced this in some way or another, but I want you to know that sometimes just doing the hard work is very gratifying. And I think sometimes what we do, especially as working moms, is we're quick to move on to the next task on the list.

  We're quick to move on to the next thing so we don't actually recognize how much we're doing. So, I think point number five maybe touches on like it kind of connects to point number one, but I think that instead of just rushing along to the next thing to just really be like, wow, I just did this hard thing.

  And just know that doing the hard work on its own sometimes can be deeply gratifying. These were my five points, my five ways of offering yourself reward without food. The first one was words of appreciation and recognition. Number two was physical contact. Number three was something else that's not food, like stickers or a show or an experience.

  Something that really fits in with what you love and what your family loves. Number four was delayed reward, allowing yourself to wait for delayed reward. And number five was just doing the hard work on its own is very gratifying. So, these are five ways that I have come up with that I'm folding into my family.

  It's not always the case. Sometimes we still do use food as reward, like we did just the other day with the vaccinations on the Sour Patch Kids. So, it's not like we never use food as a reward, but I just strongly prefer not to. It's something that I have just seen for myself in my own story how much food is just used for everything.

  It's used to celebrate and reward us and also to distract ourselves from stress and programs. It's like food ends up becoming a crutch and I don't want that for myself, and I definitely don't want that for my children because it's already very prevalent in every other part of their life. So, when I can take control of reward, I'm trying to do so but do so in a way that holds a gentle lens. We're not villainizing it as a reward. I just definitely don't prefer it. So, on the list of things, using food like, you know, a nice glass of wine or going out to dinner is very, very, very low on my list of rewards. Now, it used to be number one, going out to eat or celebrating with the meal, or you know, getting that special ice cream.

  What used to be my number one way, really, honestly, my only way of offering myself reward. And now it is barely a thought. Like, seriously, this is real. When you do this work and you find other ways of rewarding yourself and having pleasure that really take you and your whole body into account, it becomes a non-thought. This is what I think high achieving working ones want.

  You want to lose weight, but I think more than that, I hear this time and time again. What you actually want is to not think about the food so much. To not have the mind chatter, to not have the negotiating, to not like, feel restricted and deprived. But to do that, you have to do this work. You have to untether the reward from food.

  You have to untether pleasure from food. There have to be other ways. And when you do that, why does this matter? Because now food as a reward, food as pleasure is available to me just like it's available to you. But it is so far down my list. It's just like I could have it or not have it. And either way is okay.

  These other things are so much better. I think that this is what we are all craving. I think high achievers who are busy and hustling all the time, we are all craving just a little bit more pleasure, just a little bit more of a reward, and it is our job. It's only our job to offer ourselves. It's nobody else's job to reward you.

  I think that that's an important coin because I know for me, I spent years and decades wanting other people to reward me. This is the people pleaser in me. I wanted other people to recognize me. I wanted maybe a grade to validate me. I wanted maybe a boss or a partner to offer me words of appreciation. I have been waiting and waiting, waiting my whole life.

  It's something that I learned at a very young age, and I just grew up with me, and it also created a lot of burden. It created a lot of frustration. I was on a constant chase by doing that. This is, I just think a way better alternative that I want to invite you too. I want you to know that anyone can do this, but you have to first decide why.

  Just like I was telling you at the start, like why would I want to not use food as reward? I have to actually like to take my brain there. I have to answer that question. Why would you want to maybe not use food as reward? If you keep saying, I want to use food as a reward, then trying to force yourself to not use a food reward is going to feel like a struggle.

  So first, get your brain on board. Why might you want to use other ways of rewarding yourself? What would be the impact of that for your whole body, right? Your weight, if you're trying to lose weight, what would be the impact of that for you? And what if you didn't have to sacrifice pleasure? You didn't have to sacrifice feeling good simply because you want to lose weight.

  This is the biggest, biggest piece that I see so many women have this back-and-forth struggle with. They want to lose weight and they think they have to sacrifice pleasure to do that. And I'm here to tell you if you don't, I think working moms deserve a lot more than they realize, and there's this alternative way that I just think is way, way better.

  So, I hope that you enjoyed this. Walk with me, this chit chat, slightly rumbly episode, and the trees, if you're watching this on video or the birds in the background and the occasional car, I hope it wasn't too distracting, but I really do love bringing you on these walks when they feel inspired on these topics.

  And this is the big one. I have been thinking about a lot for many years now, especially with how I want to teach my children about Reward too. So, I hope you guys enjoyed this one, and I will catch you next week. I would love to celebrate with you. The one-year anniversary of The Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast is just around the corner.

  My intention with starting this podcast has been to share my voice, perspective, and experience as a busy working mom who has solved a problem. I love bringing you these episodes that discuss strategy and mindset, and I hope that you have felt a breath of fresh air and even shifts in your life from this podcast.

  So, let's talk about how I would love to celebrate. I'm hosting a giveaway for all of my listeners. To enter the giveaway, head over to your favorite podcast platform and leave a rating and review of the show. Your ratings and reviews make this podcast more findable, which I think is just the absolute best way to celebrate this podcast.

  When you do that, take a screenshot and send it over to us at theunstoppablemombrain.com/celebrate. One lucky listener is going to win a pair of Apple AirPods, which I think is just fitting when it comes to listening to this podcast. Don't wait to enter your ratings and reviews mean so much. So, head on over to your favorite podcast platform.

  Leave a rating and review of the show, take a screenshot, and then head over to theunstoppablemombrain.com/celebrate and you'll follow the simple prompts to share your entry and information. The giveaway ends on Tuesday, April 18th at midnight. I'll be announcing the winner shortly after. Thank you so much for celebrating with me in this way, and I love you all.theunstoppablemombrain.com/celebrate.

  Have an amazing week. Bye. Thanks for listening to The Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more resources or information from the show, head on over to theunstoppablemombrain.com.