Travel Fit Tip: Reward Yourself for a Job Well-Done

The following was excerpted with permission from The Complete Travel Diet, by Terry Riley, PhD and owner of TraveLean, a corporate weight management program for business travelers.

Take every opportunity to reinforce your resolve. Provide incentives for yourself to keep your motivation up and to help you reach particular goals that you set for yourself--especially goals that are challenging. Choose rewards that you find personally important and/or desirable. Rewards may be shared with others, but they must be meaningful to you.

It should go without saying: Don't make food a reward. Instead, make a list of specific rewards that have a value to you and that are commensurate with the intermediate goals you are rewarding. For instance, for every five hours of recorded physical activity you log, rent a movie in your hotel room. For every 100 hours, shop for a new pair of sneakers. When you come in "on budget" seven days in a row in your daily food log, treat yourself to a massage. And as you are returning how after rigorously following your plan for weight loss or maintenance, treat yourself to a travel upgrade. Just keep in mind that interim successes are not measure by pounds but by behaviors.