Most of us are brought up from a young age to see food as a reward.

Plus, food’s been included in celebrations and other human bonding experiences for most of human history, across many difference cultures.

Those things being the case, it’s no wonder we get used to rewarding ourselves with food!

The problem is, we get in the habit of doing it often, for any reason.

We eat waaaaay more than we need to satiate our hunger (if we were even hungry to begin with).

And it’s not like we’re rewarding ourselves with broccoli and bacon, right? It’s always donuts, candy, chips, cookies, alcohol–stuff with little to no nutritional value that spikes insulin and adds to our waistline.

When you make your mind up to move your lifestyle in a direction of better health with the Code Red Lifestyle™, you have every intention of following through with learning to view food as fuel for your body, rather than as a reward (or as a punishment, a coping mechanism, a distraction, and so on).

But those lifelong habits of rewarding yourself with food don’t exactly disappear overnight, do they?

In fact, you’ve probably done “diets” where you rewarded yourself with bull crap food for staying on track, thereby sabotaging your progress.

What sense does that make?

“So Cristy, what do I do when my brain wants to use food as a reward?”

Besides reminding yourself food is fuel, and repeating that to yourself several times a day, I suggest finding other, non-food ways to reward yourself.

What are some other activities you love, and that bring you joy, but don’t make you fat and sick, and aren’t followed by guilt and shame?

Is it walking your dog? Spending time with a friend, or your grandkids? A new piece of jewelry, or a new shirt at your new size?

Is it a bubble bath? A massage? A manicure? A new hair style?

Whatever it is, start choosing it instead of food.

And plan out your rewards. Select mini-goals for your weight loss journey (such as every 10 pounds, when you get to ONEderland, etc.), then assign a reward to each one. If any guilt tries to surge up, kick it to the curb!

Replace food with other things you enjoy, and you’ll find that a moment’s pleasure from eating a donut won’t compare with all these other exciting rewards you have planned for yourself!