I used to do Weight Watchers and I follow the dieting forums pretty regularly, and I've noticed a lot of agreement that a food reward occasionally is entirely appropriate when in a strict diet, and it shouldn't impact one's overall progress.
For example, WW has "discretionary points" per week that can be "spent" on anything you want. It usually equated for me to one pint of ice cream per week, which is a big deal when I hardly ever get any. And it doesn't have to be the diet/frozen yogurt kind, which is the great thing. I think a pint of Breyer's Cookies 'n Cream ice cream wound up being a bit over 800 calories. So I'm planning on - once a week - giving myself a treat, whether it be a pint of ice cream or a serving of General Tsao's chicken or whatever. I also read that when you're on a restricted-calorie diet, your body slows its metabolism down (because it thinks its being starved), and when you give it a high-fat, high-calorie treat, the body tends to relax its grip on the metabolism, since you're now back to eating "normally" (so it thinks), and it may actually help to increase your metabolism for a bit and increase the calorie-burning rate at rest (so the theory goes).
Anyway, I'll do this for a few weeks and see how my progress goes. If I stall, no doubt I'll do away with it.
For example, WW has "discretionary points" per week that can be "spent" on anything you want. It usually equated for me to one pint of ice cream per week, which is a big deal when I hardly ever get any. And it doesn't have to be the diet/frozen yogurt kind, which is the great thing. I think a pint of Breyer's Cookies 'n Cream ice cream wound up being a bit over 800 calories. So I'm planning on - once a week - giving myself a treat, whether it be a pint of ice cream or a serving of General Tsao's chicken or whatever. I also read that when you're on a restricted-calorie diet, your body slows its metabolism down (because it thinks its being starved), and when you give it a high-fat, high-calorie treat, the body tends to relax its grip on the metabolism, since you're now back to eating "normally" (so it thinks), and it may actually help to increase your metabolism for a bit and increase the calorie-burning rate at rest (so the theory goes).
Anyway, I'll do this for a few weeks and see how my progress goes. If I stall, no doubt I'll do away with it.