Am I Ready For Weight Management 202?
I recently listened to one of my regular Wednesday night Clinical Rounds conference calls (on constipation this particular time*) and the practitioner started out by going over what he considered to be the basics when helping someone to solve a problem with constipation. He went on to say that if they will not do these things, he won’t continue to work with them, not because he is insulted that they did not follow his advice, but because he simply will not be able to help them if they don’t follow his basic protocols. Their body will not respond. Trying to skip the basics and jump ahead to the next steps or more sophisticated options cannot override the existing internal conditions. He called it “stacking” the behaviors. It occurred to me that weight management works the same way. “Stacking the basics” is sort of like the due diligence of weight management.
If you are like me, you may believe that you are faaaaar too complex of an individual for this simplistic approach to apply to you (it’s insulting actually), but, to paraphrase something I once heard an addictions counselor say: “I have never met anyone too stupid to get this, but I have met plenty of people who were too smart!” Gee, I wonder why that quote stuck with me all these years?
Weight Management Basics fall into two groups – the emotional and intellectual basics that pave the way for the behavioral basics. The emotional and intellectual basics (which I elaborate on in the Morning Musings this month) are about convincing myself that I care, accepting some realities of my role in this process, and a grasp of what I need to understand about myself so that I can tailor these tools to fit my personality and lifestyle. Behavioral basics (also in the Musings) are the actual action steps to: nourish my body so that I can manage cravings, manage the environment so that I can minimize temptation, and move my body so that I can maintain a good fuel burning machine while keeping myself motivated.
Behavioral basics are not that hard to make habitual (ultimately it is just repetition), but staying convinced long enough to cement them is critical. When clients come to me initially, they have always made that first contact because they have been convinced by something – a friend’s weight loss, a medical issue, self-loathing. But often, usually even, whatever it was wears off and that initial psych seems to evaporate into thin air. Sometimes it’s because they buckle under the disappointment and frustration of their own ineveitable screw ups. (Don‘t you hate having to keep learning from mis-steps?) Sometimes it’s because they are under the illusion that they don’t/shouldn’t have to continue to do the basics once they are rolling or once the weight is off. Sometimes they unknowingly give their mojo away one little piece at a time and don’t recognize the process. Check out the Surviving Myself Blog entry “Catch the Wave” (May 31, 2010) for more on this topic.
When I find that I can’t get myself to do one of the behavioral basics, some simple step that has nothing to do with willpower, that would pave the way for me, that isn’t even that hard to do (like buy some vegetables), I know I need to take a step back and look at the emotional and intellectual pre-paving I may not be doing. Apparently, somewhere along the way, I stopped being convinced that I wanted this badly enough to do the basic footwork. Keeping myself convinced is my job too.
When you think about it, every diet program on the planet simply does most of these basics for us. Their plans are not rocket science or anything that we couldn’t have figured out for ourselves. While their plan generally already incorporates the calorie and nutrition basics, it primarily serves as a means to lock us into a pre-determined format that locks us out of the discussion. Probably the main reasons that they work is because we are not part of the food discussion…something that it would be well to make an integral part of our own forever program.
It is a behavioral basic to be making a food plan when I am in the “I care that I am thin and healthy” mode – not when I have not planned, nothing healthy is convenient, I am busy, stressed and too hungry, someone around me is no doubt consuming some delicious unhealthy choice….and now I need to decide if I still want to be committed? Sound familiar?
Case in Point: Mary Alice works for doctors. Have you got any idea how much food doctors get in their office, particularly this time of year? Are their pharmaceutical reps trying to keep them in business? Ah, but I digress. Anyway, she recently changed offices, having gained about 70 lbs. at her previous office. She chose to use the opportunity as a chance for a do-over of her work eating habits. Determined not to program this office the same way, she started practicing two basics: providing enough of her own real meals and choosing to never open certain doors – one of them being Christmas goodies. Right from the get go, she started providing plenty of her own choices, making sure to provide foods that could reasonably compete with all the junk coming in. At last count, they had received about 56 lbs. of goodies. She sends me an email daily with what she could have but didn’t eat. So far, she has not gained seven and a half pounds she would have previously eaten – and it is only December 16th.
Case in Point: Eric is still working on night eating. If you had his life…he is in his early sixties (tired) and still has a really stressful job that he feels grateful to have with his company constantly cutting back, the economy and his age. He has worked hard all of his life and, believe me, this wasn’t the plan. He also has a very difficult home situation, so that when he finally leaves the office at 7 and 8 at night, exhausted and often overwhelmed at all the work he is leaving undone, what he goes home to isn’t any easier. Wouldn’t you eat too?
But, being seriously overweight at this age with all its inherent consequences isn’t what he wants for himself. In fact, it only makes him feel worse – physically and mentally. He figures it this way (his intellectual and emotional basics): he can have these life circumstances and be an unfit, overweight person, or have these life circumstances and be a fit and healthy person. He has already successfully cleaned up his daytime eating by bringing tons of healthy delicious things from home that work to help him to avoid all the potential food pitfalls in his office. He has covered his daytime basics.
The evening is still a work in progress. After acknowledging all the psychological reasons (only “excuses” if he chooses not to solve them) for this being such a difficult time of day for him, he eventually came to the conclusion that a primary reason that the evening remains so challenging is that, unlike the daytime, he doesn’t have any concrete plan for it not to be. He does all these things to set up his day, but gets home having done none of this for the night time – his most difficult time.
This was a really hopeful “aha”. If he does even a few of the things for his evenings that he has done about the daytime, he can fix this too. Like the old commercial where the guy slaps his head and says, “I coulda had a V8!”…I coulda had a meal plan!
*In case you wondered what the behaviors to prevent constipation were, BTW – I hate to leave you hanging – they were: drinking half your weight in water daily, taking in 30+ grams of fiber a day minimum, thoroughly chewing your food, and taking time in the morning to sit for a few minutes, ideally with a hot drink, to let your body prepare itself to eliminate.
Begin your final weight loss journey now…
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