Behavior Rescue

May 14, 2016

Behavior Rescue

I was never a big fan of The Biggest Loser show, making a snap decision about their true intentions to help versus create TV drama, when I tuned in once and they were taking these folks to a Mexican Restaurant, seating them amid all the foods and smells and then asking them to remind themselves then and there why they want to be thin.  That’s pretty much like taking an alcoholic to a bar and asking them to think about losing their family or job when they want a drink.  Seems to me it would make more sense to teach them not to choose Mexican restaurants in the first place, especially if they have a particular history of over indulgence in that type of setting (and who doesn’t?)!  I know for me it was far easier to navigate social eating when I created a brand new history in restaurants where it was easy to order well and tastefully, like say Mediterranean – flavorful proteins, healthy fats and lots of interesting veggie dishes.

Therefore it didn’t surprise me at all to hear that the contestants were struggling to maintain their weight losses.  What time was spent teaching them behaviorally to learn to live a defended life (planning and preparing in advance for their least motivated self)?  What time was spent teaching them to live within the calorie means of their actual goal weight life?

• I can’t eat just one either, so like the contestant, I never win the battle over my cravings for processed junk. The key is to build in external off buttons via things like individual serving bags, delaying gratification by saving treats for the weekend and having them outside my home. (See my blog “Willpower Free-Zone” and “Environmental Control Picks up Where Willpower Leaves Off”, “Willpower Is Not A Prerequisite” and several other blog entries on this topic in my Surviving Myself blog.
• When “planned” treats turn into binges, I have to examine what I pick for treats. These days, exhausted from battling the sleeping dragon that having my favorites treats seems to always awaken, I can deliberately choose my second tier treats – the ones that I enjoy but am done when I am done. I still do not keep them in my home and purchase them only at stores where I do not regularly shop.
• To recover physically and psychologically from a one day binge so that it doesn’t turn into a weekend, season or years, (see “Closing Pandora’s Box: Binge Recovery“)
• For the unnoticed extra calories that undermine many, record keeping to the rescue. Nothing need go by unnoticed and can be evaluated for its pleasure value to price ratio by an informed consumer.  See “Record Keeping, and Exercise in Understanding, Not Judgment”.
• Reward pathways can be deliberately reprogrammed to disconnect negative emotions and eating. Pleasurable food experiences make immediate “desk top shortcuts” connecting that to whatever it is associated with.  See (“What I really Needed To Know“).
• Do something to help myself.  No plan is a plan not to have a plan (see “No Plan Is A Plan“).  The habits I have now didn’t exist before I programmed them.  I can reprogram them (see “I Can Program A New Normal“)
• To generate momentum and keep it going, there is nothing like exercise.  It has been shown in study after study to be the single biggest predictor for long term weight management success.  It is the next closet feeling to the success of losing weight – especially for those for whom it is a particular challenge (see “Exercise As A Catalyst For Change“, “That Elusive Exercise Mojo” and “Exercise, The Real Magic Bullet“)

Read anything I have written in my blogs Surviving Myself and Morning Musings.  In all modesty, this is my area of expertise – outsmarting your inner saboteur.  You do this through taking action to support yourself before you find yourself unwilling to – the “I don’t care” place.  Ever been there?  Some of us have lived there for years, feeling powerless to change it despite our desperation.

In a nutshell:  if nothing changes, nothing changes and the environment (and habits) that got you overweight in the first place will make you overweight again if you let them.

• Change the environment and reprogram your daily habits to support you.
• The thrill of thinness always wears off (no matter how many new clothes you buy)
• Willpower doesn’t work where food is concerned, baffling but true
• Accept that and work around it (see “Follow The Breadcrumbs” and “They Did It Their Way“).
• Epiphanies are short lived and all but meaningless if not followed up with concrete action.
• The grace you seek from outside yourself may found within and put into effect via the actions you find yourself willing to take to help yourself (see “Got Grace?“, “Power Hour” and “Catch The Wave“).