Helping people
make CHANGES® 
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Helping people
make CHANGES® |
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Learn to Set Behavioral Goals...
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 | "I will lose weight." |
| "I'm going to lose 20 pounds this month." |
| "I will not eat any more desserts or sweets." |
| "I'm going to give up soda." (Or coffee, candy, etc.) |
Resolutions such as these fail abysmally. And each successive failure is followed by guilt and self-flagellation:
| "I have no willpower." |
| "I'm terrible." |
| "I never do anything right." |
| "I've blown it again, as usual." |
Sound familiar? Well, despite any failures you may have had in the past, it is possible to be successful this time around. First, let's take a look at what was wrong with the goals I just mentioned.
The problem? It's not specific. Granted, it specifies what you want to accomplish - weight loss - but it doesn't say how you are going to do it. It doesn't say, for example, that you are going to limit your food intake or get more exercise. Since weight-control is not a spectator sport, unless you actively do something to get rid of excess fat, nothing will happen.
Set behavioral goals which specify what you are going to do. For example: "For the next 7 days I am going to walk for 30 minutes a day." Now you know exactly what you have to do, and at the end of the 7-day period you'll know whether or not you've been successful.
Here we have several problems. First, while the statement seems specific, at least numerically, it lacks a plan. It doesn't say how you are going to lose the weight, or what you are going to do to achieve your goal. Also, the goal isn't reasonable. Twenty pounds in one month is 5 pounds per week. Since there are 3500 calories to one pound of fat, you'd have to decrease your food intake by 2500 calories a day to lose 5 pounds in one week. Now many people don't even eat 2500 calories per day in total, which means they'd have to eat less than nothing to lose weight that quickly!
Set reasonable goals, and remember that reasonable is relative to what you are currently doing. Be certain your goal is achievable. for instance, even if it were reasonable to lose 20 pounds in a month - and it isn't - a goal which involves losing a certain number of pounds in a given period of time, creates a situation in which the individual has no guarantee of success. Like it or not we have no direct control over the numbers on the scale. You could be a saint, do everything perfectly, and still not be able to make the numbers change as fast as you'd like.
This type of resolution almost comes with a guarantee of failure. Saying: "I will not eat any more," means never again. no cake, no pie, no ice aream, no cookies. Suddenly the entire world is eating cookies, except you. Suddenly you become obsessed with cookies. You even start to dream about cookies! Within days you're bingeing on cookies and thinking: "Woe is me. I have no willpower."
Never say never. Avoid absolute terms like never and always. If you say "I will never again eat another cookie," you are, at any given point in time, only one cookie away from failure. And after you've eaten one, you think "Well, I've already blown it. Might as well eat the whole box."
Giving up something implies loss. It feels negative, as though something of value were being taken away.
Don't give up a bad habit, get rid of it. It'll feel a lot better. Accentuate the positive. Instead of stating what you won't do, state what you will do. Instead of "I won't eat candy," say "I will eat fruit." Instead of "I won't drink soda," say "I will drink seltzer."
Finally, picture yourself succeeding. Visualize yourself the way you want to be. Have the fantasy, and play it in your mind over and over again. Practice succeeding in your imagination, and then allow the fantasy to become a reality.
If Calories are an issue for you, make a commitment to be informed about what you are consuming. For example, if you buy packaged foods read the label. Know how many servings per container, how much protein, how much fat, and the calories per serving.
Similarly, if you eat fast foods, find out the composition of what you buy. The following link can help you do just that.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Stop dieting... and start living thin. Take a look at what you are doing, and then think about what you would be doing if you were already at your ideal weight. Change your behavior to what it would be if you did not have a weight problem. The key to success is change.
"Okay," I hear you say, "but what should I change? I don’t know what I am doing wrong."
First, take a look at your pattern of eating. Are you eating breakfast?
"No, I don’t eat breakfast. I’m not hungry in the morning, so why should I eat?"
You should eat breakfast because eating will stimulate your metabolism. Non-breakfast-eaters tend to have a weight problem, and sooner or later they have health and energy problems also. You need to put fuel in the tank at the beginning of the day, not at the end of the day (after you’ve put the car back in the garage!)
Let me tell you about some research that was done back in the 60s and 70s. Collectively, it’s called the QQF research, and it does much to explain why people gain weight, and what they need to change in order to lose weight.
QQF stands for Quality, Quantity, and Frequency, and it refers to food intake and eating patterns. Let’s start with quality. Let’s compare eating an apple to drinking apple juice. If you eat an apple you have something to chew. You have a food which is high in fiber which will take time to be digested. And because the apple is high in fiber we will spend energy digesting it, and we will not be able to absorb all of the calories. Perhaps only about 80 % of the calories in an apple will be available to us.
Now let’s drink a glass of apple juice. It takes almost no time to digest because the fiber is gone. Very little energy is spent on the digestion process. What we have is sugar (glucose and fructose) and water and 100 % of the calories will be absorbed. (We need to remember also that it takes about 3 apples to make a glass of apple juice.)
Another example: Let’s compare peanuts, with peanut butter, and then peanut oil. The whole peanut is high in fiber, and must be well chewed to be digested. Typically only about 70% of the calories will be absorbed. Peanut butter is still high in fiber, but because it has been ground it is easier to digest. About 92% of the calories in peanut butter will be absorbed. Peanut oil is highly processed, and totally refined. It has no fiber, and 100 % of the calories will be absorbed.
Most of us understand, intellectually, that quantity matters. It matters whether you have one slice of pizza vs the whole pie. But it’s not just how much you have in total for the day, but how much you have at one sitting. Suppose you have a meal of 1000 calories. Your body can only burn some of those calories right now for energy, and it has limits as to the amount it can store as glycogen, so any excess calories will be converted to fat. Now take that same 1000 calorie meal, and eat half of it now, and the other half four hours from now. This time your body has a better chance of using the calories you’ve consumed for energy. It is less apt to have an excess left over that it has to turn into fat for storage.
The moral of this story is that you want that overstuffed sandwich for lunch, you’d best have half of it now, and the other half as a snack later in the afternoon.
Ever skimp on lunch so you can go out to a big 7-course dinner? Stop! It will backfire. Eat lunch, and then find a way to cut down on your portions at dinner. (Have fewer courses, or eat little bits of each course.)
Did you know that the skinniest people around eat about 6 times per day? I don’t mean they have spaghetti and meatballs 6 times a day, I just mean that they spread their calories out over 6 meals. And did you know that the fattiest people around eat only once per day? Metabolism slows down to compensate for the lack of fuel, and then when they finally do eat the body tends to overstore what they’ve consumed. In effect, the body is stocking up for the next famine.
Time of day is also an issue. Those skinny people I refer to always eat breakfast. Most obese people rarely eat breakfast. They take in most of their calories at night, when the body least needs the energy, and when the calories consumed are most apt to be stored as fat.
Take two groups of people. Give both groups 2000 calories in total. One group spreads the calories out over 6 meals. The second group consumes all of the food at one sitting. The first group either maintains their weight, or loses weight. Everyone in the second group gains weight.
Take two groups of people. Give both groups 2000 calories per day in one meal. The first group gets 2000 calories for breakfast. The second group gets 2000 calories for dinner. The first group maintains their weight. (A few people even lose weight.) Everyone in the second group gains weight.
Now, let’s give both groups 1000 calories per day. The first group gets 1000 calories for breakfast, and the second group gets 1000 calories for dinner. Both groups lose weight, but the first group loses 2-3 pounds per week. The second group loses only 1 pound per week. Note: I am not recommending that anyone "go on a diet" consisting of 1000 calories per day. My purpose is to illustrate the relationship between time of day, caloric intake and weight.
Action to take, based on this information?
| Eat breakfast, and eat at regular intervals. |
| Eat foods in as close to their natural state as possible. Focus on real foods, and avoid refined and processed foods. (Rolled oats vs corn flakes. Apples vs pop tarts.) |
| Don’t get too hungry. (As a general rule don’t go for more than 5 hours during the day without eating.) |
| And don’t get too full. (As a general rule, don’t consume more than 500 calories at any one sitting.) |
| When you are served large portions – in a restaurant, at a banquet – give yourself permission not to finish what’s on your plate. Allow yourself to stop eating when the hunger goes away, rather than when the plate is empty. |
| Just for practice, eat off a salad plate instead of a dinner plate. (If what you are eating won’t fit on a salad plate, it’s probably too much food.) |
| Imagine yourself already at your ideal weight. (Don’t see yourself as "fat, trying to get thin." Rather, see yourself as "lean and healthy, and wanting to stay that way.") |
Choose 3-5 servings daily. Choose fresh fruits in season. Limit bananas to one.
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Choose 3-5 servings daily. Make seasonal choices. Go for variety and go for color.
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Choose 3 different items daily. Choices include eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, fish, poultry, lean meat, nuts, seeds, (or nut butters), tofu, legumes, or protein shakes. Athletes & bodybuilders should increase to 5 choices daily. Avoid processed meats.
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Choose whole foods & grains - oatmeal, sweet potato, legumes - and avoid refined processed starches made with white flour. Decrease consumption of starches for weight loss. Increase consumption for weight gain. Type II diabetics, or persons with Syndrome X, may need to limit frequency of starch consumption to once per day.
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Do include raw unsalted nuts and seeds in your diet. Olives and avocado are okay. Choose olive oil or flax seed oil for salads. Use olive oil for stir-frying, and cold-pressed Canola oil for baking. Avoid hydrogenated fats, deep-fat fried foods, lard, and processed meats.
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General Guidelines:
1) Exercise portion control. If your meal won’t fit on a salad plate, it’s too much food.
2) Avoid all artificial sweeteners.
3) Drink green or black tea.
4) Drink 1 or more glasses of water before breakfast, and 4-7 more during the day, preferable between meals.
5) Always eat breakfast and eat a minimum of 3 meals per day.
6) Limit coffee consumption. (Note: Decaf is highly acidic.)
7) Avoid alcoholic beverages.
8) Always stop eating when you are no longer hungry.
9) Take a high-potency multiple daily.
e- mail: jackiestorm@jackiestorm.com BIO
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