Just as you anticipate and prepare for barriers and obstacles to your weight loss plan, you should build in some rewards for milestones you reach during your journey.

Milestones

Milestones can be thought of as mini-goals that you must attain on your way to your ultimate goal.  If your ultimate goal is a target weight loss of 75 pounds over a 6-month period, then you can set your milestones in terms of process measures and outcome measures towards that goal.

Process Measures

In order to succeed and reach your weight loss goal you need to change habits surrounding your eating and activity (exercise).  These habits, behaviors, processes must change.  For example, you can no longer buy any food just because it tastes good at the grocery.  You must read labels and evaluate your choices.  As far as activity, you need to get on a routine of scheduled exercise.  So a milestone for eating habits may be consistently keeping a food diary or consistently reading food labels at the grocery.  As far as exercise, a milestone could be exercising for at least 30 minutes a day at least 3 days a week for at least a month.  Where possible, you will want to increase certain aspects of your new behavior to set a new milestone for yourself.  This is often done with exercise.  After a month of 30 minutes a day 3 days a week, you may want to increase that to 4 times a week.  But reward yourself as you attain each milestone.

Outcome Measures

These are usually tied to getting to a specific portion of your goal.  So, when trying to lose 75 pounds, your first milestone may be losing 10 pounds.  The next may be 25 pounds.  These milestones help you track your progress and allow you to reward yourself for the work you’ve done.  Changing behaviors isn’t easy!

Rewards

The ideal reward should be tied to the new behaviors you are undertaking.  In the case of weight loss, they certainly shouldn’t be unhealthy or off-limits foods.  So, you may get yourself some new workout clothes or exercise equipment.  For more significant milestones, a weekend getaway might be appropriate but without indulging in foods that are not on your healthy eating plan.  When you hit your ultimate goal, you’ll probably want to treat yourself to some new clothes that fit the new you.

Next time I’ll talk a little more about changing behaviors.

For Your Health! – Dr. Bob

In my last post I talked about motivation, the driving force behind any behavior change.  In the next few posts, I’ll focus on putting together your weight loss plan.  That will include:

1. Setting your goals & start date
2. Identifying a support person
3. Barriers to starting your plan & solutions to overcome them
4. Planning for the challenges that will come
5. Milestones and rewards

In this post let’s consider setting your goal, planning your start date and the importance of identifying a support person.  Your goal is the weight you want to be or the pounds you intend to lose by your target date.  Both the weight loss and target date need to be realistic.  A healthy rate of weight loss is 1.5 to 2.5 lbs. per week.  If you have medical issues, you should check with your doctor about your plan, especially about how quickly you plan to lose weight, the nutrition plan you will be using and details of your exercise plan.  Too rapid a weight loss can be unhealthy especially if you have certain medical conditions.  It took time to gain those extra pounds and it will take time to lose them.  Be patient!  Remember slow and steady wins the race!

You should also choose a start date to begin your weight loss program.  Give yourself some time to go through the planning stage for your program.  It shouldn’t take more than 2-3 weeks to get the planning done.

Finally, choose a trusted friend with whom to share your plan.  Tell them your start date, goal weight loss and target date.  Their role is to help encourage you when you feel discouraged and celebrate your successes with you.  Some people choose someone who has successfully lost weight themselves.  While that experience isn’t necessary, the strategies they used to overcome challenges can be useful.

Next time, I’ll continue talking about the other parts of your weight loss plan that you may wish to consider before you actually start your weight loss program.  If you want to get a head start on those topics, check out my website www.insightsforhealth.com where there are tools to Make Your Plan as well as many other features to learn about nutrition & exercise.  You’ll also find tools to calculate the nutritional content in foods, find the calories expended with common activities and to set up Health-e Texts to reinforce your new healthier behaviors.  To use some of these you must register as a member, but membership is free!

Your comments are welcome.

For Your Health! – Dr. Bob

What is motivation?   I think a useful definition in the context of behavior change is that it is the driving force that will enable you to do the work and make the sacrifices for you to succeed in changing your behaviors for the better.

Where should it come from?  The most effective motivation comes from within yourself.  Changing your behaviors, to lose weight or quit smoking is hard work.  You won’t succeed if you are just trying to please someone else, but, that external validation can add to your momentum.  Even though motivation comes from within, it can have an external component to it.

How do you get motivated?  Ambivalence often makes the decision to change difficult.  Those reasons to change need to be looked at along with the reasons not to change.  You may want to list the Pros & Cons of changing your behaviors.  Divide a sheet of paper in two by drawing a line down the middle.  On one side list the Pros, and on the other, the Cons.  Here’s an example for starting a weight loss program:

Usually this exercise results in many more Pros than Cons.  And the Pros are more significant advantages than the inconveniences of the Cons.

Finally, if after listing the Pros and the Cons you are still on the fence as far as changing, ask yourself this question, “What would have to happen in your life to make you commit to making the changes necessary to lose weight?”  Would you need to have a heart attack or develop diabetes?  While you may not be ready to start now, thinking in these terms can help move you along to where you will have the motivation to start.

Let me know what you think!

For Your Health! – Dr. Bob

I just read an article by Madison Park updated on February 15, 2012 on www.CNN.com which is the third in a series on childhood obesity in the United States.  It stated that because of the increasing number of children who are overweight and obese, schools need to get larger desks to accommodate them.  This is done not only to enable them to fit in a desk, but also to try to lessen their embarrassment.  This just validates the findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that a third of the children in the USA are overweight or obese and seventeen percent are obese.  It impacts the effectiveness of children’s car safety seats as well.  I urge you to read the article, “Obese children outgrowing kids’ clothing and furniture.”

What do you think?  Historically, has this always been a problem for some children and was just ignored until recently?  For those of you who were overweight during childhood, how were you treated by your classmates & how did you react?  Please share your comments and experiences.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob

There are a number of reasons why people choose to lose weight.  Beyond these, there are definite health benefits to lowering your BMI into the normal range.  So if you are on the fence about whether to lose weight, the following might help you make up your mind.

Being overweight or obese increases the risk of developing many diseases and conditions including high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, high cholesterol levels, high triglyceride levels, osteoarthritis and gallbladder disease. It even increases the risk for endometrial cancer, breast cancer and colon cancer.

During pregnancy, obesity increases the risk of death for both the baby and the mother and raises the maternal risk of high blood pressure by a factor of ten. The woman who is obese during pregnancy has an increased risk of gestational diabetes and problems with labor and delivery. The infants of these obese women have a higher birthweight which leads to a higher rate of cesarean section with its higher rate of complications. These infants often have low blood sugar which can lead to brain damage and seizures. In addition, these infants have a higher risk of birth defects.

The attainment of a normal weight can lower these risks. A report from the Surgeon General stated that an overweight individual can reduce their risk of heart disease even by just losing 5-15% of their body weight. So there is definitely hope to improve your health risk.

A Simple Formula

Being overweight or obese is due to an energy imbalance. More calories are eaten or consumed than are used in the activities of the body. To lose weight you must do the opposite:

Formula For Weight Loss: Calories Out (Activity) > Calories In (Food Eaten)

Body weight is the result of heredity, environmental factors and individual behaviors. While you can’t change your heredity, you can alter your environment and your individual behaviors. That is where your power lies. You’ll lose the most the fastest when you eat less and burn more. So, an exercise regimen is an important part of the formula. After being cleared by your doctor, you will need to build up your routine, but it will be worth it!  In addition to helping you lose weight, exercise provides other health benefits including improving your cardiovascular fitness.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob