The focus of The EatingWell Diet is on behavior change—permanent behavior change. It’s only through a systematic shaping of everyday common behaviors that you’ll be able to break old habits and learn new ones. In this section, we’ve gathered some of the best behavioral strategies for making permanent weight loss a reality. Take some time to master them, and they’ll become instinctual.
Name Your Triggers
What makes you eat? List your eating cues so you can learn to manage them better.
- Certain places (e.g., Mom’s house)
- Actions (coming home from work)
- Seeing or smelling food
- Boredom
- Emotions (positive and negative)
- Stress
Behavior Modification 101.
Here are some key behavior management techniques experts use to help bring about permanent change: They’ll work for you too!
Behavior Management Techniques
* Conditioning. When you practice two or more behaviors simultaneously—like watching TV and snacking—you can come to associate one with the other. So in order to break the behavior, you need to break the chain of events that lead from one situation to the other—say, outlawing food from the TV room.
* Stimulus Control. Make the environment as conducive as possible to the behavior you’re seeking—e.g., make it easier to do the right thing. Put your sneakers by the front door so you won’t forget your daily walk, or store the ready-to-eat carrots in the front of the fridge so they’re easy to grab for snacking.
* Compensation. Instead of trying to change a behavior that’s contributing to your weight problem change something else in your planning to make room for it. If you don’t want to give up having a regular popcorn fix at your family movie night, compensate by having fewer servings of starchy food earlier that day—or “bank” some extra calories during the week.
Combat “All or Nothing” thinking. Many of us have a tendency to think it black-and-white extremes: chocolate is bad, carrots are good; one slip-up means you’ve fallen off the wagon. This distorted thinking pattern can ultimately harm your efforts to lose weight. Here are tips for getting out of the “all or nothing” thinking trap.
The “All or Nothing” Thinking Trap
Do you have these symptoms?
* Outlawing “bad” foods. Sometimes you’re tempted by a food simply because you’ve sworn off it as “forbidden.” If you can’t resist taking a bite, it’s easy to slide into an all-out breakdown.
* Using words like “always,” “must,” or “never.” Imperatives like this set impossible standards—and set you up for failure when you (inevitably) don’t live up to them. You can’t “always” avoid sweets.
The best way to avoid these traps is to recognize them. Hearing yourself say words like “must” or “never” is a big clue. Make a conscious effort to replace them with more flexible words, like “sometimes.” The more you practice, the easier it will be. Here’s how you might rewrite the script:
All or Nothing Thought: Counter Thought:
I will never eat pizza again. I’ll try to choose alternatives to pizza most of the time,
but when I do have some, I’ll just have one slice and enjoy it.
Don’t beat yourself up. Your internal thoughts about yourself can have a huge impact on your weight loss process. If you treat yourself like a failure, it can become self-fulfilling prophecy. Here’s how to put a positive spin on your negative thinking.
Put a positive spin on negative thinking
If you work to replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you can turn a minor setback into a small victory. For example, instead of gnashing your teeth over gaining 2 pounds, focus on the 10 pounds you already lost and learn from the experience. You’ll need to:
* Be conscious of potential problems
* Identify negative thoughts, training yourself to listen for them
* Counter the negative thoughts with positive counter thoughts.
Use our worksheet, rewrite your script to practice countering negative thoughts with counter thoughts.
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