Behavior Changes and Coping Skills from Memorial Hospital - Weeks 1 through 9

Here are useful tips to help you make the changes necessary to attain your weight loss goals. 

1.      GAIN CONTROL OF WHAT, HOW, AND WHY YOU EAT.

2.      Keep a food diary and identify any stress, negative thoughts, or emotions you are having at the time you are eating. This determines why you eat.

3.      Identify patterns of emotional eating. For example, after a stressful day at work you will tend to over eat to elevate your stress while you are sitting in front of the TV watching your favorite show. We eat when we are stressed, bored, emotional, and/or out of habit. Over eating trends are common at specific times and specific places. 

4.      Plan alternatives and change routines. Instead of watching TV with that bag of chips after a stressful day you could take a walk, take a long bath, phone a friend, write in your journal, or read a book.

5.  Remove tempting foods. Don't buy the foods you are craving when you are stressed, emotional, or bored. Having it in the house or at work spells disaster. When you are sitting down to watch First Coast News on the TV make sure to occupy your hands while you watch. For example, give yourself a material object to play while or chore to do while you are watching. This elevates the necessity for the need for the hand to mouth action.

6.  Know when and how to give in to craving. Stay in control. It is all right to occasionally give in to cravings. Know the nutritional value of the food item and have only one serving size. For example, eat one small cookie and not 3-4, one scoop of ice cream and not double scoop with cone, and eat the single serving of chips not half of the bag. You can not give into your cravings on a daily basis that will result in eating out of control again. It is about moderation and control.    

7.  When you eat, focus on the task at hand. Sit at the table and get up and leave when you are finished.  Eat slow, this will allow time for your stomach to tell your brain that you are full.  Then stop when you are full/satisfied but not stuffed.

8.  Plan nutritious meals and snacks.  Do not nibble while you are preparing meals.  This allows you to subconsciously continue to eat and will result in overeating for the day.

9.  Reward yourself with non-food rewards when you reach small goals.  For example, a new book, go to see a movie, get a massage, or get a manicure or pedicure.  Rewarding yourself will increase the likelihood that you will maintain your new healthy habits.

10.  Make a "Healthy Refrigerator."  This is also known as you can not eat what you do not stock.  Get rid of the junk food.  If it is not in the house, you can not eat it.

11.  Habits are formed by repetition. For example, snacking while watching TV becomes a habit until it finally becomes a part of who you are. More examples are: going to the movies and eating popcorn and drinking a coke, eating ice cream at night before bed, snack after school/work, or eating while you are cooking. We need to break these habits and replace them with other activities and form new healthy habits/routines.

12.  Certain moods and circumstances causes us to eat when we are not hungry: anger, stress, boredom, happiness, sad, fatigue, loneliness, anxiety, nervousness, and/or mad. Start identify those causes and focus on modifying that behavior. You can replace cause with an activity, hobby, and/or entertainment of your choice instead of finding comfort or relief in food.

13.  Resisting temptation is extremely difficult.  The resistance gets easier over time.  If you keep resisting temptation, before long it will become a good new habit.

14.  The solution to overeating: Serve your food on a small plate and leave one or two bits left on the plate. This will make it easier for you to stop when you are feel full and allow you to realize that you do not have to eat everything on your plate. It will be easier for you to leave food. Thus reduce the temptation of overeating. 

15.  Dining out at a restaurant: when your meal comes out immediately ask the wait staff to bring you a to go box and put 2/3's of the meal in the box and place to the side.  Eat the remaining 1/3 of your meal. If having the to go box still on the table and that creates too much of a temptation then have the wait staff remove the box entirely. This also elevates overeating.

16.  Identify your most vulnerable times for snacking and plan a defense before temptation strikes.

17.  Get rid of the clothes that no longer fit you.  This keeps you from falling into the "comfort zone" as you will immediately notice that your new clothes are snug if you gain weight.

18.  At meal time do not serve family style.  You will be more apt to over eat and not measure the appropriate amount of food.  The old saying your  eyes are bigger than your stomach.

 

If you need some help staying motivated, keep some of these phrases in mind during the week.  These inspirational quotes & phrases were provided by Pam Turney, RN, BSN at Memorial Hospital Bariatric Surgery Center:

Nothing happens until I make it happen.
- Scott Wilson

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

They are able because they think they are able.
- Virgil

We all have ability. The difference is how we use it.
- Stevie Wonder

The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed.  - Nelson Boswell

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.  - Jim Ryun

If you doubt you can accomplish something, then you can't accomplish it.  You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.  - Rosalyn Carter

A desire can overcome all objections and obstacles. - Gunderson

Motivation comes from within. -Author Unknown 

You have a very powerful mind that can make anything happen as long as you keep yourself centered.  - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it.  - Gale Sayers

Never go backward. Attempt, and do it with all your might. Determination is power.  - Charles Simmons

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.  - C. Malesherbes

Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.    - Francis of Assisi

Don't limit yourself.  Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do.  You can go as far as your mind lets you.  What you believe, you can achieve.  - Mary Kay Ash

Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act.  There is no other route to success. - Stephen A. Brennan

Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination. - Fitzhugh Dodson

It's not whether you get knocked down.  It's whether you get up again.  - Vince Lombardi

Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them.  You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have.  - Norman Vincent Peale

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them. - Michel de Montaigne

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. - Henry David Thoreau

To be successful you must accept all challenges that come your way.  You can't just accept the ones you like.  - Mike Gafka

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.  - Robert Collier

We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.  - Helen Keller

There are costs and risks to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.  - John F. Kennedy

If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis D. Brandeis

No matter how difficult the challenge, when we spread our wings of faith and allow the winds of God's spirit to lift us, no obstacle is too great to overcome. - Roy Lessin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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