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“Lose 10 pounds in 10 days!” “Lose weight without dieting or exercise!”
“Burn fat while you sleep!”
Sound familiar? How many times have you seen claims like these plastered on magazine covers,
stapled to telephone poles, or prominently displayed on nutrition product labels? Can losing
weight really be that easy? Well, no. But spending money on weight-loss products can be very easy
indeed. Americans spend up to $50 billion a year on gimmicks, programs, and pills. Truth is, real
weight loss takes time. It also takes what some of us hate the
most—change.
Stage fright
According to behavioral scientists, real behavior change is a process with a series of stages.
Some people go through each stage several times before finally making the desired change. Others
become “stuck” in a stage and will stay there for years, perhaps a lifetime, without making any change at all. Take a look at the stages of motivation with relation to exercise listed below to see where you fall:
- Pre-contemplation. People in this stage have no desire to exercise and have no
intention to change.
- Contemplation. People in this stage are not exercising but believe they should be.
In their mind, they plan to start exercising sometime within the next six months.
- Preparation. These people are fairly serious about starting an exercise program and
have taken a few steps toward that goal. However, they have not established a regular pattern
of exercise yet.
- Action. These people are exercising on a regular basis, but most likely have been
doing so for fewer than six months.
- Maintenance. This is the stage where the successful “changers” are. They’ve
maintained a behavior change for more than six months. They are usually the people who
wouldn’t know what it’s like not to exercise.
To lose weight and keep it off, the goal is to reach the Maintenance stage, for both exercise
and following a healthful diet. For some helpful hints on how to make the journey from one
stage to the next, see The Science of Change.
The online solution
Congratulations! If you’ve read this far, you’ve entered the Preparation
stage—reading this article and thinking about a course of action are the tip-offs. The
Action and Maintenance stages are just around the corner. Your tool for success at this
point may be a surprise: the Internet. That’s right, logging on may actually help you to
lose weight.
Internet-based weight management programs can be very useful in helping you make the lifestyle
changes you want to make. Researchers at Brown University School of Medicine recently reported
that subjects assigned to an Internet-based behavioral therapy program, aimed at treating mild
to moderate obesity, lost more weight than subjects assigned to a “control” group.
Participants of the Internet-based program submitted daily food diaries that listed their
calorie and fat intake as well as their daily exercise activity. They received feedback from a
behavior therapist via e-mail each week and received social support from an online bulletin
board. After three months, participants of the Internet-based program lost an average of 9 pounds
and reduced their waist measurement by an average of 2.5 inches while subjects in the control
group shed only an average of 3 pounds and 1 inch from their waist.
The authors of this study theorized that a combination of Internet-based support plus behavior
therapy improve the chances for weight loss. These findings are in keeping with what other
studies have found: Increasing awareness of problem behaviors (by keeping a food diary for
instance) and gaining support from others are useful techniques for reaching the Maintenance
stage of change.
So here’s the good news—now that dieters can employ these behavioral techniques
via the Internet, lifestyle changes may not be so difficult after
all.
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The Science of Change |
According to Dr. James Prochaska, a leading behavioral scientist and co-author of
Changing for Good (Avon, 1994), there are several techniques that will help you
move from one stage to the next. For instance, Contemplators can move into the
Preparation stage more quickly by making a pros-and-cons list regarding the behavior
they’d like to change, using the following basic categories:
- Consequences of change to self
- Consequences of change to others
- Reactions of self as a result of change
- Reactions of others as a result of change
Sounds confusing? It doesn’t have to be. Here's an example from Mary, mother of
two. She wants to lose weight but can’t get motivated to exercise. |
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Effects |
Pros of Exercising |
Cons of Exercising |
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Consequences to Self |
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Have more energy |
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Have more confidence |
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Sleep better |
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Play better tennis |
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Prevent heart disease |
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Prevent cancer |
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Lower blood pressure |
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Firm up muscles |
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Lose weight |
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Takes time |
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Health club is expensive |
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Embarrassment (in the beginning) |
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Consequences to Others |
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Set good example for kids |
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Be around for grandkids |
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Reactions of Self |
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Increased self-esteem, confidence |
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Feeling of accomplishment |
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I’ll be embarrassed if I fail |
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Reaction of Others |
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Spouse will like how I look |
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Spouse will be glad we can do more things together |
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Family will see me as healthier |
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Family will be proud of me |
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(Adapted from Changing For Good, Avon Books, 1994.) |
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