Behavior Modification Dieting

The words behavior modification conjures up a mass of images that range from simply changing one's habits to cruel experiments in which animals are shocked. Many books and movies have depicted behavior modification as a menacing, diabolical force with which experimenters change the personalities of their "subjects." This depiction is largely a myth, the province of the fiction writer's trade. Understanding our daily patterns and altering them can go a long way in dieting and weight reduction.

In fact, negative conditioning, with the prompt imposition of unpleasant consequences for calorie consumption, tends to be counterproductive in the long run. Most people steer away from unpleasant methods. The approach to obesity that comes closest to this negative conditioning is gastric-bypass surgery, described in the since it leads to cramping, vomiting, weakness, and pain when large meals, especially of sugar, are consumed.

Behavior modification means new lifestyle patterns
New habits-new and enduring patterns of eating behavior and physical activity-are the key to permanent weight reduction. Weight loss lasts only as long as calorie intake is curtailed and/or energy expenditure is enhanced. To make lasting changes in eating behavior and physical activity is the aim of behavior-modification treatment for obesity.
To achieve a lasting solution to obesity, behavior-modification therapy teaches people to:[list][*]eat in a controlled way[*]continue to exercise and stay physically active[*]eat food that is not packed with calories (has low fat and alcohol content)[*]assert themselves in eating situations[*]enlist peer support or family support, and maintain it[*]change their thoughts and attitudes about food, appetite, and hunger[*]free themselves from environmental cues to eat[*]avoid eating for emotional reasons[*]use problem-solving techniques to eliminate excessive eating[*]contract with themselves to achieve both short- and long-term goals[*]enjoy being thinner[*]take responsibility for monitoring their eating and exercise behavior for a long period of time, long after they have achieved a normal body weight

If you can learn to do these things, you are likely to succeed at long-term weight control. Behavior modification, like surgery and other forms of obesity treatment, is still evolving. New strategies to improve eating and exercise behavior are constantly being tried. Although some of the techniques are successful for some overweight people, more research is still needed to determine which strategies are most helpful, and to what extent success depends on the qualities of particular therapists.

Behavior modification is neither magic nor a panacea. It is simply a systematic, problem-solving approach to changing calorie intake and output. Much of it could be called "common sense"-that uncommon quality which enables you, for example, to keep cookies out of the house if you can't resist eating them and need to lose weight.

All of the techniques of behavior modification depend upon becoming aware of one's own eating patterns and consciously trying to alter them. Underlying the approach is the fact that the cerebral cortex of thought and deliberate decision, can and does affect eating behavior and energy expenditure.

Alternative behaviors for dieting
There is an abundance of behavioral modification techniques for dieting. They supposedly are based on using a tested scientific approach.

The first technique for change is substitution-do something else. If you are aware that you have an urge to open a box of cookies, what can you do other than eat? Well, you can throw the cookies over the back fence, step on them, and walk around the block, call a friend, or take a shower. If you have worked out in advance a list of behaviors that will interfere with that cookie-box-opening behavior, the chances are greater that you can avoid those extra calories. The list must be thought out in advance; otherwise you won't have time to think, and the urge to eat the cookie will win. It's best to select alternative behaviors that are incompatible with eating.

In searching for such alternative behaviors, think of four categories of substitute behaviors. The first category consists of those activities that are pleasant, such as taking a nap, or watching a movie. The second category comprises necessary activities, and includes balancing your checkbook or doing the laundry. The third category consists of alternative activities that are useful or healthful, such as gardening, taking a shower, jogging, or going for a walk. The fourth is simply to interpose time. For example, you can set a timer for ten minutes, after which, if the urge to eat is still present, you can plan to have a small but, it is to be hoped, satisfying snack that you control as opposed to being the passive receptor of a longer chain of increasingly intense events that propel you to eat without that control.

You might try making a list to help you combat the urges to eat that pop up in everyday life. Another good time to use this type of list is when you have identified a behavior chain and need to have some "chain-breaking" alternatives on hand. It is not a list to make and then put away in the drawer, but one to be carried with you into the "heat of battle" with calories and temptations.

Stimulus control for dieting
Reminders to eat surround us all: advertisements, the sight of other people eating, the smell of food, or a chocolate on the bedside table of a hotel room, to name only a few. Stimulus control for obesity treatment is based on the premise that many overweight people are easily influenced by stimuli, cues, or reminders in the environment that say, “EAT!” By looking at the events in the environment immediately prior to excessive eating, you can often figure out cause and effect. Sometimes they are surprising. It does help to be aware of these behaviors so they can help with your food interventions.

Behavioral modification in perspective
Among the various treatment approaches to weight control, behavior modification focuses on forming the new habits that are necessary to maintain a reduced weight. Although the method's original researchers envisioned its use as a cure for obesity, what evolved through methodical research was instead a method for modest weight loss and weight maintenance.

The promise of behavior-modification techniques is that they may produce lasting results. A study that compared behavior modification to drug treatment showed that people treated with drugs lost more weight, but that those treated with behavior modification succeeded in keeping more of the weight off.

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