FITNESS TRAINING: ARTICLES

Evaluating Weight Loss Programs
By John Hoeber, MS, RD

Most popular diet books and programs focus on diet and exercise alone. While those are essential components of weight loss they are just two of nine key behaviors/skills for success. In 1998 the National Institutes of Health reviewed 230 research studies conducted over the past 20 years. They identified nine important components of successful weight loss.

1. Diet –The essential truth of weight loss is that we must burn off more calories than we take in. Reducing calorie intake by watching what we eat is usually necessary. A calorie intake of 500-1000 calories less than what is expended should result in a one to two pound per week loss, anything more is not considered safe.

2. Physical Activity – the common thread among those achieving long term weight loss is physical activity that expends around 2000 calories per week. This includes exercise, recreation, and physical labor.

3. Self-Monitoring – keeping track of eating and exercise will improve adherence to any plan because you can see small successes. Record keeping will also help in problem solving as you can better recognize patterns in behaviors and plan strategies accordingly.

4, Stimulus Control – keep high calorie foods out of the house. This also means avoiding or planning for situations that might get out of control.

5. Social Support – when the social culture changes thee are fewer situations that center around unhealthy eating and exercise patterns and more that reinforce healthy behaviors. Changing your social culture is extremely difficult as it takes changing the status quo in your current relationships with others.

6. Stress Management – managing stress means both reducing stressful situations and altering our reactions to them. Limiting stressful situations takes learning and using the assertive role (rather than the passive or aggressive) in social situations to get what you need. Again, this means changing the status quo in current relationships. When your needs do get trampled and stress mounts, coping strategies such as exercise, meditation, relaxation and the like can help stop stress related eating.

7. Cognitive Restructuring – identifying and replacing false/self defeating beliefs, or unrealistic expectations with positive and powerful thinking. This is perhaps one of the most difficult as it means changing the status quo with the relationship you have with yourself.

8. Contingency Management – reach long term goals by breaking them up into shorter terms and creating a reward system. Rewards can be self monitored or by a friend or professional, and can include praise, monetary, or material rewards.

9. Problem Solving – consists of identifying barriers to appropriate eating and exercise, and then generating, implementing, and evaluating possible solutions. Problem solving applies to all of the skills listed above.

In evaluating a weight loss plan consider these elements carefully. First consider which are your stronger points and which are your weaker points, then find a program that will balance them out. There are very few programs that can address all of the skills simultaneously, but you can supplement your weight loss plan with work from the missing areas. For instance if you are in a strict diet program that focuses on food intake, food records, stimulus control, and rewards, then for optimal results you should work on the other areas: problem solving, cognitive restructuring, stress management, social support and physical activity. Some of this work can be done on your own, but the more difficult issues such as cognitive restructuring would be better facilitated with professional assistance such as a qualified weight loss program or a Therapist.