An article I came across this morning reported on a meta-study of behavioral interventions for exercise and healthy eating. A group of scientists, instead of doing a new actual study, compiled many many other studies, and statistically examined the results of them all combined. I skimmed it, and I suspect there is more to it than this, but the headline is that the single biggest predictor of actual behavior change is for people to engage in "self-monitoring". In other words, if you want to change something, you have to notice if you are actually changing it.
So here's my self-monitoring for this week:
- I did every Couch-to-5K workout exactly as planned. And blogged them, too. Yay me!
- I tracked in WW all my food and exercise. I actually did my breakfast and lunches pretty much on time, but had to do catch-ups on my evenings. It's a very good thing I'm exercising more and logging all that activity because I did not stay within my daily points once all week. And I clearly start jamming food in my mouth at and after dinner. CAREFUL with my evenings - got no more willpower left by then. I try to be brutally honest in my retrospective tracking, and was OK after all on my my weekly point total. My actual commitment is simply to do the logging, and its a bonus if the actual eating is within point totals.
- Eat sitting down: I only scored about 50% on that. See issue above about evenings. Plus, mornings can be a bit of a scramble.
Overall, I'm VERY happy with my self-obsession (I mean self-monitoring) and how I'm modifying my behavior. However, I'm heading into a rough patch as real life spools up from the holiday slow-down. Both home and work will demand more of me for a while. I've got to get food shopping to plan out this coming week's food, or things will get worse.
1 comment:
bet that indicator works for more than health behaviors - for me both confession and therapy work because I have to report out how actions deviated from plan!
I am sadly aware of my capacity for blissful ignorance
Liz
Post a Comment