Methods for Change

As we age and slow down, we need to eat a little less to protect us from weight gain. That can be a challenge for many of us. We are a creature of habit and find change hard.

We must avoid repeated poor choice eating habits that cause us to exceed the food intake required by our body. To maintain our weight the calories we consume each day should be equal to our TDEE, our “Total Daily Energy Expenditure”. To lose weight at a slow steady rate, we should consume an amount 100-200 calories below our TDEE, each and every day. We should also try to maintain our physical activity level as long as possible to avoid muscle atrophy and loss of muscle mass. Taking care of these two aspects of our lifestyle will maximize our longevity if we continuously and progressively introduce changes to compensate for the normal changes that occur as we age. Changing eating habits in particular is not an easy thing to do. We all have some that border on addictions where the mere sight of a product can still trigger urgent cravings even though we have not eaten it for years. A food addiction can be as bad as nicotine.

When we find ourselves with what we know is a poor habit, and where we are finding change difficult, Pre-Emptive Actions, and, Feed Forward Thinking, are two methods that can be used to help effect change.

A Pre-emptive Action,

“is an action that is done to prevent something from happening, especially something that will harm you.”

This method is self explanatory and needs little explanation other than a few examples.

Examples:

• Don’t buy poor food choices at the supermarket. i.e. Don’t stock your freezer with pizza and pies.
• Eliminate or minimize fats, cheese’s etc. Buy “light versions” if you must.
• Purchase artificial sweeteners instead of white sugar.
• Take a friend to eat out with you for dinner and commit with each other to share a single starter and a single main course before entering a restaurant.
• Don’t stock up on two for one fast food coupons and remove all meal deals from your cell phone.
• Join an exercise program with a fixed schedule and organize extra time with friends exercising, walking, jogging, golfing etc. to avoid the I’m too tired to exercise syndrome.
• Leave the table and walk as soon as you finish eating lunch, to prevent that extra helping or ice cream you don’t need.

Feed Forward Thinking,

“is a method of training ourselves that imprints into our memory, a desired future behavior, or a successful path to a goal.”

By repeated mental visualization, imagining ourselves doing something differently, we can reprogram ourselves to do something better in the future. Try not to dwell on negatives and what we did badly in the past. We are working towards a new you and a new way of life. Look upon Feed Forward Thinking as recording mini “Instagram” videos in our minds, living and doing the things as our new lifestyle should be,featuring the better choices we should take, and storing them ready for instant recall. They need to be imprinted deep enough to challenge the memories of our old poor habits and food addictions.

These new Feed Forward Thinking created choices are usually in stark contrast to what we have done in the past. Only imagining and then doing the right thing again and again can imprint the new improved lifestyle choice until it becomes a habit and erases the old. These stored memories and solutions will make good decision making and sticking to goals, ever easier, the more we do them. Taking the time to reward yourself well for every time you make a better choice also helps.

Example

• When you are relaxed and in a place well away from the coffee shop, close your eyes and picture yourself enjoying fresh cool water with a slice of lemon on a beach. How refreshing and thirst quenching it is.
• Burn that thought deep into your memory.
  The next time you are about to enter the coffee shop just bring back that thought, you decide outside you need a cool drink with your small low calorie healthy menu sandwich.
• When in the coffee shop up at the counter, you are faced with the smell of coffee and the choice of an extra-large sweet latte coffee, or your healthy choice water or low-cal cold drink from the cooler, the images of the cool drink on the beach stored in your mind is what will save you. In that instance the Feed Forward Thinking placed thoughts and images can make the difference.
• Then as you walk out save your elation in having run the gauntlet of the latte give yourself a success high. Remember that good feeling too.
• If you are a caffeine junkie like many, feeling you may have to store the smell and taste of black unsweetened coffee in your mind and down play the sugar by adding thoughts that the sugar is sickly. Different things will work for different people.

Homework:

Try posting some of your personal life weight loss, activity and motivational challenges in the comments below together with any pre-emptive and or feed forward thinking actions that you have applied successfully.
OR
Request suggestions for solutions to challenges you still have to overcome.

Using other’s experiences can makes these methods especially Feed Forward Thinking even more useful.

Try them both out and you will soon see how both methods work for you.