week five: gaining control

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before you start this weekreview your goals• Did you achieve your goals?

• Remember to treat yourself to a non-food reward each time you achieve your goal.

• If you did not manage to achieve your goals, were they realistic for you?

• Did you manage to review the food labels of products you regularly buy?

review your food diary• Are you eating regularly? This is the best way to keep hunger at bay.

• What about the balance of foods? Does it match the eatwell guide? Did you choose healthier versions within each food group?

• What quantities are you eating? Does it match the recommended number of portions? Don’t be tempted to consume less.

• Are you drinking enough fluids?

Tip: Planning your week’s meals will enable you to stay on track and helps with your shopping list/s. Try to stick to your list and avoid special offers which tempt you off plan.

weekfive

Well done! You are at week 5 and have covered a lot of the practical elements of how to effectively lose weight.

For many people there is more to changing habits than just knowing what to do. This week is all about what psychologists and behaviour change experts know helps people to really take control.

This week you will look into some practical and effective tools for:

dealing with cravingsmanaging lapsesidentifying your triggersdealing with food persuaders keeping positive and challenging unhelpful thinking

This information has been reproduced with the kind permission of Weight Concern (University College London 2016).

are you in tune with hunger?

True hunger occurs when you haven’t eaten for hours, or you have not eaten enough to satisfy your body’s needs.

A craving is a strong desire for a particular food (usually something sweet or savoury such as chocolate or crisps) when you are not necessarily hungry.

Dealing with cravingsAsk yourself on a scale of 1-10 how hungry you are.

Urges and cravings can be seen as a wave that comes upon you. The wave builds more and more as if it can engulf you. You feel overwhelmed and that you have to relieve these feelings by eating. However, the wave, your craving, can’t stay high forever – it has to subside.

It may be helpful to think of yourself as a surfer riding up and down the wave.

As you do, remind yourself that these strong feelings will subside within 15-30 minutes, even with no intervention. But there are things you can do to counter the feelings:

3 Wait 20 minutes first3 Distract yourself by doing something else that gives you pleasure

For successful weight loss it is important that you can recognise the difference between hunger and a craving. Sometimes we do things we don’t intend

to do, like eating a lot more than we planned, eating when we are not hungry or eating for comfort. It is important not to let this start a chain of events, where one slip leads to a bigger fall…A brief slip-up is called a ‘lapse’. Don’t expect to be perfect. Slip-ups are going to happen.A lapse can provide you with an opportunity to learn about the things that trigger unhealthy behaviour and help you to identify high risk situations.A lapse doesn’t mean that all is lost. It is important to get back on track as soon as possible. If left unchecked a lapse can grow into series of lapses triggering a relapse. A relapse is a return to your previous habits.

What to do if you have a lapse?Memorise these steps:3 STOP doing what you are doing and remove yourself from the situation3 RECOGNISE that one lapse is not the end of the world and don’t trap yourself with negative thinking3 LEARN by thinking about what was happening around you, and inside you3 PLAN what to do to stop your slip becoming a fall, and put your plan into action now3 BE POSITIVE and carry on

managing lapsesOur thoughts, feelings, and being in certain situations can strongly influence how we behave.

My Weight Matters | week five: gaining controlMy Weight Matters | week five: gaining control

identifying triggersTriggers are situations or emotions that may lead to unplanned or comfort eating. These will be different for different people.

Avoid, Distract, ResistHow to deal with triggers

Avoid: Can you avoid the trigger?

Example: The sight and smell of a fish and chip shop triggers you on the way home so you find an alternative route that avoids passing by it.

Distract: Find something to do to distract yourself.

Example: You had a really stressful day at work and you are tempted to buy takeaway. Instead you go out for a walk to take your mind off things.

Resist: Practice learning to resist in the presence of a trigger

Example: A friend offers you a slice of cake which you know will take you off plan if you

accept. Practice how to say no and to be able to politely and confidently refuse. (See next section)

Some possible triggers• Seeing, hearing or smelling food • Shopping• Preparing food• Loneliness• Money worries• Worries at work• Arguments • Being tired• Having nothing to do • Feeling unhappy

Think about the situations, emotions or thoughts that trigger unplanned eating or comfort eating for you

food persuaders

For example, a friend or colleague might try to persuade you to eat some cake you hadn’t planned on eating. If other people’s requests for you to eat unplanned food are disrupting your goals it’s worth thinking why this may be happening.

Ask yourself if their desire for you to eat their food is more important than your desire to lose weight? How bad is their disappointment likely to be?

Your weight loss goals are important. Would you find it hard to refuse for religious, medical or ethical reasons? Probably not, so why do we find it hard to resist for weight loss reasons?

It is all too easy for what might seem like isolated incidents like this to become quite regular occurrences. We need to make sure they are isolated incidents so that this doesn’t lead to a more serious relapse.

Top tips to help you say “No”• When you say “No” remember that you are refusing a request not rejecting a person. Saying “No” does not have to mean a rejection. Much depends on the way you decline.• Try to take full responsibility for your refusal. Say “I can’t” when this is true,

or “I don’t want to” when this is how you feel, or “it doesn’t sit well with me” if the request is not appropriate or makes you feel uncomfortable.• Say “No” with an explanation but don’t turn this into an excessive apology or excuse. You could make them aware you are following a healthy balanced diet.• Ask yourself if you are over-estimating the difficulty the other person will have in accepting your refusal. If you are able to express your feelings openly and honestly, you are also allowing others to express themselves.• Acknowledge your feelings. A simple statement like, “I feel guilty” or “I find this difficult”, allows you to express your feelings honestly. For example: “I feel bad about not taking you up on this, but I don’t want to eat this right now.” • Remember that even if you said yes when on reflection you should have said “No” you have the right to change your mind.

Think about situations where you find it difficult to say no to offers of food and drink. Plan for how can you handle these situations. What might you say? (Check: can you see yourself saying this?)

Another challenge you may experience can be other people trying to persuade you to eat things that can take you off your healthy eating plan.

My Weight Matters | week five: gaining controlMy Weight Matters | week five: gaining control

keep positive and challenge unhelpful thinking

Psychologists have shown us how to make the link between our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Once we start to identify why we behave in a certain way, for example, eating in response to feeling anxious, we can start to change that chain of events into something more positive.Unhelpful thoughts need to be challenged in order to change the outcome!Unhelpful thoughts are often an important factor in whether a ‘slip-up’ or a ‘lapse’ becomes a fall, or a full-blown relapse (i.e. going back to old ways

altogether). On the next page there are a number of points to get you thinking about what unhelpful thoughts might be, and how they can get in your way. Try turning your unhelpful thoughts into more helpful ways of looking at things. People are often surprised to find that if they practice helpful thoughts and actively challenge negative thinking it is possible to learn how to think differently about food, weight and physical activity. In time this can become a habitual way of thinking which will make it easier for you to stick to your plans.

Making changes to our lifestyle can be really difficult. We’ve often spent a long time building up bad habits or thinking and behaving in a way which is unhealthy for both our mind and body, so it is important to realise that making long-lasting changes will take time and effort in the first instance.

Unhelpful Thinking Traps!

1. Over-generalisingYou are struggling to stick to your healthy eating plan and think, “This always happens to me. Why do other people never have this problem?” This kind of thinking is defeatist. How about a more realistic appraisal such as “It’s a challenge”. Nearly everyone who tries to change their diet has had an experience like this. I will only make myself feel worse by fretting”.

2. Over-personalisingIf a friend ignores you in the street, do you instantly ask yourself “I wonder how I’ve offended him” and not look for other possible explanations? There could be many reasons, so try not to personalise without any concrete evidence.

3. ‘All-or-nothing’ thinkingDo you think that, because you are not very good at something, you must therefore by absolutely hopeless at it? Remember that things are not usually all black or all white, so make sure you look for the shades of grey in the middle.

4. Jumping to conclusions without evidenceSomeone comments on something you are eating and your automatic thought is “They’re thinking oh no here he goes again – on another diet”. If you find yourself jumping to conclusions like this, ask yourself “What is the evidence? What other possible explanations are there?”

5. Catastrophizing Do you regret a mistake and then go over the top with remorse? If you miss a deadline, do you tell yourself: “My boss will think this is what I’m generally like. She’ll never think well of me again. I’ve blown it completely”. This isn’t a balanced way of thinking.

6. Disowning any positivesWhen someone admires your outfit, do you say to her “You always say such nice things” rather than “Thanks. It is nice, isn’t it? I really like it too”. Or when you get praise for a job well done, do you think that without the help you received, you would never have made it? Or do you say to yourself “Haven’t I done well? Good on me, I’ve managed it against all the odds”?

7. Saying you should or must do something when you could choose not to?Do you habitually give yourself an ultimatum in the form of “I should”, “I must”, “Always” or “Everything”? If you do this a lot, then stop to question yourself. Why should you? Is it helpful and to whom? Things are not always so clear cut. Often it is a case of “It would be nice if I could”, or “I wonder whether this is possible”, and “Sometimes” and “Some things”.

My Weight Matters | week five: gaining controlMy Weight Matters | week five: gaining control

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My Weight Matters | week two: portion sizes

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week five action check-list

Now set yourself 1 or 2 goals for this week. Please record these in your goal log Monitor what you eat and drink using

a food diary

Monitor your level of physical activityMake a “trigger” list of things that cause you to eat off plan. How do you plan to deal with these?Continue to use the meal planner and shopping lists

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You can find a printable food diary and the link to the on-line food diary in

the ‘weight loss tools’ section on the main page.Find out more about Weight Concern’s work in tackling obesity:

www.weightconcern.org.uk

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This week you have focused on:

reviewing your food & activity diary and your goal log

dealing with cravingsmanaging lapses

identifying your triggersdealing with food persuaders

keeping positive and challenging unhelpful thinking

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