Behaviour Modification Ideas for Weight Management

Useful tips to help control your weight.

Control Your Home Environment.

• Eat only while sitting down at the kitchen or dining room table. Do not eat while watching television, reading, cooking, talking on the phone, standing at the refrigerator or working on the computer.
• Unless you are preparing a meal, stay out of the kitchen.
• Keep tempting unhealthy foods out of sight or don’t buy them to avoid keeping them at home.
• Have healthy low-calorie foods visible and ready to eat.

Control Your Work Environment.

• Do not eat at your desk or keep unhealthy tempting snacks at your desk.
• If you get hungry between meals, plan healthy snacks and bring them with you to work.
• Go for a walk during short breaks and after your lunch meal.
• Reduce habit of nibbling on food by drinking water or chewing sugar-free gum (consider individual tolerance of artificial sweeteners).
• Do not work through meals, skipping meals slows down metabolism and may result in overeating at the next meal.
• If food is available for special occasions, either pick the healthiest item, nibble on healthy snacks brought from home, don't have anything offered, choose one option and have a small amount, or have a low-calorie beverage

Control Your Mealtime Environment.

• Keep serving dishes off the table to avoid ‘seconds’.
• Make your meals look as attractive as possible, the more colourful the more appetising. Fill half of your plate with a variety of vegetables/salad, a quarter with lean protein and a quarter with starchy carbohydrate.
• Use smaller plates, bowls and glasses. A smaller portion will look large when it is in a little dish.
• Save leftovers instead of finishing it off, portion it in to individual containers, label for another meal/snack and refrigerate/freeze immediately.
• Do not finish off children’s meals

Make a Plan.

• Try to set a regular time for meals and snacks.
• Create a weekly meal plan, involve who you live with.
• Devise a shopping list to cater for all meal ingredients, snacks if needed, and drinks Shopping.
• Try to shop for food when you are NOT hungry or tired.
• Stick to your precise shopping list.
• If you must have an unhealthy tempting food as a treat, buy individual-sized packages and try to find a lower-calorie alternative

•  Read food labels and compare products to help you make the healthiest choices.
• Use online grocery shopping if you find it reduces temptations to buy unhealthy foods

Whilst cooking.

• Don't snack while cooking meals.
• Chew a piece of sugar-free chewing gum whilst cooking.
• Have less than a teaspoon if you taste test your food.

Eating.

• Consider if you need to employ appetite control techniques, e.g. replace eating with another activity that you will not associate with food.
• Consider if you need to employ craving management techniques, e.g. wait 20 minutes before eating something you are craving.
• Eat slowly, chew your food thoroughly before swallowing, put your utensil down between mouthfuls.
• Pause for 1 – 2 minutes at least once during a meal/snack to reflect and assess hunger. If you feel full stop eating. Remember it takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to send a message to your brain that it is full. Don't let fake hunger make you think you need more.
• Concentrate on enjoying your food, be mindful.
• Do nothing else while eating, avoid distractions, avoid eating on the move

Eating Out and Social Eating.

• Plan to be mindful about what you will eat and drink.
• Do not arrive over-hungry. Consider whether a healthy snack beforehand would improve your self-control.
• Do not skip other meals in the day to save room for the special event.
• Try to fill up on healthy foods, such as vegetables, salad and fruit, and eat smaller portions of the high-calorie foods.
• Limit high-calorie drinks such as alcoholic beverages and sugary drinks.
• Don't overeat because you do not want to waste food. Ask for a doggie bag to take extra food home to have as a meal the next day.
• Ask for salad dressing, gravy or high-fat sauces on the side. Dip the tip of your fork in the dressing before each bite to help reduce the total amount you consume.
• If bread is served, ask for only one piece. Try it plain without butter or oil, or try it with balsamic vinegar for dipping.

At a Friend's House.

• Offer to bring a dish, appetiser or dessert that is low in calories.
• Serve yourself small portions or tell the host that you only want a small amount.
• Stand or sit away from the snack table, stay away from the kitchen or stay busy if you are near the food.
• Practice polite ways of declining food

Keep a Diet Diary.

• Time and place of eating.
• Type and amount of food.
• Who else (if anyone) was present.
• How you felt before eating, how you felt after eating.
• Activities you were doing at the same time.
• Patterns in your eating.
• Levels of motivation.
• Use your diary to identify problem areas

Exercise Well.

• Find a form of exercise you enjoy, then it’s a hobby.
• Make exercise a priority and a planned activity in the day.
• Build walking in to your daily routine e.g. walk the entire or part of the commute to work, park further away from your destination, get off the bus stop earlier.
• Get an exercise buddy. Go for a walk with a colleague during one of your breaks. Go to the gym, cycle, run or take a walk with a friend.
• Always take the stairs all of the way or at least part of the way to your floor.
• If you have a desk job, walk around the office frequently.
• Do leg lifts while sitting at your desk.
• Do something outside on the weekends like going for a hike or a bike ride.
• Monitor physical activity and exercise levels using a dairy, pedometer or other fitness trackers

Have a Healthy Attitude.

• Make a healthy lifestyle your priority
• Be realistic. Have a goal to achieve a healthier you, not necessarily the lowest weight or ideal weight based on calculations or tables.
• Focus on a healthy eating style, not on dieting. Dieting usually lasts for a short amount of time and rarely produces long-term success.
• Think long term. You are developing new healthy behaviours to follow next month, in a year and in a decade.
• Keep a record of your thoughts about self and weight. Challenge negative self-talk (“always” or “never”) and replace with positive thoughts (“can” and “do”). Stay positive, learn to love and accept who you are, then visualise the new you.
• Follow the 80/20 rule to avoid being super strict all of the time or depriving yourself of your favourite ‘treat foods’, which could instead be planned in moderation, e.g. one treat per week.
• Focus on your progress and do not dwell on your shortcomings.
• Celebrate achievements. Try non-food rewards to stimulate motivation. Decide which behaviours to reward. The size of the reward should reflect the size of your achievement. Gradually make rewards more difficult to achieve

• Change it up to avoid excess repetition as can get tedious. Experiment with new healthy foods and re-jig fitness regimes.
• Be accountable. Find an ‘accountability partner’ that keeps you on track, talk about your goals and how you’re getting on. Keep diet diaries. Track your exercise.
• Sustain it. Keep it going. List positive changes a new healthy lifestyle has brought you, e.g. energy levels, mobility, health, how you look and feel. Look at your list every time motivation starts to waver. Keep motivating photos or reminders somewhere you can see daily

Maintain Plenty of Distractions to Plug the Gap

• Make a list or fill a hat with ideas of day-to-day activities, hobbies, new skills or hobbies to learn or rediscover.
• Really concentrate on one at a time, become preoccupied with it

Relapse management

• View lapses as opportunities to learn more about behaviour change.
• Identify triggers for lapsing. What happened? Where were you? Who were you with? What were your feelings and thoughts at the time?
• Plan in advance how to prevent lapses. When is this likely to happen again? What can you do differently next time?
• Generate a list of coping strategies in high-risk situations.
• Do not automatically give in to urges to eat outside of normal eating times.
• Distinguish hunger from cravings.
• Make a list of activities to do which make it harder to give in to cravings.
• Confront or ignore cravings.