Simple Cognitive Behavioral Strategies for Weight Loss That Work

By Christy Matta, MA

CBT and Weight LossCognitive behavioral strategies can help people to lose weight and keep it off by changing the way they think and react to food and fitness.

When we think of weight loss, we often think about what we eat. The questions we ask ourselves tend to revolve around how much fat, protein and carbs to eat, or whether beets help take off the pounds.

Diets touted in the media as optimal for weight loss abound, yet we remain a nation with an obesity problem.

What we tend to ignore, when we think of weight loss, is how we are approaching and managing the process of change. As important as it is to focus on what you eat to lose weight and keep it off, it is equally crucial to consider physical activity and maintaining lifestyle changes over time.

How to make behavioral changes, what strategies we use to adhere to new ways of eating and increasing physical activity cannot be ignored.

The problem is that making changes to your lifestyle is hard. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic in this country, nor would estimated health care costs for physical inactivity have been $76.6 billion in 2000 (admittedly an older statistic, but unlikely to have improved significantly in recent years).

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which focuses on changing how you think about yourself, how you act, and circumstances that surround how you act, is an effective treatment for a wide range of problems, including weight loss. Key to it is its focus on making changes and sticking to them.

So, what CBT strategies help people to lose weight and change lifestyle behavior?

1. Goal setting.

If you want to meet the goals you set, consider the following three factors:

the more specific a goal, the more likely you are to achieve it;
ambitious goals are good, but overly ambitious goals can be discouraging;
regular feedback on progress improves outcomes.

When it comes to weight loss, then, a goal to eat fruit for dessert, rather than cake, is specific and can be clearly tracked. Specific goals around exercise or types of food you will eat — behaviors you have control over — are better than goals to improve cholesterol or glucose levels, which may fluctuate for reasons outside your immediate control.

2. Self-monitoring.

Self-monitoring requires that rather than beating yourself up for not attaining a goal, you attend to your own individual experiences. When you self-monitor, you begin to notice barriers, pay attention to physical cues and identify challenges to changing your behavior. Too often we rely on negative self-judgment to stay motivated and, in so doing, fail to recognize and plan for real barriers.

You can think of yourself as a scientist when you self-monitor. You may want to keep a log of your food intake or exercise routines, for example. Doing so will help you to problem-solve when life has gotten busy or you get off track. With greater awareness of your own experience, you are better able to find ways to maintain new behaviors when initial motivation is waning.

3. Feedback and reinforcement.

It can be helpful to get feedback from outside sources. Having a health care provider regularly check in with you can provide an external measuring stick. Feedback about your diet or exercise routine can provide motivation or help you adjust your behavior. Outside feedback also can help you keep your expectations ambitious but realistic.

4. Boosting the belief that you can do it.

When you go into any situation with the attitude that you will surely fail, you greatly reduce your odds of succeeding. It is essential to focus not just on behavior, but also on your perception of your ability to make the changes you want.

The best way to improve your belief in your ability to succeed is actually to have some success. Setting concrete and achievable goals, such as eating fruit at breakfast or replacing an after-dinner TV show with a walk, can build your confidence to set more ambitious goals.

If you’re looking to improve your sense that you can do it, it also can help to look for people in similar circumstances who have made the difficult changes you are trying to make and to surround yourself with people who will encourage your efforts.

5. Incentives.

The use of incentives to support change in behavior has been extensively studied and the concept is now being applied to regaining and maintaining physical health. Examples include companies that offer lower-priced onsite fitness facilities as an incentive to exercise, offering cash incentives and gift cards, providing free health coaching and offering insurance premium discounts to those who meet certain standards.

Adopting a healthier lifestyle isn’t simply a matter of changing the foods in your cupboards. Lifestyle changes take sustained efforts over time and whether we achieve our goals depends on how we make them, our mindset and what we put in place to maintain motivation. Original Article

Related Online Continuing Education Courses

 

Behavioral Strategies for Weight Loss is a 2-hour online continuing education (CE) course that exposes the many thought errors that confound the problem of weight loss and demonstrates how when we use behavioral strategies – known as commitment devices – we change the game of weight loss.

While obesity is arguable the largest health problem our nation faces today, it is not a problem that is exclusive to those who suffer weight gain. For therapists and counselors who work with those who wish to lose weight, there is ample information about diet and exercise; however, one very large problem remains. How do therapists get their clients to use this information? Packed with exercises therapists can use with their clients to increase self-control, resist impulses, improve decision making and harness accountability, this course will not just provide therapists with the tools they need to help their clients change the way they think about weight loss, but ultimately, the outcome they arrive at.

 

In the Zone: Finding Flow Through Positive Psychology is a 2-hour online continuing education (CE) course that offers a how-to guide on incorporating flow into everyday life. According to the CDC, four out of ten people have not discovered a satisfying life purpose. Further, the APA reports that most people suffer from moderate to high levels of stress, and according to SAMSHA, adult prescription medication abuse (primarily to counteract attention deficit disorders) is one of the most concerning health problems today. And while clinicians now have a host of resources to mitigate distress and reduce symptomatology, the question remains: how do clinicians move clients beyond baseline levels of functioning to a state of fulfillment imbued with a satisfying life purpose? The answer may lie in a universal condition with unexpected benefits…This course will explore the concept of flow, also known as optimal performance, which is a condition we are all capable of, yet seldom cultivate.

 

Physical inactivity is among the most critical public health concerns in America today. For healthcare professionals, the creation and implementation of sustainable fitness solutions is a relevant cause. This course will help you become familiar with the physical and psychological rewards involved in the activity of running, identify risks and the most common running injuries – along with their symptoms and most probable causes – and describe strategies that can be used in preventing running injuries and developing a healthy individualized running regimen.

 

This course is a self-instructional module that “walks” readers through the process of replacing their self-defeating weight issues with healthy, positive, and productive life-style behaviors. It moves beyond the “burn more calories than you consume” concept to encompass the emotional aspects of eating and of gaining and losing weight. Through 16 included exercises, you will learn how to identify your self-defeating behaviors (SDBs), analyze and understand them, and then replace them with life-giving actions that lead to permanent behavioral change.* Please note – this course contains common material on eliminating SDBs with Living a Better Life with Chronic Pain: Eliminating Self-Defeating Behaviors

 

Professional Development Resources is a Florida nonprofit educational corporation 501(c)(3) approved to offer continuing education by the American Psychological Association (APA): the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA); the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR); the Alabama State Board of Occupational Therapy; the Florida Boards of Social Work, Mental Health Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy, Psychology & School Psychology, Dietetics & Nutrition, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy Practice; the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker & MFT Board and Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology; the South Carolina Board of Professional Counselors & MFTs; and by the Texas Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists and State Board of Social Worker Examiners. We are CE Broker compliant (all courses are reported within one week of completion.