The F Approach to Weight Control

If you have been on countless diets without permanent success, you may be interested in the LEARN Program for Weight Control by Kelly Brownell, Yale University obesity research expert. This self-help manual is one of the most successful and most thoroughly tested lifestyle change programs for weight management.

LEARN stands for the five key components that Brownell believes are essential for permanent weight control: lifestyle, exercise, attitude, relationships, and nutrition.

Inspired by these principles, here are some tips to help you develop the “skillpower” to lose weight. I call it “The F Approach to Weight Control”.

First things first.
The very first thing that needs to be done, according to Brownell, is to find out if you have the commitment to lose weight. He suggests asking the following questions to determine weight loss readiness. Remember this is not a diet but a lifestyle plan for long-lasting behavioral change. Only you can tell whether the sacrifices you have to make will be worth the benefits.
· How committed am I, not just today, but for the months ahead?
· Can I handle the stress of making changes in eating and exercise and still manage other responsibilities?
· Will I feel deprived or upset when making different food choices? Or will I feel challenged?
· When I stumble, can I recover my balance?
· Am I willing to face and deal with difficult emotions like anxiety and loneliness instead of eating over them?
· Can I find ways to celebrate other than eating?
· Can I comfort myself after a difficult day without resorting to food?
· Do I have realistic goals?
· Am I willing to exercise regularly? For the rest of my life? With whatever disabilities, handicaps, financial or time limitations I encounter?
· Can I find exercise that entertains me? Helps me make new friends? That relaxes me and lifts my mood? One that creates more energy for me?

Forgive yourself.
Very few people ride a bike perfectly the first time they try but if they keep on getting up every time they fall down, they can become a Lance Armstrong. So forgive yourself when you fail and give in to a nighttime binge. This doesn’t mean you are a failure who will never lose weight. It just means that changing old habits takes time and effort.

Fix what goes wrong.
Instead of becoming frustrated and giving up when you fail, analyze what went wrong and take the necessary steps to fix it. If you went on a midnight snack spree because you skipped dinner, make sure to have something to eat in the early evening to prevent another incident.

Figure out your food triggers.
Only you can figure out what triggers your overeating. You might be using food as your reward for a stressful day. Perhaps you associate watching television with snacking.
A refrigerator in your room that is stocked with high calorie treats could be what prompts your late night eating. Removing the ref or changing the contents to healthy low-calorie snacks could be the solution to your out-of-control snacking.

Forecast future obstacles.
Look ahead to the future and predict what obstacles you are likely to face in changing your eating and exercise habits. If you have been dieting on and off for many years, you are probably already quite familiar with these roadblocks. Identify high-risk situations that could derail your from your goal. List them down and decide how you are going to deal with them ahead of time. Forewarned is forearmed.

Fit in exercise.
Losing weight is half the battle won. The other half is maintaining your weight loss for life. According to an analysis of 25 years worth of weight loss studies, the best method for weight maintenance is exercise.

The 4,000-plus members of the National Weight Control Registry also confirm that exercise is key to keeping excess weight from coming back. These “losers” have lost an average of 66 pounds and have kept the weight off for over six years.

"It is possible to maintain weight loss without physical activity but it is rare”, says Dr. James Hill, founder of the project.

Focus on changing your lifestyle.
"Suppose you woke up one morning to find that your hair was turning purple. Would you think, "Oh dear, my hair is turning purple. I'd better get something to change the color to its normal shade"? Of course not! You would be alarmed and would want to know what's going on inside your body that is turning your hair purple.

"Yet, when you notice you're getting fat, the usual reaction is, "Oh dear, I am getting fat. I'd better go on a diet to get rid of it." Most people do not ask what is causing them to get fat. They only want to get back to normal."

This analysis by Covert Bailey in his book, Fit or Fat, calls attention to one of the reasons why diets do not work. Excess weight is only a symptom of the real problem.

According to Bailey, dieting is the "hair dye". Underneath the dye, you still have purple hair. No matter how much weight you lose on a diet, you still have the tendency to gain weight easily because it was a lifestyle of too little exercise and the wrong kind of eating that made you fat in the first place. Diets do not change that lifestyle pattern so when you get off the diet, the weight returns with a vengeance.