Changing Lifestyles: Eating and Exercising By John Foreyt
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 Changing a diet that you have been eating for years isn't always as simple as it may sound. Ingrained eating habits influence to a great degree just what and how much you eat.
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The first step in putting a new diet plan into action is to take a look at your eating habits. Also consider why you've developed these habits. The key to success is replacing negative habits with positive behavior.
The main reason so many diet and exercise weight control programs fail is that people of ten think of them as a temporary inconvenience, a necessary evil designed to take off weight by the wedding, before summer, by the holidays. When the diet is over, it's back to the same old eating patterns that caused all the trouble in the first place.
Doctors agree that the only way to take weight off and keep it coif is to make basic life style changes. At the Diet Modification Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, we teach patients to do this through a process called behavior modification: changing your behavior patterns and long-standing eating habits.
We have devised a plan to teach people how to take control of their eating habits. After two months of behavior modification sessions aimed at changing eating behavior, about three-quarters of the overweight patients were able to maintain their weight loss or continue to lose. Our studies have followed these patients up to a year.
HOW TO BEGIN
With your doctor, select a good diet--one low in cholesterol, saturated fat and sodium. Then begin your behavior modification program as outlined below so that you can incorporate your diet plan into your life plan.
THE DIETARY DETECTIVE
To change your eating habits, you must first identify them. Each day write everything you eat and drink in a small notebook and use it to keep a complete record of everything that goes into your mouth. This means not just at mealtime, but all the time. Don't forget that bite of tuna you took while you were making sandwiches. Or the tasting you did to make sure the stew was seasoned just right. Or the three crackers you grabbed after you came in the door tonight just to "tide you over" until dinner. Note the time of day you had the food, where you ate, your mood when you ate each item and with whom you ate. If you are dieting to lose pounds, keep a record of your weight. Hang a sheet of graph paper near the scale, and weigh yourself each day at the same time, noting your own ups and downs. The numbers on the vertical axis should range from your present weight to your goal weight in intervals of one to five pounds.
After two weeks, study your food records to see which habits can coexist with your new diet and which need changing. Look for patterns. Find foods not permitted on your low-cholesterol, low-saturated fat, reduced-sodium eating plan.
Once you've identified self-defeating habits that have become part of your behavior, you're well on the way to changing those habits.
DELIBERATE DETOURS AND PINK PIGS
Your next step is to find ways to change your environment. If you regularly stop at a neighborhood deli on your way to work to pick up a Danish and coffee, take a different route to the office and thus avoid the impulse to stop. Don't keep off-limits snacks in the house. If another family member wants them, he or she will have to get them somewhere else.
Put notes to yourself on the mirror or refrigerator with the notation: "Those who indulge bulge." I have one patient who has decorated her refrigerator door with pink pig magnets that say, "You back again?" and 'I'm getting thin slowly." Choose one place to eat when you're at home, and eat every meal there. Devote your entire attention to eating.
This means no phone calls, television, letter writing or reading. Never eat standing up. Eliminate food cues by removing anything from your environment that causes you to eat what you shouldn't. Same examples are television commercials that present an opportunity to get a snack, office birthday cakes, certain times of day that signal snack time and other persons eating near you.
THE STRATEGIC PLANNER
Use various strategies to control your eating habits. One of these might be writing a contract with yourself. if you lose two pounds this week, you'll treat yourself to that movie you've been wanting to see. Or buy a new shirt. Or have your hair done. You can also make a pact with your spouse or a friend. One woman's husband promised to take her on a world cruise if she'd lose thirty pounds. She did, and they went. Most of us can't afford round-the-world trips, but we can afford breakfast in bed, new clothes, books or records. Make it fun-something nice you can anticipate.
Another effective strategy can take the form of stress reduction. In recording your moods, you may find that you're experiencing stress, boredom, loneliness, hostility or other negative emotions in conjunction with food binges. To ease stress, use a relaxation technique. Sit back, close your eyes, and focus on a pleasant scene, excluding anything else from your thoughts. Stay this way for five minutes. Whenever you feel stressed, take a personal timeout. Go someplace quiet, whether it's your bedroom or the lounge at work and use this technique.
When you have negative feelings that are leading you to eat, substitute another pleasurable activity for eating. Telephone a friend. Take a relaxing bath. One patient reported that not only was her diet a great success, but she was also squeaky dean.
If you feel bored or lonely, get out and join a fitness class, a church group or any activity you can share with others.
Modeling is another strategy to help you attain your goal of continuing good health. Seek out persons who have been successful in staying on a low-cholesterol, low-saturated fat, reduced-sodium diet and use them as models. Avoid, whenever possible, persons to whom a social occasion is an excuse to "pig out."
EXERCISE YOUR WAY TO HEALTH
Exercise is a vital companion activity to any dieting program. It serves the threefold purpose of:
. Burning calories
. Improving muscle tone (fighting flab)
. Improving the efficiency of your cardiovascular system
Before starting any exercise program, check with your doctor. With his or her permission, begin a regular daily program of exercise. Any aerobic exercise--such as walking, cycling or jogging-that causes the heart to beat faster than its normal rate for a sustưnned period-more than twenty minutes-is good. Not only does it burn calories while you're exercising, but its beneflts last for hours after the exercising has stopped. Following your excercise period, your metabolic rate stays more rapid than usual for up to six hours, burning calories more efficiently for an extended period of time.
WALKING FOR HEALTH
The most accessible, easiest and least expensive means of aerobic exercise is fast walking. Walking is also easy on the body, avoiding the shock to the bones and joints experienced in activities like jogging. And walking can be done just outside your home, without any special equipment or clothing. Walking at a good clip can burn about six calories a minute.
After a checkup by your doctor, start walking briskly about 15 minutes a day, three days a week. Gradually build this up to 45 minutes a day, three or four days a week. If you set aside a specific time each day, you'll be forming another good habit on the road to improved health and fitness.
SUCCESS IN THE LONG RUN
As you follow your diet and exercise plan, eating should be less important to you as a source of pleasure and satisfaction. For those times when you may overindulge, such as holidays and on vacations, lose weight before, not afterwards. The old excuse about eating today and dieting tomorrow is a delusion. Believe it and you will be fighting excess weight again.
If you have dropped several pounds, don't keep those baggy clothes around. Indulge in a little vanity. Buy some flattering new outfits for the slimmer you. Participate in activities you've always thought you would like: bowl, swim, exercise, cycle. Try new hobbies and activities.
Enjoy the variety your new lifestyle has opened up for you.
Source: "A Plan For Low-Cholesterol Living"
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