How Do I Change My Eating Behaviors? Write It Down!
Weight loss strategies come and go: South Beach, Atkins, The Zone, Weight Watchers, The Macrobiotic Diet- the list goes on and on. Each diet has their effectiveness rates, but also their limitations. The one thing that is consistent across virtually every mainstream diet in the last 20 years is the notion of Writing It Down.
Write down what you eat and how much exercise you get. Track your results. Happy with your results? Look at your ME Journal, see what you did that week, and GREAT WORK, keep it up! Not so happy? Then look back at your ME Journal and figure out how you can make changes. Meanwhile, our Health Coaches are helping instill the motivation and improving your self esteem for continued progress.
Biggest Loser Works in ONE Way (and only One…)
Ever seen the Biggest Loser? Great entertainment, but it doesn’t work. Most contestants put all of their weight back on—and then some—within months after the cameras are off. The one thing Biggest Loser contestants do learn is how many miles on the treadmill that slice of chocolate cake is going to cost them. That’s what the ME Journal can teach you, too.
At WellBalance, our Health Coaching provides practical, real-world training and advice on how to make changes—not therapy that stigmatizes the camper, further hurting self esteem and motivation.
Campers will learn how to keep a daily journal we call the ME Journal that will help them see what they are doing well and how they could do it better. More than just a list of foods and quantities, campers’ ME Journals will note where they were, who they were with, what they were doing, and when they ate certain foods or participated in certain activities. This situational data helps campers be able to look back and recognize what is helping them or preventing them from their fitness and weight loss goals.
These principles are based in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy or CBT. CBT emphasizes the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. CBT is based on the idea that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations and events.
Scientist Contribution that Drives WellBalance Approach
Albert Bandura, Developed Self Control and Self Regulation techniques employed at WellBalance
Aaron Beck, Discovered maladaptive interpretations & conclusions often accompanied by depression. Developed ABC method of changing maladaptive thoughts used at Wellbalance. A = stimulus (situation), B = beliefs or thoughts underlying interpretation, C = response (feeling)
Albert Ellis, Developed Cognitive Restructuring: a step-by-step process for discovering and disputing irrational beliefs
In Health Coaching sessions, camper’s fundamental ideas about hunger and their relationship with food begin to change. They identify thoughts that are likely to get in the way of healthy eating and replace them with healthier thoughts. They learn how to journal their daily food intake and problem solve about how to get though high risk situations such as eating out, eating at a party, etc. They then write this all down in their ME Plan for Home that will enable them to have success long after camp ends.
At the end of the day the camper will total up the number of calories they consumed and the number of calories they burned. The simple goal: burn more calories than you consume.
