Saturday, February 2, 2013

Continuing to use MI tools: weight loss update

So, in December, I weighed in at 317.5 which was my lowest weight in a couple of years. Over Christmas break, my healthy habits fell by the wayside, and I, gladly, leaped off the wagon. Surprisingly, I didn't gain a huge amount of weight, but I was back up to 324 or so when I first weighed in after starting school. This morning, I weighed in at 320.1 without running yesterday (I sweat a lot). A few other MI things I've adopted are the idea of writing a letter to myself from five years in the future. I will do that soon enough, but I'm not ready yet.

I've also created a reward scale where eating four or more fruits and vegetables is +3, exercising is +1, eating after 8pm is -1, eating a second helping is -1, eating out is -1, and drinking pop is -1. On Wednesdays, I received a +4, the maximum rating. On Thursday, I received a -1. Yesterday was a +3.  So far, for the week, I'm at +6, and my goal was +10. The goal is to be in the positive daily, and the good thing is that one bad day doesn't negate all of your work. My daily reward is that I get to write for fun for 1 hour on days where I'm in the positive. I'm trying to develop weekly and monthly goals.

One other thing I've discussed before is the idea of values and being consistent. I value health and eating like crap and not exercising is vary inconsistent with my values. I've also thought about how being obese has limited me not just physically but socially. I think about two amazing relationships that I passed on because I didn't feel good about myself, and I don't ever want that to happen again. Never. I've also affirmed myself by realizing that I've let anything beat me. There are things that I can't do, but becoming healthy isn't going to be one of them. The great thing about using this MI approach is that writing this confirms the changes I'm making. I'm trying to think of a basic way to make this work for everyone. I know one thing, I'm going to keep going.

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