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If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to lose excess weight, or to keep off lost weight, a new study says you can learn the skills necessary to say “no” to food indulgences and stay motivated to keep saying “no” through what researchers call acceptance-based behavioral therapy. This style of behavioral therapy focus on personal values, and on the things you want for yourself in your personal life, such as living long enough to see your grandchildren grow up, rather than focusing on superficial goals like fitting into a smaller dress size for a big event or getting down to a specific number on the scale. The first step, these researchers say, is to accept the fact that weight loss will not be easy and that you will have to make sacrifices in order to be successful.
The study—a randomized clinical trial involving 190 overweight or obese men and women—published in the October 2016 issue of the professional journal Obesity, found that those participants who received acceptance-based behavioral therapy lost more than 13 percent of their initial weight over the course of a year. For someone who weighs 180 pounds, for instance, that means a 23 to 24 pound weight loss. Those who received conventional behavioral therapies lost an average of 5 to 8 percent over the course of a year, which, in the example above, would mean a 9 to 14 pound loss.
To lose or maintain weight, these researchers point out, you have to struggle against your natural biological drive to eat flavorful and rewarding foods, which only makes the process of weight loss and weight maintenance more difficult because you will have to suffer through cravings, hunger pangs and feelings of deprivation. You will have to make tough choices that aren’t going to make you happy, like eating a piece of fruit instead of a piece of pie.
What can help, these researchers say, is accepting the fact that weight loss is a huge challenge, and learning the skills you need to help you fight that biological drive, resist those foods, and walk away from temptation. In addition to focusing on diet and exercise changes, acceptance-based behavioral therapy starts with the acknowledgement that weight loss is a grueling process. It uses mindfulness training, or what was once called behavior modification, to teach you the additional skills you need to get through the process of weight loss, learn new and healthier habits, and stick with those new habits until they are ingrained. In addition to changing the way you think, you apply these skills to change the way you behave. You will literally have to practice picking up a piece of fruit instead of a piece of pie, and continue practicing that behavioral choice until it becomes a habit.
Changing ingrained behavior takes a great deal of practice, so you may be repeatedly practicing the same action of say, walking past the freezer case that holds ice cream in your supermarket, and heading for the produce section instead. The way you get yourself there, these researchers say, is by accepting the fact that you will experience a loss of pleasure in your life (the flavor of ice cream) and be willing to accept that loss in order to move forward.
No matter which method you use to try to lose weight, it will only work if you permanently change your eating and exercise habits. More research has to be done before anyone can say if acceptance-based behavioral therapy can help you do that, and if these skills can be taught outside of an individual acceptance-based behavioral therapy program, for instance, as part of a commercial or self-help weight-loss plan. If you are seeing a therapist, registered dietitian, or doctor for weight issues, talk to them about this approach. In the meantime, if what you’re doing now to lose or maintain weight isn’t working for you, there’s no harm in digging deep to find personal motivation, and accepting that getting to your goal probably won’t be easy. If you’ve been struggling with your weight for some time, you already know that.
Sources:
Forman EM, Butryn ML, Manasse SM, et al. Acceptance-based versus standard behavioral treatment for obesity: results from the mind-your-health randomized controlled trial. Obesity. October 2016;24(10):2050-2056 [Abstract] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21601/abstract
Mason AE, Epel ES, Aschbacher K, et al. Reduced reward-driven eating accounts for the impact of a mindfulness-based diet and exercise intervention on weight loss: data from the SHINE randomized controlled trial. Appetite. May 2016;100:86-93. [Abstract] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666316300447
