Re-structuring your life for More Exercise & Diet

1. Re-structuring your life for More Exercise & Diet Farrokh Alemi Ph.D. falemi@gmu.edu

2. How? • Interested in weight loss? Lost weight and gained it right back? • Want to exercise more? Joined the gym but never went to it? By end of this lecture you will learn how to diet and exercise in a fashion that is sustainable across time

3. An ecological approach regards weight gain and lack of exercise as a normal response to an abnormal environment. Based on workplaceprocessimprovement

4. Evidence • Cocaine and heroin addiction cured through change of environment • Elderly patients who made life style changes

5. Not More Effort but More System Change • Personal improvement that relies on motivation requires constant effort & optimisms in face of failures • Changing the environment makes success more likely • Failures are opportunities for problem solving • Environment pushes for success despite wavering motivation

6. Fooling Yourself • Your motivation waivers • You need an environment that forces you to act according to your resolution despite yourself • Ponzi Scheme in which you are the manipulator and the victim

7. System Solution not More Effort

8. Step By Step to Environmental Changes Coming up

9. Personal Improvements • Make a resolution • Put together an improvement team of process owners • Study your routines • Engage in cycles of problem solving • Gather data & focus on delaying next relapse to poor habits

10. 1. Make a Resolution • A habit that you have not been able to change • A repetitive event

11. 2. Put together an improvement team • Not buddies but process owners • Do not work on relationships • Focus on problem solving • Meet regularly • Agenda • Time • Postpone discussions • Make lists

12. 3. Study your routines Can also do flowcharts

13. 4. Select cycles of improvement • Make a list of solutions • Identify which ones are more based on your initiative • Identify which ones can be parceled into other existing daily routines • Identify which ones are more likely to have an impact • Select several improvements all at once Thinking Is Hard

14. 5. Gather data & think again • Measure time to relapse • Focus on increasing time to next relapse • Plot your data • Share your data

15. Examples • Putting up signs in bathroom to reduce compulsive obsessive behavior • Lower house temperature • Raising a desk to loose weight • Joining a car pool to loose weight

16. Loosing Weight By Joining a Car Pool

17. Time to next junk food

18. Mary Looses Weight Through Exercise

19. Who Eats? Are we responsible for our actions?

20. Summary of Experiencewith Our Advice • Data from 12/5/2001 to 3/24/2004 • 196 students in graduate level classes • George Mason, Vanderbilt, Case Western Reserve universities • Not graded on success • Followed for 15 weeks, required to provide data for claims of success • 6.43 years of education post high school • May not generalize to general population • No controls, findings may be an artifact

21. Summary of Experiencesof 196 Participants • Resolutions varied: 33% to change diet, 16% to exercise & rest other • Participants had tried 3.12 times before but failed • After 15 weeks: • 92% made a measured improvement • 41% made a measured and significant improvement • Participants who changed their environment were 2.39 times more likely to make a significant improvement than those who relied on motivation

22. Was it helpful in learning work place process improvement? 87.3% said “Yes” or "a lot helpful”