FIT – Do Something Different
A New Behavioral Program for Sustained Weight Loss
Abstract
Two 3-month longitudinal studies examined weight loss following a 1-month behavioral intervention (FIT-DSD) focusing on increasing participants’ behavioral flexibility and breaking daily habits. The goal was to break the distal habits hypothesized as playing a role in unhealthy dietary and activity behaviors. The FIT-DSD intervention required participants to do something different each day and to engage in novel weekly activities to expand their behavioral repertoire. These activities were not food- or exercise-related. In Study 1, the FIT-DSD program was compared with a control condition where participants engaged in daily tasks not expected to influence behavioral flexibility. Study 2 used an active or quasicontrol group in which half the participants were also on food diets. Measures in both studies were taken pre-, post-, and post-postintervention. In Study 1, FIT-DSD participants showed greater weight loss that continued post-postintervention. In Study 2, all participants on the FIT-DSD program lost weight, weight loss continued post-postintervention, and participants who were also dieting lost no additional weight. A dose relationship was observed between increases in behavioral flexibility scores and weight loss, and this relationship was mediated by calorie intake. Corresponding reductions in BMI were also present. Increasing behavioral flexibility may be an effective approach for tackling obesity and also provides affective and potential life-skill benefits.
References
2002). Criteria for evaluating treatment guidelines. American Psychologist, 57, 1052–1059.
(1994). Losing control: How and why people fail at self-regulation. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
(2008). Is obesity our genetic legacy? Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 93, S51–S56.
(2006). The effectiveness of computerized cognitive behavioral therapy in routine care. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 45, 499–514.
(2007). Is there any relationship between obesity and mental flexibility in children? Appetite, 49, 675–678.
(2009). Low-carbohydrate weight-loss diets: Effects on cognition and mood. Appetite, 52, 96–103.
(2006). Low-fat diets and weight change. Journal of the American Medical Association, 295, 94–95.
(2004). Changes in gray matter induced by training. Nature, 427, 311–312.
(2008). Resistance can be futile: Investigating behavioral rebound. Appetite, 50, 415–421.
(2011). Flex: The key to behavioral optimization. Hatfield, UK: UH Press.
(2004, September). A psychological weight loss intervention program based on the FIT framework. Paper presented at the 8th Health Psychology Conference of British Psychological Society, Edinburgh.
(2007). How visual images of chocolate affect guilt and craving of female dieters. Appetite, 48, 211–218.
(1999). The FIT Profiler. Hatfield, UK: The FIT Corporation.
(2000). (Inner) FITness & The FIT Corporation. London, UK: International Thomson Press.
(2007). Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: Willpower is more than a metaphor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 325–336.
(2008). FIT Science in psychological and physical well-being. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
(2005). The new unconscious. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
(1975). Anxiety, restraint and eating behavior. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 84, 666–672.
(2009). A supersized list of obesity genes. Nature Genetics, 41, 139–140.
(2008). Weight loss during the intensive intervention phase of the weight-loss maintenance trial. American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 35, 118–126.
(2008). Healthy habits: Efficacy of simple advice on weight control based on a habit-formation model. International Journal of Obesity, 32, 700–707.
(1992). Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects. New England Journal of Medicine, 327, 1893–1898.
(2007). Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: Diets are not the answer. American Psychologist, 62, 220–233.
(2006). Habits: A repeat performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 198–202.
(2002). The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 198–212.
(1999). Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55, 1243–1254.
(1989). Breakdown of dietary restraint following mere exposure to food stimuli: Interrelationships between restraint, hunger and food intake. Addictive Behaviors, 14, 387–397.
(2009). Training induces changes in white-matter architecture. Nature Neuroscience, 12, 1370–1371.
(2004). Frequent intentional weight loss is associated with lower natural killer cell cytotoxicity in postmenopausal women: Possible long-term immune effects. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 104, 903–912.
(2010). FIT family functioning. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
(2005). Intention to lose weight, weight changes, and 18-y mortality in overweight individuals without co-morbidities. PLoS Medicine, 2, 510–520.
(2005). The triple whammy. The Psychologist, 18, 216–219.
(2000). Intentional weight control and food choice habits in a national representative sample of adults in the UK. International Journal of Obesity, 24, 534–540.
(2009). The FTO gene and measured food intake in children. International Journal of Obesity, 33, 42–45.
(2006). Does changing behavioral intentions engender behavior change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 249–268.
(2008). Promoting physical activity in middle school girls: Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls. American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 34, 173–184.
(2005). Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 918–933.
(