Saturday, November 03, 2012

Week #44 - Take 5

When I was preparing for this last week's topic, I was excited. I am a huge proponent of checking in on how things are going, and laying out a plan of attack. That's mostly because I am a big time planner. I plan things well in advance - whether we're talking Weight Watchers or just the family vacation!

But as I was sitting in my own meeting yesterday morning, I realized one area that I could focus on more: checking in AFTER THE FACT. While it's second nature to me to check in beforehand to figure out what my strategy is, I don't as often check in after an event, or at the end of the day to assess how it all went. So that's my own personal focus for this week - take some of those five minutes to not only look at what's coming up, but to look at how everything went.

In my time internetting these past few days, I found this article Why the Fitness Habit Is More Important Than the Plan. It really struck a chord with me, and it dovetails nicely with what Weight Watchers has been training staff on recently.

You will (maybe) notice a little bit of a shift in the way we tackle our meeting topics. We're going to be focusing on teaching you how to adapt your behaviors and habits so that being healthy becomes a no-brainer. It's not going to be about sweeping changes that totally turn your life upside down. It's going to be about small, doable changes that you can make and incorporate into your existing lifestyle. There seems to be a lot of research out there regarding creating and maintaining habits, and I'm happy to see Weight Watchers incorporating this into our message. I didn't maintain my weight loss this long by working my fingers to the bone every single day on it. I did it by creating habits that are now second nature. I'm absolutely NOT saying that it is easy, but there are plenty of things I do to support a healthy lifestyle that I really don't even need to think about at this point. And that's what I will be endeavoring to help you do, too!

We're also going to incorporate the concept that "adults learn by doing" which means that we're probably going to see more hands-on activities, small group discussions, tasks where you jot down an action plan in your Weight Watchers Weekly. Because those are things I've not typically done very often in the meetings I lead, that might seem different, too. But the end result is to get you committed to the changes that will improve your health!

1 comment:

Tom said...

Adults learn by doing? Yes, you have right. When we did something bad next time always is better. Good things help us be motivate and ready to do everything.