The weight loss to date has not been significant. What has been significant is the effort to lose weight.
I suspect that I will need to increase the effort to accomplish the goal of losing 23 lbs. by the end of December 2007. December 2006 is really just a “warmup” month. I have set specific behavior goals, mainly to discipline myself for the effort involved in losing weight.
A recent post of mine said I would cut out the Friday morning office treats. Yesterday was the first day that goal was testing and I passed. Actually, it wasn’t that difficult because the person responsible for supplying the goodies was not at work, go figure.
What I can say so far about the goals I have set is that I have gone after-dinner-snack-free for three plus weeks now. That is a major accomplishment for me. I still take a peak into the pantry after dinner and I still avoid the temptation to snack. Like last night, I thought, what the heck, it is Friday, Christmas is just a few days away, let’s have microwave popcorn. Nope, I passed.
My wife and I watched a television show this week that had two groups of people trying to lose weight. The weight loss period covered two months and each person in each group had a goal of losing 15 pounds. What was different about the two groups is that one group used positive reinforcement while the other group used negative reinforcement.
What stood out for me was the negative reinforcement group’s motivation – I use that word loosely. For this group, the contest started with a photo shoot. Each person in the group had their picture taken in a undersized bathing suit. The women were required to wear skimpy bikinis and the men wore the equivalent. Each person that did NOT lose then 15 pounds in two months would have their picture posted on the “Jumbotron” a large screen at the local baseball field. By the way, all of these people in this group worked at the baseball field. The motivation to lose weight was based on humiliation.
The other group was motivated by helping each other to lose weight – not as dramatic as the other group.
Once I understood the idea for each group, I figured the group using the humiliation tactic would be the group most likely to lose weight.
As the show went on, there were hints on how each group was doing – it was of course a teaser to get you to watch to the end of the show.
I’ll save you the hour long show and tell you who won.
In the end, both groups had approximately the same results. Each group had one or two people that didn’t make the goal.
The television show said they had to follow through with their promise of posting pictures of the people from the negative reinforcement group up on the Jumbotron. And they did, but they didn’t actually use the embarrassing bikini pictures. On display was just some regular, fully dressed, pictures of the people who didn’t lose the 15 pounds in two weeks.
This was contrary to my expectations. I thought for certain that the negative reinforcement group would mostly certainly win the contest and that everyone in that group would lose the 15 pounds. I also thought that a good portion of the people from the positive reinforcement group would not lose the weight.
I have a theory on why the results turned out the way they did. Both groups had negative reinforcement. Think about it, both groups were on TV regardless of what group they were in. Yes, the group that had the threat of showing up on the big screen had even more incentive. But both groups were in the public eye.
Let me know what your thoughts are on this.
On a related note, I am going to use a little negative reinforcement on myself. Around the beginning of 2007 I plan on posting a picture of myself. I’m not going to totally humiliate myself right away, there will be an incentive for me to actually lose the 23 pounds I keep talking about. Keep reading and watch for the pictures.
[tags]weight loss, reinforcement, goals, television[/tags]
