Evaluation & reflection on lifestyle management plan - Assignment Example

My goal setting seemed realistic based on my time period of 6 months which is long compared to many people who try to lose weight in just a few weeks, however, it may not have been so realistic because 8 kg is a large amount of weight to lose. It is reported that one should try to lose 5 to 10% of one’s initial body weight over 3 to 6 months [Weiss, 2000], my goal was appropriate and followed this advice. This ambitious goal needed some lifestyle behavior modifications such as removing some items completely from my diet- cheese and French fries, and substituting some of the routine foods with lower-calorie alternatives, such as brown bread instead of white bread, skim milk instead of whole milk, and diet coke instead of regular coke.

The exercise part of the plan was to take a half hour walk daily. Enablers for this plan included supportive friends and family who also agreed to go along with my low-fat diet. Many barriers stood in my way such as advertisements for tasty, high fat foods on television and on billboards, and classmates’ going out regularly for ice-cream and inviting me to go with them, and the smell of fried foods in shopping centers where I would go shopping. Also, when studying hard for a test, it was difficult to make any time for exercising, so sometimes exercising was skipped.

A possible barrier was that after exercising, the appetite would increase and so to replenish blood glucose, a person may opt to eat a chocolate rather than a healthier alternative such as fruit yoghurt. It is also a fact that after exercising, the appetite gets stimulated, therefore, it is much easier to break down the self-control and indulge in eating something delicious such as a chocolate, but which contains so much calories that all the calories burnt with exercising are taken straight back.

For some people, losing weight takes a lot of time even though they are exercising hard and trying to diet. Some of the reasons this is so, include that they find exercise so hard that they do too little exercise to really burn much calories. So, they may believe that they are exercising, but it is not enough to help them lose weight. The evidence that I have modified my risk factor is that my weight has reduced by 2 kg in 1 month. Therefore, my plan of diet and exercise is working and I shall, I believe, lose a total of 8 kg by 6 months.

My experience compared to others is that unlike others, I did not try to use diet pills or go to specific weight loss programs, which are popular methods used by people trying to lose weight [Levy and Heaton, 1993]. This is because diet pills and these programs cannot be maintained over a long period. Diet pills would help to reduce weight, but it is possible that after stopping to take the pills, the person would gain the weight back. Also, as long as a person remains enrolled in exercise class, they will exercise, but it would be expensive to stay enrolled in that class for all the time.

So, I chose to make my own diet and exercise regimen that I can maintain, so that the weight that I lose does not come back and I maintain the change in my lifestyle behavior. If I were to repeat this plan, I would try to find more people in my college and city who are trying to lose weight like me, and share my experiences and knowledge with them. Their support would have strengthened my will power and helped me overcome the barriers that I have encountered in losing