🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1992Dec26.002607.4489@gossip.urich.edu> martinher@urvax.urich.edu writes:

(in part)

>I have aided people to stop smoking.  In my opinion this is
>one of the more difficult changes to assist.  Weight loss is
>even harder.  In the case of weight loss the feedback loops 
>are all stacked against you.  Even if the person changes 
>TOTALLY, it still takes many weeks or months before an 
>appreciable weight loss can be measured.  Don't kid yourself,
>almost every overweight person has lost 10-50 pounds over 
>and over during their life.  They have no way of KNOWING that
>a change has taken place for quite some time. ... 

Lest anyone take Herb's description of weight loss as a post-
hypnotic suggestion that weight loss is potentially doomed
to failure...

What I do is change the behaviors that *lead* to weight loss:
Making exercise a compulsion; creating the requisite behaviors
so that consumption is carefuly metered; expanding and maximizing
the awareness of internal body signals (e.g., most obese people
are extraordinarily INsensitive to early warning signs of
stomach fullness).  By "chunking down" the behaviors to those
for which evidence can be collected in the short term, the
subject sees appropriate feedback of relevant kinds that are
recognized (by the subject) as leading to the goal they originally
set.

The design of an outcome is a recursive process, especially in
"big" issues like smoking and weight loss:  Each outcome gets
broken down into individual well-formed outcomes which, in its
own rite, can be measured in the short term.  Sometimes, I've
been known to provide some medium-term amnesia for the long-range
goal to avoid the implicit sabotage:  They look back from a point
six months after the intervention (in reality...and in trance as
a rehearsal for that future event) and notice how far they've
gotten toward their goal...without having to fret over it in the
meantime.
-- 
--Friday                                    "Knowledge is guesswork
   Carol Anne Ogdin, Principal Designer         disciplined by 
   Deep Woods Technology                        rational criticism." 
     friday@netcom.com                                 --Karl Popper