Ten Top Tips Diary Group Feedback - Week 6

Keeping the tips going

Changing habits of a lifetime is hard work, especially when the initial rush of enthusiasm wears off. Our volunteers have been working really hard over the last 6 weeks and are doing a great job of changing their eating and activity habits. Some of the tips are now becoming healthy habits so our volunteers are doing them automatically with out having to think about it.

The biggest challenges are the tips that still require a conscious effort for our volunteers, continuing to keep this effort up requires commitment and motivation to achieve the goals our volunteers set at the start of the programme. Believing they can keep up the changes they are making and seeing the benefits of them means they are halfway there, however this does not mean that the occasional lapse won’t happen. A lapse is a normal and expected part of making changes, where we can learn how to deal with our most challenging situations.

Dealing with lapses

Learning how to manage those times when we stray away from the tips is crucial in helping to develop the most challenging tips, to become healthy habits. Try following these lapse tips:

Top Lapse Tips

• STOP doing what you are doing, take yourself away from the situation.
• RECOGNISE that one lapse is not the end of the world.
• LEARN by thinking about what was happening around you, and inside you.
• PLAN what you could do differently, to prevent your lapse happening again.
• BE POSITIVE and get back on track as soon as possible.