Choose Health: Changing My Diet for Improved Health - Essay Sample

Introduction

I had long and hard thinking to choose the target behavior that I had to modify. It is obvious I had many bad habits, but I chose to change my diet to eat healthily. I chose to modify this behavior because it helps in maintaining and improving general health. Intaking the correct nutrients regularly is important towards obtaining a healthy diet. Intaking an unhealthy diet is a common risk factor for many chronic diseases that include high blood pressure, obesity, as well as diabetes. Report given by the National Eating Disorders Association shows that the United States alone has 20 million women and 10 million men suffering from an eating disorder (Brownell & Walsh, 2019). Studies further reveal that unbalanced eating behaviors foster sufferings for the physical, social, and emotional aspects of a person (Brownell & Walsh, 2019).

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Background

I have a long history concerning my struggles in ensuring I intake a healthy diet. I had always struggled with bad eating habits that include under-eating, over-eating, and failing to eat enough of the required healthy foods that I need each day. In most cases, I found myself consuming excess food and drinks that are low in fiber and high in fat and sugar. I had always struggled to schedule the right time to take my meals, and I had, in most cases, found myself eating while doing other activities like reading or watching television. At some time, I had a weekly diet plan, which became difficult for me to follow since I always found myself tempted to buy snacks when I am out shopping. The behavior resulted in me being obese at some time, and the condition became critical when I was diagnosed with diabetes.

Goals

My specific goal was implementing a proper dieting routine where I had to eat the right diet in the scheduled time by eliminating all the stimulus conditions. I wanted to reduce the quantity of the food I consumed but concentrate on quality instead. I wanted too, to ensure I ate without engaging other activities like reading or watching television. Since I used to eat too quickly due to the unscheduled time of eating, I wanted to ensure I ate slowly by chewing food appropriately. I scheduled to be taking my dinner at exactly 7 pm to 7:30 pm. My other goal was keeping all the attempting food out of the house. Also, I had to fill half of my plate with vegetables, a quarter with lean protein, and a quarter with starch.

Motivation

Changing my eating behavior to ensure I eat a healthy diet will be an internal motivation to be ensuring that I meet my fitness goals. It will make me feel that I am in charge and control of my entire life. Since I am a victim of diabetes, I believe it will be the beginning of my healing process because, through proper dieting, the condition will be now manageable. It is also wonderful to keep myself healthy by burning all the unwanted fat and a sense of independence. The change will help me to continue enjoying the active quality of life as well as improving my health.

Specific Plan

In this behavior modification project, I deployed a simple- series design. It was a design strategy that involved making a series of observations before the initiation of a plan in modifying the behavior as well as determining whether there were outcomes after the plan was initiated (Martin & Pear, 2015). All the observations that were made before the reinforcement of the plan formed a part of the baseline data that I have recorded in the next part of this report. I chose a fixed- ratio schedule and involved my brother we were living with as my accountability partner. He was to check on whether I followed the already stipulated eating schedule and rated the outcomes as a percentage, which he had to announce to me on a daily basis before I went to sleep at 10 pm. Before any meal, I had to take a large glass of water. When I was feeling hungry, I had to ensure that I did not go shopping. Every time the rating was below 85%, I had to reinforce a punishment on myself that involved walking exercise for thirty minutes every morning. The chilly morning weathers were uncomfortable; hence I had to ensure I followed my schedule keenly to avoid it.

Data

For the baseline data, I recorded all data for one week, which included Saturday and Sunday. The recording of the data was simple. I checked on the number of times I consumed excess food and drinks, with low in fiber and high in fat, and sugar that I was fond of. I also recorded the number of times I thought I had overeaten, or I ate snacks just because I was shopping. The number of times I ate while watching television or reading was also recorded. I then calculated the percentage of every day when I didn't have a specific eating diet plan. The average rating for the whole week was 40 %. This meant that 60% of my diets were not planned, either healthy. My plan was to raise the average rating of 90%. My intervention plan took three weeks, and at the end of the third week, my rating was 96 %.

Evaluation

After three weeks, the results were overwhelming. I was at last successful in implementing a healthy dieting plan. I exceeded the expectation and optimism I had. Although the initial weeks were tough, I was determined to have a healthy diet. The experiment was pivotal since it also taught me time management. Instead of sporadic consuming of food detrimental to my health, now I do not even need to reinforce a punishment to follow a scheduled healthy diet. My diabetic condition is now more manageable since no fear of stress and obesity. For sure, it worked, and I feel it will continue that way since I am motivated by the results.

References

Brownell, K. D., & Walsh, B. T. (Eds.). (2019). Eating disorders and obesity: A comprehensive handbook. Guilford Publications. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=b85EDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=eating+disorders&ots=0dDDTsz8wS&sig=kHLbWjuWeYDy7cFBIuZWcXdBhTg

Martin, G., & Pear, J. J. (2015). Behavior modification: What it is and how to do it. Psychology Press. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d015/f0244650b05f225eda77b1d13bd27a439d2c.pdf