26
Non-pharmacologic Treatment
Behavior Therapy Techniques (cont'd)
• Cognitive restructuring
▶ Address matters of body image
▶ Identify and establish a plan to counteract unhelpful or
dysfunctional thinking leading to unhealthful behaviors and
actions
▶ Emphasize rationale of aggressive yet realistic weight-reduction
expectations through an emphasis on weight reduction as a
matter of medical and mental health
▶ Encourage patient to:
> Acknowledge he/she is capable of positive thoughts and
behaviors
> Replace unhelpful thoughts and behaviors with more
productive ones
> Practice behavior therapy skills between clinician encounters
• Goal setting
▶ Patients are given step-by-step instructions to accomplish goals
(i.e., nutrition and physical activity prescriptions)
▶ SMART
> Specif ic, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time-related
(SMART) goals
• Non-scale victories
▶ Celebrate goal attainments beyond body weight and other
number-focused metrics. Acknowledge:
> Better able to focus on things other than food
> Better able to engage in physical activity of daily living (e.g.,
walking up stairs)
> Better sleep quality
> Better able to f it into clothes previously worn before weight
gain
> Reduction in medications
