Successful weight loss: An individualized metacognitive approach to permanent change

This study was predicated on the idea that metacognitive processing might be used as a weight loss strategy for overweight middle-aged women. The intervention was designed as an individual weight loss protocol using a metacognitive process and considering cultural influence on assimilation of new and healthier eating and exercise behaviors. It was proposed that such assimilation would take place if designed competitors for the target of an implicit memory were strong enough to interfere with the less desirable, associated automatic behaviors.;Seventeen overweight, middle-aged women with a Body Mass Index (BMI) between 25 and 38 attended weekly individual and group sessions to identify cultural and lifestyle-driven eating and exercise behaviors. Participants were guided through the metacognitive process for permanent behavior change. Quantitative measures of weight, BMI, and metacognition were taken at baseline, at the end of the intervention, and at 6-months post-intervention. Qualitative analysis incorporated participant journals, counseling session field notes, and post-intervention interviews relying on grounded theory in the identification of emergent themes.;Study results demonstrate weight loss maintenance to be correlated with intentional strategy assimilation. The prescribed metacognitive process appears to have been successfully undertaken by 47% of the participants in who prescribed changes in lifestyle choices and associated weight loss were evident. For purposes of data analysis, participants were separated into three BMI sub-groups: Overweight (≥25), Obese 1 (≥30 to ≤35), and Obese 2 (≥35). Weight loss maintenance between the end of intervention (Week 26) and the 6 months post-intervention collection point in the Overweight group was significant at p<0.0005 with F=36.45. The weight loss maintenance levels for the Obese 1 and Obese 2 groups were not significant. The overall multivariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated no significant differences on pedometer readings, number of group or individual sessions attended, Knowledge of Cognition Checklist results, or number of journal entries.;Quantitative and qualitative analyses thus corroborate the conclusion that intentional utilization of metacognitive processes targeting lifestyle choices relative to eating and exercise can result in the development of new implicit memories and the assimilation of alternative, more propitious behaviors.