Tools for living adapted from WW Momentum and Points Plus program updated: 5/2/2016

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Tools for living

One of the great parts of the Weight Watchers program used to offer were the "tools for living", cognitive therapeutic techniques for dealing with emotional eating.  They no longer can be found on the website (perhaps it is thought they are not needed on the current program or that not enough people understood them?).   I learned them and use them... some of the tools I use are:

Reframing: taking something you wish to give up and picturing it in a negative manner, like picturing a piece of cake with worms crawling in and out of it. Can be used for non food things also.

Story boarding - actually picturing the steps to success like they do for the plots for movies etc or even making drawings to represent the steps: "Storyboarding helps you identify the steps you need to take to make your Winning Outcome a reality".

Anchoring - This was choosing something, perhaps a small charm that you wore on a bracelet or kept in your pocket which, when you were tempted to go off program, you could touch and remind yourself to stay on track. I used anchors for the first few years and leaders sometimes handed them out. Another tool, I liked.

Empowering Beliefs - this was a type of - what other programs call - "positive self talk". Like the other tools, it can be helpful and I still use it at times.

Switching - this is a way of changing a habit.  You take something healthy and switch it for something not so healthy you liked - like if you are stressed, take a bicycle ride or read a book instead of eating.

WW "Beyond the Scale" seems to have dropped those tools and I couldn't even find them on the web.  Of course, I seem to have misplaced my list from my archival WW books.