The 'No Diet Diet Way' is a focused programme based on the 'Do Something Different' technique. The 'Do Something Different' technique has been developed from the research conducted by Professor Ben (C) Fletcher and Dr. Karen Pine. The aim of the research behind the Do Something Different technique was not, originally, weight loss. The research was originally intended to identify the causes of occupational stress. In carrying out this research Professor Ben (C) Fletcher and his colleagues realised that the causes of occupational stress mainly arose within the individual and not through the environment as was initially thought. This meant that instead of trying to change the working environment to suit each individual, the individual needed to change the way they perceived and behaved within their environment.
The 'No Diet Diet Way' and 'FIT Science'
From this research 'FIT Science' emerged as a model by which an individual’s behaviour could be profiled and whereby the indidual could then be helped to become more 'flexible' in relation to their environment and therefore reduce occupational stress. FIT stands for Framework for Internal Transformation. As this acronym suggests applying the FIT Science approach involves individuals transforming their perception of themselves, others and situations as well as changing their behaviour. Professor Ben (C) Fletcher realised that most people find it hard to think differently about their world (especially after reaching adulthood) because their perception of the world is usually based on past experiences and can become extremely ingrained and habit-like. Therefore, he decided that the best thing to do was to encourage them to make one small behavioural change in their life each day with the aim of helping them to break some of these ingrained habits and promoting more flexible behaviour.
Sometimes it is only when we try something new that we begin to view the world in a different light. Opting to Do Something Different everyday not only helped the individual’s who participated in this research to see the world differently but had other beneficial psychological outcomes such as reducing anxiety and improving their sense of wellbeing.
Going back to Weight Loss
What about the Weight Loss? This is all very well, I hear you say, but how does all this research impact on weight loss? Well, after years of development, the FIT Science approach was applied to health behaviours such as exercise, dieting, and alcohol consumption. The research was designed to see whether an individual’s FIT profile related to how they managed when taking on personal targets such as losing weight by dieting, or reducing their alcohol consumption. The outcome of the study indicated that those individual’s who were less flexible in their behaviour (or had more ingrained habits) had a larger Body Mass Index (BMI) than those people who were slimmer. Professor Ben (C) Fletcher then decided to investigate whether being more flexible was related to being slimmer. To do this he studied the behaviour of slim people using the measurement techniques that had been set up within the FIT Science approach, in other words Professor Fetcher wanted to find out why people were slim rather than why they were overweight.
The results showed that slim people are more flexible in certain aspects of their behaviour and have much fewer ingrained habits than people who are overweight. The findings of these studies have enabled Professor Ben (C) Fletcher and his colleagues to develop a programme to enhance behavioural flexibility with the aim of breaking habits and reducing weight.