By now you should have several weeks worth of data for your eating food project.
Please provide the following:
1) What was your food eating goal?
2) What was your target behavior?
3) How did you record your eating behavior on a day to day basis?
4) What was your baseline behavior? Was it an increasing or decreasing trend?
5) What was your intervention? Did you use reinforcement if you reached your weekly goal? What did you use as a reinforcer?
6) Was your intervention successful? Did the trend line decrease?
7) What did you think of this project? What was the hardest thing about this project?
8) If you were to do another behavioral project what behavior would you work on?
1.) My food eating goal was to get more variation in my meals because I always seem to eat the same foods.
2.) Specifically, I realized I eat pizza way too often, so my target behavior was to eat less pizza.
3.) I had a piece of scratch paper in my planner that I wrote down what I ate everyday.
4.) My baseline behavior was characterized by little variation in my diet for my main meals. I had an average of 1366 calories for this week. My caloric intake was fairly the same from day-to-day, so I had a stable trend.
4.) My intervention weeks were aimed at eating more of a variety of foods, and staying away from pizza. If I reached my weekly goal, my reinforcer was getting to eat out once during the weekend. I had an average of 1345 calories during the two weeks of intervention.
5.)My intervention was successful in that I ate pizza fewer times than I had during my baseline week; however, overall, I still noticed myself eating it too often. I noticed I had more variation in my caloric intake throughout the two weeks of intervention; and the caloric trend line appeared fairly equal to the caloric trend line during my baseline week, except for a few jumps on certain days.
For my last week of returning back to baseline, I had fewer calories, with an average caloric intake of 1071, so my trend line decreased. I also ate less pizza overall compared to my initial baseline week and my two weeks of intervention. So overall, it appears my intervention was somewhat successful.
7.) I didn't mind this project. It made me realize my unhealthy eating practices, and the ridiculous amount of calories that are in certain foods. The hardest thing about this project was forcing myself to emit my target behavior. It is hard to get out of a habit when my other routines all stay the same. However, after doing this project, I seem to pay more attention to what I am eating, and subconsciously go to write down what I ate for the day.
8.) If I were to do another behavioral project similar to this one, I would work on working out more/incorporating a workout plan into my daily routine. My target behavior would be focused on getting at least a half hour of physical activity in per day.
1) My goal was to eat more regularly to avoid overeating at meals.
2) After lunch it would be somwhere around 8 hours before I ate again and then I would eat more at dinner time.
3) I wrote down the times I ate and then averaged the time in between meals for the day.
4) My baseline was all over the place. It'd be anywhere from 2-6 hours between meals.
5) I tried to carry some granola bars or another snack with me if I knew it would be a while before I could eat again. I really didn'nt have a reinforcer. I guess not having stomach aches after a big meal is a plus.
6) The intervention worked somewhat. I think it's just my schedule that prevents me from being able to eat regularly. I think the next time I schedule classes I'll try to get a break between classes.
7) The project was ok, but I had trouble remembering to write down what I ate and when cause I was too busy with other things.
8) If I could pick another behavior it would be spending less time on the computer at night.
1.) My goal was to increase my fruits and vegetable intake to 5 servings total each day.
2.) I realized that I was just not eating as healthy as I should so I decided substitute greasy foods or appetizers for fruits and vegetables.
3.) After each mean I wrote down the amount of food I ate and recorded the calories in a notebook.
4.) My baseline behavior was eating the wrong types of foods at meals. My baseline behavior was kind of all over the place. For the most part I had little fruits and vegetables and more greasy appetizers or just none at all.
5.) My intervention was to eat more fruits and vegetables. I was going to do this by rewarding myself with desert at the end of the week.
6.) Overall I do think my intervention was successful. There were a few days when I didn’t reach my goal, but over all I did watch what I ate more. I also noticed that I tended to have a harder time picking out vegetables to eat than I did fruits. But when I ate a sandwich I tried to load it with vegetables. I do think with the intervention my line increased some. I still have a lot of ups and downs, but for the most part I was eating more fruits and vegetables.
7.) I really liked this project. It made me realize that I wasn’t eating as healthy as I thought. The hardest part would be writing down everything that you eat. It was hard sometimes to remind yourself to write down your food intake all the time. Finding the calories was kind of a pain sometimes. Especially when you couldn’t find the food that you ate. Other than that I didn’t have too many problems with this and was able to keep up.
8.) If I were to do another project like this one, I would choose exercising. I really like to exercise, but sometimes I just have too much to do. If I were to do a project like this maybe I could figure out why I don’t exercise sometimes and figure out a reinforcement to keep me in a routine.
Please provide the following:
1) My food eating goal was to eat more fruits and vegetables. Specifically, at least one fruit and at least one vegetable per day.
2) My target behavior was to eat better by buying more fruits and vegetables when I go to the store--enough to eat one of each per day.
3) I wrote down everything I had to eat that day, and then counted the number of fruits and vegetables.
4) My baseline behavior was sometimes not eating any fruits or vegetables in a day, or just eating 1. I think sometimes I could eat 1 of each, but that did not happen often.
5) My intervention was starting to buy more fruits and vegetables when I went to the grocery store. I did use reinforcement, in which I would reward myself with a cookie at the end of the week if I reached my goal.
6) I believe my intervention was successful. I began eating more fruits and vegetables after I began my intervention. My line increased because I wanted to eat more fruits and vegetables, and I did.
7) I thought this was an interesting project. I found it difficult at times because I would forget to write down what I ate for a couple days and then I would have to think back and try to remember what I ate. Some days I probably forgot to write something down that I ate, such as a snack of some sort. Hopefully I will improve as the class progresses and we get more opportunities to do projects like this.
8) I would probably just work on recording my behaviors more frequently. I will need to write myself a note or set some sort of alarm to remind myself to write things down.
1. My food eating goal was to eat more fruit and vegetables than I did during my baseline week.
2. My target behavior was to add a vegetable to my breakfast and a vegetable or fruit to my dinner each day.
3. To record my behaviors I had a piece of paper that I put in my purse. While preparing my food I would document my meal. I used a piece of paper because it was easy to take with me to work or to campus.
4. My baseline behavior was lacking vegetables dramatically. One day I would eat more vegetables than need and other days I would be deficient in them. My behavior was eating quick simple food which sometimes lacked substance besides protein.
5. My intervention was to eat more vegetables (and fruits). I reinforced myself by stating that if I kept with my intervention for the full span of the project I could buy one clothing item for my self.
6. My intervention was successful. My tendency to eat more vegetables did increase.
7. I liked this project. It wasn’t until I recorded my baseline behavior that I realized I was not getting enough of my vegetables and fruits. The hardest part of this project was remembered to record my meals.
8. My next behavior project would have something to do with keeping my car clean and organized; as a college student you somewhat live out of your car.
1) My goal was to see exactly how poorly I was eating when "on the go".
2) My target behavior was to bring poor dieting options out into the open so I could use the data to make a positive change in eating habits.
3) I recorded all of my data in a notebook I carried with me everywhere. This data included: what I ate, what restaurant (if applicable), what time of day, whether it was a snack or meal, and how many calories were consumed.
4) My baseline behavior was the fact that eating on the go is a terrible dieting method. Time crunches eliminated chances to have "solid" meals including all the basic food groups. Knowing this, I mentally prepared myself to eat every three to four hours with a limit of 3 to 4 meals a day.
5) As a reinforcer (to watching how much I ate on the go) I worked out 2-3 times a week and made sure to eat even less on those scheduled workout days.
6) The intervention worked on days I stuck with my workout regiment. Although it wasn't successful in "eating healthier" during these few weeks - it allowed me to see how much I was spending on overpriced crap-ass food which has motivated me to budget healthy groceries and preparing meals instead of the ohh-too-convenient drive through windows.
7) Once I was in the routine of writing each item down it was pretty easy. In other words it was a great project for me since I was better able to see what exactly I was doing to myself (eating crap!). The hardest part was getting through some of the times between meals.. because I love to eat - and I am good at it!
8) If I were to do a similar behavior project I would choose to spend more time on homework. Easier said than done since I work two jobs + school full time. Ehhh I'll put that idea on the back burner for now..
Please provide the following:
1) What was your food eating goal?: To analyze and ultimately increase my servings of fruits and veggies
2) What was your target behavior? To buy and eat more fruits and veggies during breakfast, lunch, and dinner
3) How did you record your eating behavior on a day to day basis? I recorded my data in my B-MOD notebook
4) What was your baseline behavior? Was it an increasing or decreasing or another trend? Within my baseline behavior, I averaged 1.5 servings a day. The baseline was limited (6 days) and skewed slightly by the fact that I visited my grandparents where I eat much healthier.
5) What was your intervention? Did you use reinforcement if you reached your weekly goal? What did you use as a reinforcer? For my intervention, I actually went to the grocery store and bought a great deal more fruits and vegetables that I ever do. While my reinforcer was mainly a psychological satisfaction for eating healthier, at the end of the week I rewarded myself by going out to eat @ McDonald's.
6) Was your intervention successful? Did the trend line decrease? Yes, my intervention was successful on two fronts which are correlated: increasing the servings of fruit and veggies almost twofold as well as also having a healthier diet in general.
7) What did you think of this project? What was the hardest thing about this project? I really liked this project as it proved to be a huge motivational boost to actually start up and maintain a goal such as this. The hardest thing about the project was probably correctly counting "servings" of fruits/vegetables alongside recording what I ate in general for each meal.
8) If you were to do another behavioral project what behavior would you work on? If I had to do another behavioral project, I would probably choose exercising and/or more efficient time management (especially on the weekends).
1. my food eating goal was to eat more fruits and vegetables every day.
2. My target behavior was to eat at least one serving of fruit and one serving of vegetables per day.
3. I recorded what I ate and drank at each meal and through out the day. I did not account for portion size of foods other than Fruits and vegetables.
4. My base line behavior was at or close to zero fruits and vegetables per day.
5. My intervention was to buy enough fruits and vegetables to where I was able to eat have a serving of each each day. I was also going to use positive reinforcement by making biscuits and gravy on Sunday after each week of intervention.
6. Yes for the most part. It was hard to keep up with having enough food but I did increase the amount of fruit and vegetables I ate. I think knowing I was eating better was more of a reinforcement than getting to eat an extremely unhealthy meal after.
7. This was a cool project. I forgot to mark where my intervention started on my graph and I was having some formatting difficulties. But the hardest part by far was keeping track of the food I ate everyday. I usually used a note card in my pocket to keep track. Eating better is something I am always trying to do.
8. I would work on my study habits and try to improve the amount of time spend or the quality of time spent studying and doing homework.
1) My overall goal was to make healthier choices of food.
2) I first raised my hand for eating more fruit and veggies, but because I did not establish a reward for my target behavior, I was not motivated to eat more or less of the specific food items.
3) I had scratch paper in my planner that I carry with me where ever I go. I would record what I ate there.
4) Overall, my entire graph was chaotic. With calorie consumption, I would eat tons one day and eat way less another. My line graph looks like a heart monitor. I actually could draw a line through the lines to find an average, so I'm going to say that my baseline was consist.
5) My problem was that I didn't use an intervention. I simply wanted to try to eat more fruits and veggies but cared little if I did or not. I felt this way because I have been consistently exercising everyday. At the time we were required to come up with an intervention, I couldn't think of any. What I have learned from these recordings is that I need to have an intervention if I want to reinforce myself to do something. I also learned that I have to want to do it to be motivated.
6) No, my intervention was not successful because I didn't have an intervention.
7) What I like about this assignment is how I realized that I have horrible eating habits. Yes I may eat healthy foods, but I eat bad ones to. I eat A LOT of bad ones. What I didn't like about this assignment is always having to remember to record what I ate and looking on www.mypyramid.gov to find the calorie amounts for each food item.
8) I would like to work on brushing and flossing my teeth every night. My problem is that I put it off until I'm too tired to expend any extra energy on doing.
1) My overall goal was to make healthier choices of food.
2) I first raised my hand for eating more fruit and veggies, but because I did not establish a reward for my target behavior, I was not motivated to eat more or less of the specific food items.
3) I had scratch paper in my planner that I carry with me where ever I go. I would record what I ate there.
4) Overall, my entire graph was chaotic. With calorie consumption, I would eat tons one day and eat way less another. My line graph looks like a heart monitor. I actually could draw a line through the lines to find an average, so I'm going to say that my baseline was consist.
5) My problem was that I didn't use an intervention. I simply wanted to try to eat more fruits and veggies but cared little if I did or not. I felt this way because I have been consistently exercising everyday. At the time we were required to come up with an intervention, I couldn't think of any. What I have learned from these recordings is that I need to have an intervention if I want to reinforce myself to do something. I also learned that I have to want to do it to be motivated.
6) No, my intervention was not successful because I didn't have an intervention.
7) What I like about this assignment is how I realized that I have horrible eating habits. Yes I may eat healthy foods, but I eat bad ones to. I eat A LOT of bad ones. What I didn't like about this assignment is always having to remember to record what I ate and looking on www.mypyramid.gov to find the calorie amounts for each food item.
8) I would like to work on brushing and flossing my teeth every night. My problem is that I put it off until I'm too tired to expend any extra energy on doing.
1.) My food eating goal was to eat around 4-6 smaller meals a day and lower my caloric intake to around 1500-1800 calories for a day in an effort to make weight.
2.) My target behavior was to consume smaller portions durring meals and to eat more smaller meals a day than say one or two large meals a day. I was also hoping to eat on more of a regular basis instead of maybe eating at radically different times each day.
3.) I recording my eating behavior on a daily basis by writing down was i was eating and what time i was eating it. I recorded each meal on its on individual basis for each day and recorded what specifically i ate with each meal.
4.) My baseline behavior showed that i was only eating 1-2 large meals a day consisting of a caloric count of around 2000 calories. This seemed to be an increasing trend with me, in which my eating behavior became less and less consistent and became more of something you might see with an opportunistic eater such as an animal in the wild that eats as much as it can when it finally gets that large kill its been working so hard for.
5.) For my intervention i started to eat smaller portions more frequently during the day, and on a more consistent time schedule in order to help my body metabolize on time with my workouts and in accordance with my daily schedule. As a reinforcer if i ate smaller, more consistently controlled portions during the week i would allow myself to go out on Friday for FAC at Suds from 3-4 o'clock in the afternoon (or until the free beer was gone). To me this was a great positive reinforcer, i mean who doesnt wanna get into better shape, eat more appropriately portioned meals and then treat yourself to a couple beers at the end of the week. Who doesnt want that, i ask you, WHOM?!
6.) I would say that my intervention worked accordingly. Ive been losing weight, i have more energy for extended periods of the day and i feel better about myself in the larger picture. After further examination of my chart i would say that the trend line did decrease from what it was at the start of the experiment from 2000+ calories a day down to about 1300-1500 calories a day.
7.) I didnt mind this project at all because this was something i had been researching and looking up for some time now, and something ive been meaning to implement into my workout routine, i guess i just needed that little push and shove that the class gave me to kick start the process. After enduring this for about a month now i think this is something that i will stick with, until i decide its time to bulk up again in which ill still maintain my eating behavior of eating more meals in a day, but i will increase the caloric intake each time. So i will still be eating 4-6 meals a day, but maybe ill eat more proteins and carbs this time to help put on more muscle mass. I think the hardest thing about this project was just sticking to it and carrying it out every day. Its something one has to tell themselves they are going to go through with this no matter what happens. It takes alot of self control i noticed not to snack later at night when i would get a little hungry. But all in all id say it paid off for the better and i wouldnt change a single thing that i did in the project.
8.) If i was to do another behavioral project i would probably do something related to completion of homework and studying as procrastination is something im an expert at and if UNI had a doctoral program in procrastination i would have been awarded an honorary doctorate probably about 5 times over!
1) My goal was to reduce my servings from each food group proportionally.
2) Large serving sizes and idle snacking throughout the day, especially when I had recently eaten.
3) Added it to a running Word document I had, whenever I wasn't around my computer I put it in my cell phone.
4) Averaged:
-Grain - 4.8 servings/day
-Vegetables - 2.5 servings/day
-Fruit - 1.3 servings/day
-Meat - 3.0 servings/day
-Dairy - 2.1 servings/day
5) Cut down on snacking and serving sizes. I didn't use any reinforcement.
6) Averaged:
-Grain - 3.6 servings/day
-Vegetables - 2.1 servings/day
-Fruit - 1.0 servings/day
-Meat - 3.4 servings/day
-Dairy - 1.5 servings/day
The trend line did decrease for 4 of the 5 categories
through my intervention. I threw out my 6th category (labeled as "bad") because I don't think I was consistent in my assessment of that throughout the observation.
7) I liked the project, apparently it was somewhat effective, even though I didn't use any reinforcers. The hardest parts was breaking years of habits, plus recording a behavior that isn't always something I consciously realize I'm doing.
8) Probably something to do with academics, I don't always really put forth a lot of effort, or read my textbook, or spend time on my homework, or study...really, I guess I'm a terrible student. So I would probably find a way to reinforce myself for being studious if I were to do another one right now.
1) My food eating goal was to eat more healthy foods.
2) My target behavior was to eat more fruits and vegetables and to eat fewer sweets. I thought this could be measured well by looking at the calories I ate. If I switched out fruit for desserts, the total calories consumed should decrease.
3) I would keep a record of every food that I ate during the day, and then I went online and looked up the calorie content of the foods I was consuming.
4) My baseline behavior showed an increasing trend, but not drastically. As the week went on, I seemed to be eating more calories. However, it was not a steady increase, and overall my calorie intake seemed pretty constant.
5) My intervention was to begin to eat more fruits and vegetables rather than desserts. I decided that if I ate more fruits and vegetables in the week than I had in the previous week, then I could eat ice cream on Monday nights. I was able to get the reinforcement for both weeks that I was doing the intervention.
6) My intervention did not seem to work too well. Both weeks I was reinforced because I did eat more fruits and vegetables, but it was usually one or two more. Also, the calories still fluctuated a lot and even seemed to go up when the intervention began. This could be explained by my Monday night ice cream binges. Overall, the trend did not go down but continued to fluctuate.
7) I liked this project, although it was very hard for me to keep track of everything that I ate for a whole month. It was also hard to get a count of calories that I felt was even close to accurate. This made it difficult to assess how the intervention was working. I did learn some about the value of reinforcement though.
8) For another behavioral project, I would probably work on increasing my exercising behavior. I would like to figure out a way to help myself be motivated to go to workout at least 3 times a week.
1) My over all goal was to eat healthier meals, as well as cut down the calories.
2) The target behavior was to eat smaller portions, and stay away from higher calories foods.
3) I carried around a tony notebook that I kept in my back pocket. I recorded everything I ate through the day, then at night I would sit down and look up the calorie count.
4) My baseline was all over the place. You could tell what days were weekends because that was generally when I ate more (I ate over 2500 calories one saturday!)
5) My intervention was keeping myself busy. If I didn't sit in my dorm room all the time, I wouldn't snack as much therefore eating fewer calories through out the day. This was a con and a pro because if I was out of my room, I didn't eat the 4-6 meals per day that you are supposed to. There were even days when I only ate one or two things through the whole day. My reinforcer was getting to hang out outside of my room.
6) I think the intervention was successful for a short time, but then eventually I found ways around the not eating crappy foods (packed poptarts in my bag, kept candy in my purse, etc)
7) I like this project I just wish that I had better recorded my food intake. I know there were days where I would forget, and had to sit down and figure it out. I also wish there was an easier way to record calories. Doing that was kind of a hassle. I think in the future I will be better at recording though (figured out its easier to record in my phone that it is carrying around a notebook!)
8) If i did another behavioral project, I would work on increasing exercising behavior (I know, super typical). I've always been one of those people who can eat whatever they want and not show an signs of it. I know that's not going to last forever, so I would like to try and change something before it's too late and I'm one of those people who just can't seem to get it.
1) I wanted to eat less calories per day
2) My target behavior was eating smaller portions of food
3) At the end of the night I sat at my computer and wrote down what foods I ate, how many calories they contained, and the antecedent to my eating behavior
4) My baseline behavior was not consistent at all. Some days I ate a lot of calories, and other days I didn't eat many at all.
5) I used positive reinforcement. If I ate less calories than my baseline week, I bought myself a book.
6) It was slightly successful. I think I need to find a better reinforcer next time though.
7) I really enjoyed this project because I think it will now be easier to control behaviors in the future. It was hard to find time to record all of my data and look up calories though.
8) I would like to find a way to stop procrastinating on my homework assignments/studying.
1) What was your food eating goal?
• My eating food goal was to increase my intake of vegetables
2) What was your target behavior?
• Target behavior was to have more vegetables around
• Throw junk food away
3) How did you record your eating behavior on a day to day basis?
• I kept record on my phone because it was handy then wrote it on paper once I got home at night.
4) What was your baseline behavior? Was it an increasing or decreasing trend?
• Baseline behavior was eating consistently and it was increasing the trend
5) What was your intervention? Did you use reinforcement if you reached your weekly goal? What did you use as a reinforcer?
• My reinforcement was shopping after succeeding in increasing my intake of healthy foods and vegetable.
6) Was your intervention successful? Did the trend line decrease?
• My intervention was successful because I needed to go shopping and the goals helped motivate me.
7) What did you think of this project? What was the hardest thing about this project?
• The project was ok. Hardest part was keeping track of everything that I ate.
8) If you were to do another behavioral project what behavior would you work on?
• Procrastination
This was a super fun activity, except the fact that I eat too much :)
1) The main goal I had for this project since I'm not really into calorie counting is mainly that I would try to eat more healthy foods. The chart wasn't showing that, but the couple page blog I gave along with it was showing exactly what I was eating.
2) My target behavior was that I would avoid the greasy food and sugars and start only purchasing healthy food.
3) I recorded my eating behaviors in a mini blog on Word 07. I wrote where I was going, what I was doing and what I ate and drank.
4) My baseline behavior was definitely inconsistent. Some days I took in arond 1300 calories, and on the weekends when I drank I took in around 2800. Ouch!
5) Though I had a reinforcer of being able to eat Union food on Fridays if I ate healthy food all week, it didn't really help much and my intervention didn't really help. The problem is I still don't care much about calories so my drinking continues.
6) Like I said in #5, my intervention was a mild disaster. It made me realize what dieters go through!
7) I really really liked this project a lot! It was probably my favorite project I did in college! The only hardest part was remembering what I had eaten when I was drunk, and it's hard to see that I take so many dang calories in!
8) If I was to do another behavior project I would do biting nails.. that behavior needs to go!
1. My goal was to decrease the amount of calories I ate, while maintaining consistent calorie intake through the week.
2. Consume consistent calories.
3. I recorded my eating behaviors in my planner. I wrote what I ate and in the context of my eating. I did not record the calories until later due to the hectic-ness of life.
4. My baseline behaviors were very sparatic. Some days I would eat less than 500 calories and other days I would eat close to 1500 calories. There is just a wide range of caloric intake. My trend was decreasing the calories and making them more consistent.
5. My intervention was done by just writing down what I ate, I looked over it daily and was reinforced by my feelings of regret or accomplishment. My emotions play a big role in the behaviors that I emit, so they act as an intrinsic reinforcement.
6. It was successful to an extent. I would have liked to see better results. I exercise a good amount, I just wish I could become more consistent with my eating behaviors.
7. The hardest thing about this project was just making sure I recorded everything I ate. I am extremely busy with work and school, even the simple task of writing down what I ate in the day was a struggle. Overall, I liked it because it made me more aware of my eating behaviors.
8. The behaviors I would like to complete this project with again would be flossing or studying/completion of homework.
1) My goal was to start to eat more consistently. Looking at my first week I noticed that some days I ate 400-500 and others it was in the 2000 range.
2) My target behavior was consistency in calorie intake at about 1200 calories
3) I recorded mine in a microsoft word document. I tried to log in every day or two to record what I had eaten
4) I didn't really have a normal baseline behavior. My calorie intake was to sporadic.
5) I tried to snack less when at home. I struggle at home because I'm not busy so I just want to eat. I also tried to decrease my drinking so I didn't take in as many calories. I never did reinforce myself. I always plan to by either shopping or getting a massage but then I start to think about money and don't follow through.
6) I don't really think I was successful. After losing 35 pounds last year I am struggling to get back into the swing of things. My mind isn't there yet so I couldn't motivate myself to do it.
7) I'm glad we did the project because it at least made me start to think about my calorie intake again. I do plan to continue to work on this until I can be motivated to change.
8) I would choose to spend less time playing on the computer. I am a facebook addict and I am on it anytime I have free time.
I apologize for this comment being late. For some reason I missed completing this assignment on my checklist.
1. I was in the control group for this project.
2. Since i was in the control group I did not have a target behavior that I was trying to change. However, I will admit to trying to make sure I didn't eat horrible things (but that is also something I normally do)
3. Since I spend most of my day on campus I was able to record my eating behavior in my notebook, it worked out nicely
4. Since I was in the control group my baseline was the same. I stayed pretty constant throughout the project. However, there were certain patterns that I discovered.
5. I did not use any reinforcers for my good eating habits. All reinforcers that I could think of were things like getting ice cream, which I felt like defeated the purpose of eating well, or sleeping in/taking a long nap, which in the end punishes me because then I am unable to complete the things I need to complete. So i decided that a reinforcer wouldn't help. (I probably could have found one that would have if I searched more)
6. My intervention showed that I stayed stable on my line. However, I saw trends in eating worse on the weekends. (Especially the super bowl weekend, which is not shocking) Even though I was in the control group, I definitely became more conscious of when I eat poorly, which helped me control it.
7. The hardest part of this project was simply remembering that it was going on. Recording what I eat takes about 5 seconds. Since it takes so little time it becomes so hard to remember to do. But i did like the project. I'm surprised that I got helpful information out of it even though I was in the control group.
8. My study habits and staying on top of my work
1. My food eating goal was to eat more regular meals and avoid overeating by maintaining an average daily caloric intake.
2.With eating more regularly, I was hopeful that it would help me consume a consistent amount of calories each day. So my target behavior was to consume an average amount of calories per day.
3. I used a notebook to keep track of when I was eating each day, what I was eating (according to portion size) and the amount of calories I consumed with each meal or snack.
4. I would have to say my baseline behavior was sporadic and my eating patterns and caloric intake were irregular. Due to my work schedule, it would be anywhere from 6, 8, or 10 hours after lunch before I would eat again. Thus, I found myself eating a big lunch and small dinner or having a small lunch and big dinner. Other times I would skip a meal and find myself famished for the next meal (on these occasions, I would have a hearty meal like pasta or greasy food, like Arby's)Sometimes I would compensate a meal for ice cream or junk food if I was in the mood for something sweet or salty.
5. As far as my intervention goes to modify my behavior, I planned my meals ahead of time and made healthier food choices to eat average amounts protein, fruits, vegetables, grains and maintain an average caloric intake.
In order to eat healthier, I bought fresh produce and vegetables. Even before intervention, I was emitting this behavior but was finding I was throwing a majority of it out. Eating consistent healthy meals requires more effort. So prevent letting these healthy foods from going to waste, I sliced, diced, and cooked them ahead of time, such as the weekend or dedicated a free afternoon to cooking. (Pre-intervention, I often didnt allow myself this time, so I made no effort.) I found this was helpful in reinforcing my target behavior because they were already prepared when I was ready to eat and helped reinforce my target behavior.
I also began to incorporate a light snack, such as almonds, a granola bar, or trail mix into my diet at work, to take the edge off if i was hungry.
I debated about using food itself as a reinforcer, but I also know that it is equally important to not eliminate or deprive yourself of something you enjoy. As a reinforcer, I invited a friend out for an ice cream date at the end of the week. This was motivation to continue to eat healthy so I could enjoy my sweets at the end of the week! This reinforcer also kept me feeling guilt free for eating unhealthy so late at night and I was less sluggish and had more motivation to work on other things after eating.
6. My intervention worked for the most part because planning meals helped keep my portions in check. By planning what I was going to eat and preparing healthy foods ahead of time I was able to stabilize my caloric intake. I still found it hard to eating at more consistant times due to my work schedule. But at the same time, I know my emotions sometimes play into what I eat and when so it makes it difficult to maintain this behavior.
7. It was actually pretty easy for me to keep up with recording what I ate and it was actually a great wake up call when I could visually see what I ate. The hardest part about this project was that the intervention took more work, time and dedication on my part.
8. If I were to do this project again, I would like to modify my behavior when it comes to time management skills and prioritizing.
1) My food eating goal was to keep my caloric intake within a smaller margin. Basically I noticed that some days I’d eat 5 to 7 thousand calories, the next two days I’d barely get 1000 or 1500.
2) My target behavior was to consistently eat between 2200-2400 calories per day.
3) Sometimes I would mark down what I was eating in my notebook if I was at school or away from home, otherwise I would simply document what I ate on the computer shortly before or after I finished eating.
4) The wording of my goal makes an upward or downward trend difficult to see. I remade another graph indicating the average difference from a target goal of 2300 calories I was on each day. That is a daily caloric intake of 3000 would be changed to 700, caloric intake of 1600 would also be 700. When the data is viewed in this way my eating habits during the baseline were between 500 and 1000 calories away from my target of 2300/day.
5) My intervention was to reward myself with pizza and beer Saturday night if the previous 6 days I had eaten between 2200 and 2400 calories each day. Effectively narrowing my margin of error from 500-1000, down to 100. This is one good example of why I failed to meet my goal. The goal was to complex to easily intuit what an “appropriate” change would be. It wasn’t until adding up all the data and making my graphs that I recognized what my goal truly involved (not “eating healthy” but “reducing variability”). And by then the project was nearly complete. Reducing my variability by 5-10 times was way too much. I should have given myself a larger leeway perhaps between 1900-2700 which is +/-400 calories and a much more achievable goal given the +/- 500 to 1000 of the baseline period.
Naturally the pizza and beer were to act as positive reinforcement for my reduced variability eating behaviors. However this reinforce also proved difficult to administer effectively. First, I rarely met my goal so not once did I effectively reward myself for achieving my goal. Second it was easy to justify an early or late reward based on other things happening in life. If the wife has off Wednesday night and wants to go out to eat why not reward yourself then since she works this Saturday anyway? So as a result the entire system can become easily confused.
6) I’ve partly answered this already in the preceeding paragraphs but naturally I did not reach my goal. My intervention was not successful because my goal was beyond my abilities, and also because numerous life events altered the reinforcing power of my reinforcer, something I would not have anticipated happening at the start. My trend line overall stayed consistent with my baseline at +/- 500 to 1000 calories away from my target average of 2300. However there are two huge outliers on Superbowl Sunday, and the weekend before that make my 4 week trend line show slight trend upward which is not so good. It is interesting to note that if you drink a 12 pack of beer and then get burger king you’ve just consumed about 7,000 calories. Even if that’s all you eat in a 24 hour period you’ve consumed three days worth of calories in about 4-6 hours. All in all it’s the combination of alcohol and fast food that drastically raised the calorie bar. Can’t say I’m surprised.
7) Hardest thing had to have been initially getting in the habit of documenting your food. Eating is just a natural thing and it’s easy to say “Oh yeah I’ll remember to right it down later tonight.” If three days go by now you have no idea what you ate and you’re forced to check your garbage can, ask your wife, check receipts, phone relatives to ask if they remember what you had when you went out to eat at Carlos O’Kelly’s, etc. etc.
I was also surprised at how difficult it was to find some of the calorie values for certain foods. If you don’t use lots of equipment it can be really hard to tell how many servings of various things items you had. How many tsp’s of peanut butter do you ordinarily put on a sandwhich? How many grams of sugar did you add to your cinnamon toast? Did you drink your milk out of a 12 or 16 oz glass? So this documentation I think was the hardest part.
8) In the future what I would do differently is a lot more pre-planning. As I mentioned above I really misunderstood exactly what goal I was setting for myself. It wasn't until well into the program when my reinforcement schedule was not working, and my behaviors seemed to be getting worse that I recognized the nature of the "reducing variability" aspect of my goal and how large my goal truly was. Also having written in some good plans for what to do when my reinforcer doesn't work for one reason or another would have been a good thing. I'd do the same project over again with better guidelines and a more appropriate goal.
1) My food eating goal was to increase the servings of fruits and vegetables I ate in a day.
2) My target behavior was to eat 5+ servings of food and vegetables each day.
3) I wrote down what I ate each day in a notebook.
4) My baseline behavior was 1-3 servings of fruits and veggies a day. I would say it was an increasing trend because I was trying to increase the amount of fruits and veggies I ate each day.
5) My intervention was buying more fruits and vegetables so I had them available to eat. I rewarded myself by spending time with friends on the weekends and painting my nails.
6) My intervention was kind of successful for a week, but after that second week of recording my eating behaviors, my consumption of fruits and veggies basically went back tot he baseline.
7) I thought this project was a great behavior modification idea. The hardest part for me was remembering to write down what I ate.
8) If I were to work on another behavioral project, I would probably try to modify and regulate when I eat so it was more consistent. I have no regular eating schedule and basically just eat whenever.
1.) My food eating goal was to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into my diet.
2.) My target behavior was to eat 3 or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
3.) I recorded my behavior by keeping a notebook in my bookbag every day and recording every single thing I ate. I left out the things I drank, but I did incorporate the antecedents for each meal.
4.) My baseline behavior was very inconsistent. Some days I would eat 1 to 2 servings of fruits and vegetable, so days 5 to 6 servings and some days I had no intake of fruits or vegetables at all.
5.) My intervention was throwing away some of my unhealthy foods in the pantry and going to the store and buying a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. I believe in the phrase, "out of site, out of mind', so I always had sticky notes reminding me to eat my fruits and vegetables and they were always right in front when I opened the refrigerator door. If I stuck to my 5 or more servings a day for a week I would reinforce myself with going to the mall and buying a small gift for myself!
6.) My intervention worked for a short time. I was consistent for a little over a week and then my behavior went back to how it was in the baseline.
7.) I thought this project was very fun and different! I hadn't noticed how much unhealthy food I was eating untill I started this project. I have been very unsuccessful in dieting and eating right in the past so I knew this would be a tough challenge for myself. I stayed strong for a little while, but then went back to my same old unhealthy habbits that I started with.
8.) If I was to do another behavioral project I would work on getting more excercise. I feel that when I exercise I am more likely to eat better because I put the time and effort into working out and I wouldn't want to waste that.
1) Was to snack less on unhealthy foods instead eat fruit
2) Snacking less
3) Recording when I ate, and when I got hungry, jot it down. And if I did in fact eat something, I wrote down what it was, whether it was healthy or not.
4) Baseline behavior was the less snacking part. And gradually it decreased as I wrote down how often I snacked and what I snacked on.
5) I did use reinforcement as it is the most affective and positive way to change one's own behavior. Since I try not to eat dessert too often, I chose to use dessert as a reinforcer. If I did well in lessening my snacking, I chose a Sunday night to eat a sweet.
6) The trend line did increase over time.
7) I found it interesting as I look back on what I've eaten and when. The hardest part aside from not eating the unhealthy things, was the actually writing things down. To take the time aside of what I was doing and writing everything down. Simple as it was I found it rather annoying.
8) If I chose to do another behavioral project it would probably be on to do my exercising. I don't do enough and could use some more activeness in my life.