For the New Year’s resolution folk among us, the Monday after Thanksgiving represents the beginning to successful launch of any health and fitness behavior change.
The diligent within resolution’s ranks dial back their New Year’s launch to the day after Halloween – foregoing (or minimizing) holiday sweets, pastries and abundant feasting.
Researchers James O. Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente in the late 1970s, identified six stages for successful behavior change.
Proschaska’s and DiClemente’s Stages of Change, also called the Transtheoretical Model, describes an individual’s readiness for change as a six stage process which includes…
- Pre-contemplation: There is no intention of taking action.
- Contemplation: There are intentions to take action and a plan to do so in the near future.
- Preparation: There is intention to take action and some steps have been taken.
- Action: Behavior has been changed for a short period of time.
- Maintenance: Behavior has been changed and continues to be maintained for the long-term.
- Termination: There is no desire to return to prior negative behaviors.
Let’s consider the Monday after Thanksgiving as time to place ourselves in the Preparation stage.
Then two weeks before Christmas we happily start the Action stage saying “No Thanks” to over-indulgence offerings and we up the exercise regimen which may have been lying dormant due to holiday busyness.
Once January 6, 2024 – celebrated as Three Kings Day in Latin countries with the giving of gifts – fully launches the New Year, we successfully will find ourselves in the Maintenance stage.
Hallelujah and hold the biscuits. Our November CountDown did its job. WF!
