Today’s guest post comes from Justin Kompf, SUNY Cortland’s head strength coach and kinesiology lecturer. The SUNY Cortland Health and Wellness Conference is set for April 8, featuring speakers including Tony Gentilcore, Dr. Lisa Lewis, Brian St. Pierre, David Just, and Mark Fisher. For more information, visit the conference page.
It’s easy to sit down after work, switch on the TV, and grab whatever food is quickest. This comfort feels good, while exercising or cooking for a little while often doesn’t provide an immediate reward. A workout might even feel painful compared with a couch, and a chicken and broccoli meal won’t excite the taste buds like a burger, fries, and a milkshake.
Change is difficult. Adopting healthier habits can bring up negative feelings. Trying not to eat the cookie or not to sit and watch TV after work can make those thoughts pop up more often, and a normal human mind will have negative self-talk like:
– “No matter how hard I work, I’ll never look like her.”
– “Exercising every day is tough with my schedule; is it worth it?”
– “I can’t do this.”
– “I can’t change.”
– “I’ve failed at this before; why should now be different?”
– “I didn’t lose weight this week; I’m a failure.”
Rather than fighting these thoughts, acceptance offers a helpful alternative. Acceptance means making space for painful feelings, sensations, urges, and emotions, letting them breathe, and not fighting or ignoring them. It’s about recognizing them without letting them control behavior. When negative thoughts appear, ask yourself, “Can I work with these thoughts?” The question is about how a thought might guide your actions, not whether it’s true.
Acceptance and commitment strategies can boost physical activity. Pilot work with college-aged women showed they exercised more after an acceptance-and-commitment-based intervention than with education alone. In another study, teaching people to accept the negative feelings and uncomfortable sensations that come with physical activity led to better cardiorespiratory fitness, higher estimated VO2 max, and less avoidance of those internal experiences. In a weight loss program, a 12-week acceptance-based approach produced an average weight loss of 6.6%, with continued loss at six months (about 9.6%).
Two practical tips to apply acceptance and commitment are: identify your higher-order values and check if a thought is workable. The therapy is based on the idea that people will keep actions that bring distressing inner experiences if those actions serve a meaningful goal. In a 2009 pilot study, participants listed their top reasons for losing weight and learned to link those values to their eating and activity behaviors. Once higher-order values are clear, daily actions gain meaning.
Tom Seaver’s example helps illustrate how values shape daily choices: if pitching determines what you eat, when you go to bed, and how you spend your waking hours, those daily choices align with long-term goals. A value system sets low-level actions in service of higher goals, like maintaining independence to enjoy activities for many years. If you’re unsure what values to use, ask why each goal matters: Why do you want to exercise more? Why do you want to be healthier? Why is that important to you?
To judge thoughts, ask: If I let this thought guide my behavior, will it help me live a richer, fuller life? If clinging to a thought won’t help you become who you want to be, practice defusion. Defusion means observing thoughts and feelings from a distance without acting on them or trying to change them. You don’t need to believe, act on, or suppress every feeling; a negative emotion isn’t solved by analysis alone.
ACT can be used by many professionals. Russ Harris speaks of making ACT accessible to coaches, counselors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other health professionals. If you’re trying to change your lifestyle, start by identifying higher-order goals and linking them to your daily behavior, and practice defusion if negative thoughts or emotions arise. Ask whether those thoughts are workable for long-term goals; if not, they don’t have to be accepted as truth or acted on.
Author’s bio: Justin Kompf is the head strength coach at SUNY Cortland and a kinesiology lecturer. Cortland hosts aHealth and Wellness Conference each year, this year on April 8, with speakers including Tony Gentilcore, Dr. Lisa Lewis, Brian St. Pierre, David Just, and Mark Fisher. For more information, visit the conference page.
References:
– Butryn, M.L., Forman, E.M., Hoffman, K.L., Shaw, J.A., & Juarascio, A.S. (2011). A pilot study of acceptance and commitment therapy for promotion of physical activity. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 8(4), 516-522.
– Duckworth, A. Grit: The power of passion and perseverance.
– Forman, E.M., Butryn, M.L., Hoffman, K.L., Herbert, J.D. (2009). An open trial of an acceptance-based behavioral intervention for weight loss. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 16, 223-235.
– Harris, R. ACT Made Simple: An Easy-to-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
– Martin E.C., Galloway-Williams, N., Cox, M.G., & Winett, R.A. (2015). Pilot testing of a mindfulness- and acceptance-based intervention for increasing cardiorespiratory fitness in sedentary adults: A feasibility study. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 4(4), 237-245.
