Moving Forward: A Weight Loss Intervention for African-American Breast Cancer Survivors

The first meeting each week includes a 60-minute class that addresses health knowledge, attitudes, and self-monitoring of weight, food and physical activity; realistic goal setting; stimulus control; problem solving; cognitive restructuring and relapse prevention. Other class activities include weekly weigh-in; increasing awareness of portions by weighing and measuring foods; creating stimulus control plans for home, car and work; identifying barriers to healthy eating and/or exercise; going on a field trip to a local grocery store to practice reading food labels; creating an eating out management plan; and identifying high risk situations and brainstorming ways to manage them. This meeting also includes a 60-minute exercise class. The second meeting each week is a stand-alone 60-minute exercise class that will incorporate a variety of activities. A one-year CPD fitness club membership and home exercise DVDs will be provided.

Control participants will be provided with a 24-week weight loss curriculum; this includes a binder with their personal daily caloric recommendation, all intervention handouts, a copy caloric guidelines and useful weight loss tools. Upon randomization, each control participant will be introduced to the program materials and encouraged to tailor the weight loss program for themselves. The study team will call each control participant once a month during this 6-month program period to check in. In addition, after the follow-up data collection, control participants will receive a one-year membership to the CPD fitness center.