Implementation Intentions for Weight Loss and Dietary Change in College Students With Overweight and Obesity

"Implementation intentions aid in pre-planning and habitualization of behaviors, as they serve to identify the when, where, and how of behaviors leading to goal attainment. Often taking the form of If/when situation x arises, then I will do y!, implementation intentions can be conceptualized in two parts, namely, an environmental or internal retrieval cue and a goal-directed behavioral response. Implementation intentions are effective because they 1) create a strong association between a retrieval cue and a goal-aligned behavior, increasing the likelihood that the goal-aligned behavior will be retrieved and utilized when the cue is encountered, and 2) increase attention for and cognitive accessibility of the retrieval cue, increasing opportunities for goal-aligned action ."

Fluency training is a learning strategy that requires an individual to perform a skill or demonstrate knowledge repeatedly for both accuracy and response rate; the goal is to enhance automaticity of the response and promote endurance and retention of skills and knowledge over time and in the face of distractors. Participants completed 1 minute fluency training protocol 4 times throughout the study.

SMS reminders sent to phone of implementation intentions 16 times throughout the study.

Intentions to complete a goal that do not specify a plan about how to do so (compared to implementation intentions, that do)