In my last paper discussing the book Changing For Good I went over how the independence that accompanied the beginning of my college life had brought me to make some poor decisions about my diet and health. I was eating very poorly and not exercising enough to claim I was living a healthy lifestyle and was looking to make some changes. I discussed the stages of pre-contemplation, contemplation, and preparation in regards to how they worked in my situation, and now I will discuss the next four stages and how I have seen them manifest themselves in my own life. These are the stages of action, maintenance, relapse, and termination.
Stages
Action After having determined my plan of action in the preparation stage, I was now ready to implement a few of the changes to my lifestyle that sounded beneficial. Cooking healthy meals at home and spending three days a week running for an hour at the gym were the two biggest actions that I took to improve my lifestyle. I was highly…show more content… It became difficult to say no to my friends when they were going out to eat, and it was also difficult to say yes to going to they gym. I was discovering how easy it is to slip right back into old habits and behaviors. However, I discovered that it was not the everyday routine that was the challenge for me, but it was the special circumstances and social pressures that became difficult (Diclemente, 1994, p. 206) . Every year my family and I go on a cruise, and the food on a cruise is hard to say no to. I figured it was a special circumstance and I would get back to my routine after the trip. For that week I put aside my diet and exercise routine and let myself live a little. This was a mistake. I fell off the horse and it became very difficult for me to get back on. I learned how important maintenance is to maintaing behavior
