Week 8 - Evaluation

This final week was by far the best. I almost feel like I cheated because I was at home playing video games so much that I didn't even eat out at all. This is almost a complete 180 from my baseline behavior. I went from eating out almost everyday of the week to not eating out at all this week. Overall my program worked pretty well. I think I have a lot of thanks to give to the timing since Modern Warfare two was released and gave me just a little extra motivation. I think that the awareness was almost solely responsible for the change. Even though I wanted to play video games really bad, the truth of the matter is that I was just thinking a lot more about eating out and making a conscience decision not to do it. I already knew how unhealthy it was for me and I think that this pushed me even more to keep away from the drive through. I think that for this to be long term I am just going to have to keep reminding myself that eating out is not a good idea. I think that the video game punishment will eventually fall by the wayside since my desire to play generally declines when the novelty of the game wears off. I think that the most challenging part of this assignment was actually keeping up with my own punishment weeks when I did eat out. If I wanted to play games it was difficult to tell myself that I couldn't when I know I would only be responsible to myself. I think that this however was the most valuable aspect as well since I did stay honest with myself. I feel like this has made me feel a little more responsible for my own health and accomplished. It was interesting that I had the desire to cheat even when I knew that I would only be cheating myself but now looking back on it I am very glad that I didn't. I think that operant conditioning can be effective in most cases. I think that some behavior changes may be very difficult to make using operant conditioning but I think that it is obviously a very powerful thing and with the right situation can provide very real and consequential rewards. Overall I had a very good time completing this assignment and I feel like I have changed for the better and I hope that I can keep it up!