The comedienne Rosanne once noted how much more fortunate men are than women, as they age. All a balding man has to do, she said, was let his hair grow long on the side of his head, comb it over, and “nobody can tell.”

More seriously, because of my experience these past months, I began thinking about weight loss, or rather successful weight management, as a sort of individual-scale complex skill. Adding in the performance improvement viewpoint ended up making it too complicated to treat in a single post.

I get your point about stating the obvious in AA-style settings. There is something to that, but I also think that you’ve got to adopt your own mantras, your own watchwords. I have been close to several people for whom AA was a sheet anchor, including one who stayed sober for 55 years.

Not a proselytizer, not even a “One Day at a Time” bumper sticker, just a hard-won awareness of the difference it had made in his life. And the lives of those in his life.

I’ve been keeping an eye on this for a while and you might find it interesting – weight loss programmes in virtual worlds:

http://www.thinkbalm.com/2009/11/02/club-one-explores-immersive-tech-for-delivering-training/

http://www.island.cluboneinc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26

Apparently, they’re getting good results (though, as with everything diet-related) it’s a very noisy environment and I haven’t seen anything that could be described as truly objective.

It occurs to me that ‘weight loss’ would be a fantastic module on any ISD/Train the Trainer-type programme. I’ll think on that a bit more but may give it a test on my next T the T engagement.

A comment on your blog:
I love coming here. And this post’s a fantastic example of why. Sometimes you read something and you get that sense of un-recognition (jamais vu?) where you realise, “I never would have thought of that in a million years but it seems so obvious now.” I’m talking of both the Heydad Test and applying hard-nosed training stuff to the weight loss. Thanks.