Back at it, like whoa

It's SUCH a great feeling to be back in Dunedin!  I've been extremely busy with thesis work, MInT study stuff, and finding a gig (or two) to bring in $$$ after the MInT study wraps up.  On top of that I've started getting back into running after a two month hiatus (injuries/illness kept me down, but I'm back!).

The MInT study has been following families for two years to compare two groups: families that did/did not work with a mentor to make healthy changes.  I've been responsible for booking measurement appointments and doing the measuring for height, weight, waist circumference and blood pressure.  We've got about three children left to measure and then the analysis will begin... All children were overweight (based on BMI) at the start of the study and now we'll see what happened to children's body composition and look to see if the type of intervention group may have influenced outcomes.

I've also been through a little bit of training to measure babies' length and weight for the BLISS study-this study will look at baby-lead eating practices.   I also got a job with a qualitative study where I'll be responsible for going door-to-door to interview people on quality of life related issues.

My own research has taken off recently.  I received a lot of good feedback after my presentation on psychological flexibility and women's weight changes at the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science conference in Sydney - it makes me super excited to continue my research knowing that so many people find it interesting in these early stages!

Related to that - I've almost wrapped up the entire analysis for these two questions:

• Does baseline psychological flexibility predict 3-year weight change/stability?
• Does baseline intuitive eating predict 3-year weight change/stability? 

I'll still need to analyze our data to look at baseline mindfulness and weight change/stability, but now that I understand our statistics software and how to run analyses, check diagnostics, blah, blah, blah, the process should go quickly.  All of this data analysis has also got our team thinking about what to ask with the 5-year Women's Lifestyle, Eating Habits and Wellbeing survey, which will take place in 2014.

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to explain a little more about my own research findings and share pictures of recent adventures around New Zealand.  In fact, on Monday I should have pictures from my first experience as a spectator at an ultramarathon! WAHOO!