October weekend wanderings

This past week, I had a meeting with a primary investigator on a study that I'm helping with.  I said, "You know, it's not that I don't want to do everything that I'm trying to do; It's just that there aren't enough hours in the day!"  She could relate.  

In October, I had days where I was in one office at 9am to get work done for a study and then I'd walk over to my office for the rest of the day and into the night....and into the early hours of the morning.  My crazy long days were mostly the result of running focus groups - they are so time consuming!  

On Thursday, for example, our focus group ended just before 7pm. Then, Olivia and I went up to my office to make revisions to the module to present in Friday's focus group.  Then, I transcribed the discussion from the focus group.  By the time I finished up a few more things it was nearly 3am.  As I walked to my flat I wasn't alone - plenty of students were stumbling home after a night at the bars.  I was stumbling along with them, but that was from the sleep deprivation.  

I thought I was really overtired when I saw a 6-food tall white rabbit walk across the corner of Great King Street and St. David... head hung low, floppy ears dangling to the side... such a strange sight!  But, it was Halloween and there were others dressed up in costumes, but that rabbit was the most surreal. Ha!

Yet, October wasn't all work and no play.  Recently, friends and I took a hike up the Pineapple Track to Flagstaff.

Otago Peninsula, Otago Harbour and the city of Dunedin below.  I've been living in Dunedin for a year and eight months already - just another year and four months to go!

Last weekend, Will and I took a hike to Jubilee Hut in the Silverpeaks.  The original plan was to hike the Gillespie Pass Circuit, but the forecast called for snow and I didn't have enough time to organize  gear.  The Department of Conservation gave Will a few suggestions, but we'd have to drive up to 4 hours away and so it made more sense to stay local.

Not a bad day for a hike, eh?

At the 10-bunk hut there were already about 30 people and we knew more were on the way because we passed them on the way in.  So, we hiked back out (just under 20k, 12 miles, round trip).

I wasn't complaining - the views were pretty awesome!

This past Monday was a holiday and so for Labour Day we took a stroll to Purakanui beach.

 

This is a beach that I hadn't been to before.  It was great to be in a spot that wasn't busy with lots of people.

Further down the beach we found a spiffy tunnel to explore!

Photo credit: Will Styles

November will be busy, but the weather is getting nice and so I'll have to work hard during the week to keep those weekends freed up for tramping... it'll be good training for my 50k race coming up in March.

Focused on Weight Gain Prevention

Let me take a moment to stop, take a deep breath, and thank heavens that October is over!  My life has been crazed, but in a good way.

I've spent long hours developing content for a weight gain prevention program (using work by Evan Forman,  Jennifer Taitz, Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel, Rick Kausman, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch for inspiration) and testing it in focus groups (17 focus groups x 1-2 hours each!).  On top of thesis work I've been juggling my research assistant duties for three (!) separate projects - Motivational Interviewing and Treatment (MInT), Baby-Lead Introduction to Solids Study (BLISS), and a qualitative study of community capacity in Mataura, New Zealand.  Phwew!

The chaos was kicked off after a local paper ran this little article to help us recruit women for focus groups:

The Star, October 2013

To participate in focus groups, women had to be between the ages of 40-50 (inclusive), have issues with non-hungry/emotional eating (we used Tracy Tylka's  Intuitive Eating Scale - 2013 version), and have a BMI greater than 27.

Our goal was to have feedback from eight women for each of the 11 modules.  I had no problem filling in our focus group schedule (basically, Monday-Friday at 5pm).  Nearly 40 women contacted me to participate in focus groups - one woman said that she was almost in tears because she was so happy that someone was addressing the emotional side of eating behavior!

Overall, they really enjoyed the content that we presented - just minor tweaks here and there when I wasn't "kiwi enough" with my descriptions and instructions (meaning, I needed to use gentler/friendlier language).  At first, women were caught off guard by our mindfulness exercises, but we all worked together to get the language in guided activities acceptable by the majority of participants.

Intervention teaser: mindfully eating a raisin (an adapted Jon Kabat Zinn activity) was an absolute hit as was letting negative thoughts float away on leaves on a stream (an adapted Russ Harris activity)!

I still need to test our paper-based mockups of the website with Māori and Pacific Islander women and then I'll send our materials off to three experts for review (one is an expert in women's health and has a background in Māori health, another researches intuitive eating and the other applies Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to weight loss interventions).  Once that's all done I will send the content to a web developer to get everything on a prototype that I can test in December/January.  A beta version of the website will hopefully be up about five months post-prototype and then I'll have a website to test in a feasibility study (late 2014).  I'm sooooo excited that this is coming together!