OBJECTIVES Weight loss maintenance (WLM) is the next major challenge in obesity treatment. While most individuals who lose weight intend to keep their weight off, weight regain is common. Temporal Self-Regulation Theory posits that whether intentions lead to behavior depends on self-regulatory capacity, including delay discounting (DD; the tendency to discount a larger future reward in favor of a smaller immediate reward). Episodic Future Thinking (EFT; mental imagery of a future event for which a health goal is important) may improve DD and promote behavior change. Described herein is a trial protocol designed to examine whether EFT improves DD within the context of weight loss maintenance. METHOD Participants who lose ≥5% of initial body weight in an online behavioral weight loss intervention will be randomly assigned to a standard weight loss maintenance program (WLM-STD) or a weight loss maintenance program plus EFT (WLM + EFT). Both interventions involve periodic phone and in-person treatment sessions. Participants in WLM + EFT will engage in daily EFT training via smartphone. To control for contact, participants in WLM-STD will engage in daily Healthy Thinking (reviewing strategies for weight management) on their smartphone. Our primary hypothesis is that WLM + EFT will yield better improvements in DD compared to WLM-STD. We will also explore whether DD mediates the relationship between intervention allocation and physical activity (secondary outcome). Weight and contextual variables will be explored. CONCLUSIONS This study is the first to test whether EFT improves DD within the context of weight loss maintenance; results from this experimental medicine approach could have important implications for understanding the impact of both EFT and DD on sustained behavior change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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突发性的未来思考，延误折扣和维持减肥过程中的锻炼：PACE试验。

目的减肥维持（WLM）是肥胖治疗中的下一个主要挑战。虽然大多数减肥者都希望保持体重减轻，但体重恢复很常见。时间自我调节理论认为，意图是否会导致行为取决于自我调节能力，包括延迟贴现（DD；倾向于更大的未来奖励而倾向于较小的即时奖励的趋势）。情景未来思维（EFT；对健康目标很重要的未来事件的心理意象）可以改善DD并促进行为改变。本文描述的是一种试验方案，旨在检查EFT是否在维持体重减轻的情况下改善DD。方法在线行为减肥干预中体重减轻≥5％的参与者将被随机分配到标准减肥维持计划（WLM-STD）或减肥维持计划加EFT（WLM + EFT）。两种干预措施均涉及定期电话和面对面治疗。WLM + EFT的参与者将通过智能手机参加每日EFT培训。为了控制联系，WLM-STD参与者将在其智能手机上进行每日“健康思维”（体重管理的审查策略）。我们的主要假设是，与WLM-STD相比，WLM + EFT将在DD方面产生更好的改进。我们还将探讨DD是否介导干预分配与身体活动（第二结果）之间的关系。权重和上下文变量将被探讨。结论这项研究是第一个测试EFT是否能在维持减肥的情况下改善DD的研究。这种实验医学方法的结果可能对理解EFT和DD对持续行为改变的影响具有重要意义。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2020 APA，保留所有权利）。