Forget About Willpower
I went to a holiday party last night and saw a friend I hadn't seen in a while.
"Hey, Woody--you look great! How did you manage to lose so much weight?"
"Well, I tried something radical: I'm eating less food. I realized that I liked looking good and feeling good more than I liked eating extra food. I found that I was eating a lot when I felt depressed or stressed or lonely, so I decided to find other ways of managing stress and being with people I love that weren't centered around eating too much."
I've been conducting clinical research for over 30 years. In the process I've learned what really works to make and maintain lasting changes in diet and lifestyle. Woody got it right.
So, maybe you're a little stuffed from holiday indulgences. OK, really stuffed. Perhaps you look in the mirror and don't like what you see. You're ready to make some New Year's resolutions, but you're not optimistic that this year is going to be any different. Many people believe that it takes willpower to achieve such goals. "I resolve to eat less food" sounds good in theory, but it's often hard to sustain. And if you believe that it's all willpower, then you're likely to be upset with yourself if you don't succeed.
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IT'S NOT WILL POWER THAT IS NEEDED. IT IS WON'T POWER THAT DOES THE TRICK.
THAT'S RIGHT. FORGET ABOUT WILLPOWER.
And join Weight Watchers. I've lost nearly a hundred pounds in 2 rounds of WW. Of course, each time, I gained SOME (but not all) of it back when I quit. But the whole idea is to lose gradually simply by smart eating and calorie-counting plus exercise and also sharing your culinary triumphs and tragedies with a group of like-minded fatties...
If you're hungry, eat. Just make sure it's good food, not JUNK food. 'Junk' food is the preprocessed, pasteurized, sugar-sprinkled 12-pack of cholesterol pellets that just taste SO good with a glass of your favorite sugary carbon-ated so-da.
You could go get yourself a 50-pound bale
of leafy green spinach, and do your best
to put it all in your mouth and gulp it down.
Your friends will all leave the house, so
it'll just be you and the spinach, but you'll
be satisfied. You'll also be healthier than
if you tried to eat 50 pounds of pizza.
I think if people want to lose weight, then
they should drop 10 bucks for a nutrition book
and go buy something called 'a kichen scale',
where you can weigh it BEFORE you put it in
your mouth, because that'll be something that
gives you a better idea of how much of it
will glue itself to your beltline.
Perhaps a better resolution is to write down everything you eat, all the time, every day. Just knowing that what you eat will go on the record is likely to make you more careful.
Thank you thank you thank you for a post that has nothing to do with Iowa or New Hampshire!
Of course you can get some good desserts in those states if you like cheese cake and maple syrup. Oops, sorry.
What I really want to say is that I think the Doctor is 100% correct. Step one is accepting the fact that you are overweight, it is killing you slowly and change must happen. Step two is finding the realistic answer that fits you, not the person in the next cubicle at work. Step three is implementation. For most people the cliche that better diet = permanent change in lifestyle is true. The Doctor is doing us all a stupendous service by using the D word. Depression and excess weight are twin devils.
People must fight both. Talk to your doctor, but decide what is going to work for you. Normally this means reduction in overall food intake + avoiding specific foods. Within those boundaries you can eat tons of stuff you love and never feel deprived. One final comment. Please do not listen to all the bad advice from your family, friends and even people on the Net.
Skinny people like to lord it over fat people. Live with it, and don't let it get you down. You are not your worst enemy, but the self rightous prick at the next cubicle in the office might be when it comes to help in making good decisions.
I fought my weight for 10 years after a stint with postpartum sleep deprivation and depression sent me into obesity for the first time in my life. One thing that helped IMMENSELY was to get rid of my TV. It's not just a matter of not sitting around so much, because I love to read; it's a matter of getting rid of the commercials that make food that is bad for you look so damned good.
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Dr. Dean,
Funny how heart disease and diabetes only became endemic once humans started eating cereals, isn't it? We are a hunter-gatherer species, and until evolution catches up to our modern diet, eating otherwise is foolhardy.
Meat, eggs, nuts, green vegetables, moderate dairy, and berries and fruit for dessert in small portions is how you do it. Oats, rice, wheat, and other grasses are nothing more than a myocardial infarction in granular form.
Atkins works, and all your wailing and gnashing of teeth to the contrary will not alter that fact.
With respect,
--Hyde
.
I have found in my research and personal work that willpower or self-determination offers us the best chance we have to maintain our health and wellbeing over the long haul. I introduce a self-care plan with my students that includes our whole being--physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Those who are committed to change and to improving themselves follow through on their plans, while those who have little will power to change and to be the best they can be, put their health practices off. They do not often see that committing to a personal health plan is the best thing they can do for themselves, their families and their clients as developing professionals.
Yeah, except research is repeatedly showing you'll live longer if you carry 20 extra pounds. A fairly recent study once again replicates this finding. Google it up. It's OK to be thin - just don't delude yourself into thinking that it's always healthy.
(Now, if you're carrying 50 extra pounds, that's a different kettle of Omega3-rich fish!)
Tangential to 'eating less food' is the corollary of eating precisely zero Corporate Food. It works.
"I resolve to eat less food" sounds good in theory, but it's often hard to sustain. And if you believe that it's all willpower, then you're likely to be upset with yourself if you don't succeed when it's so much easier to be fat and blame everyone else!
Is "eating less food" redundant? What else would you eat less of?
The Supernatural Diet doesn't work.
Weight is determined by calories in - calories used. 1 lb. = 3500 calories, so every extra 3500 calories eaten puts on a pound or so. Want to lose a pound? Consume 3500 fewer calories: 7 days x 500 calories = 3500 calories, so to lose 1 pound per week, you must consume 500 fewer calories per day. That's 500 fewer calories than it takes to maintain your CURRENT weight, not how many you happen to be eating. If you consume 4,000 calories per day, dropping 500 isn't going to help.
An adult woman needs between 1500-2000 calories per day: to lose 1 ib. per week, eat 1,000-1,500 calories per day. You can burn up a few calories swimming or walking, which might get you an extra teeny cooky. Sorry, thems the facts.
What´s wrong with being a little upset about oneself once in a while? Resolve to change comes from the will to change, and that comes from wanting to change.
That´s what Woody did, isn´t it?
Dr. Ornish believes his plan from The Spectrum, his new publication, will reverse the tides of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic conditions, arthritis, and elevated cholesterol levels. He says, "Your genes are not your fate. Changing what you eat and how you live alters the expression of the genes."
Read more about Dr. Ornish's new book:
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Kelly Jad'on/OnLine Publisher
Basil & Spice
#1 Syndicated Author & Book Views On a Healthy Life!
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