So we have just had a talk about nourishing the soul, so i think it's fitting that i now talk about nourishing the body. So in particularly, i want to talk to you about sentence which you might have said yourself at some point or you have heard someone else say and the sentence is this: "losing weight is easy just eat less and exercise more". And you see this in the media a lot so, it will come up as a sarcastic headline from the university of obvious every once in a while, and it seems like a rational premise so if calories in is less than calories out you lose weight right? No, it's how it would work if we were talking about say lab rats.
And it's, you know a totally legitimate thing from a physiological standpoint, but if we are talking about people its more complicated than that. So what can psychology research tell us about weight loss? Well, first let's look about some of the assumptions we have about how easy it's going to be for us, so a few years ago there was a survey where they asked people who were trying to lose weight what sort of weight loss they were aiming for. And the average for that was around 25 kilos or 55 pounds. So the actual average weight loss that people report after 12 months of just " eating less", it's around six kilos. So people who eat less and exercise more around eight. But still a lot less than you would expect. And that is just the people who stuck to it.
So that is you know out of everyone who started out, at the end of 12 months, only 50% are still, you know, making effort. So also problem is that once we lose this weight the amount will vary depending on what you are doing what happens afterwards is that we gain at least some of it back. So basically what empirical research suggests to us is that for the vast majority of us "just eating less" as a weight loss strategy, really doesn't work, right, so obviously this is a problem because our expectations do not align with reality. And in part these expectations are perpetuated by the media and commercial weight loss programs which promise us quick easy and drastic weight loss. And what happens is we then internalise these beliefs and we try to lose weight by you know sheer willpower alone, and then we are not very good at it.
And we assume that it's because we are greedy and lazy and whatever. So this idea that " if you want to lose weight you should just eat less" is wrong. And it's counterproductive so from a psychological standpoint, why do we fail? And what are some of the things that we can do to counteract this? So i am going to do this on kind of a problem solution, problem solution format. So first most diets will tend to be structured around deprivation. So people will look at these really lovely food they like to eat and say, right i am not going to eat that anymore because it's high in fat or high in calories or whatever.
So they are in the state of deprivation which is basically punishing yourself. And you can't do this for very long time. Eventually you are going to cave because being in that state is really unpleasant. So the alternatives is to change your preference. So you have to eat food you like. So if we assume that, you know salad is really good for you, but you hate salad.
Don't have salad, have something else. And it's going to take time and energy to find what it is that you like and what works for you, but it's worth it because in the long run, you will be able to do that for longer but it's worth it because in the long run, you will be able to do that for longer.
Now, the second thing is self control, i touched upon this briefly, but we have this idea that if only we had enough willpower. Weight loss would be really easy, now what psychology tell us is that we have a finite amount og self control. Ok if you think of it like muscle when you use it, you get tired. And that is what happens with self control, we exert self control become fatigued, in psychology this is called ego depletion. And then we are less able to use self control again.
So if you think about going to the gym right when you really hate going to the gym, what happens is that you are going to he tired from thr physical activity..
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