Delayed reactions: caloric intake versus the scale
LindsayRidgeway
Posts: 7
My hobby is dog training, and one of the most important principles of dog training is that the outcome you as a trainer provide for your dog as a consequence of the dog's action has little meaning if that outcome doesn't occur virtually instantly. Five seconds later is way too late; no way can a dog correlate an outcome with some behavior that occurred five seconds earlier, and therefore such a delayed outcome has no effect on the dog's future decision making. But reward a dog within a split second a few times, and you have a learned behavior the dog will become more and more likely to repeat in the same context in the future.
Of course, the same principle applies to all species, including humans, though our ability to think abstractly gives us a bit more flexibility. For example, getting an occasional ticket in the mail for going thru a photo-enforced speed trap will eventually teach us to slow down, at least on that stretch of road. But many of us need half a dozen of those tickets before it sinks in, and we may still blow it occasionally.
However, if a ticket magically appeared on our dashboard the instant we passed the camera, we'd learn much faster, and the learning would be much more solid.
A similar issue applies to weight loss: the scale is an invaluable tool for losing weight, because it gives us an objective measure of our progress, assuming it isn't one of those scales that changes when you move around on it, and assuming we weight ourselves at the same time of day, with about the same hydration, and wearing the same weight of clothes each time.
But the problem is that any change in weight may not reflect the food intake of the previous 24 hours. Instead, at least for me, it seems to be offset by at least two days. That is, eating too many calories on Monday won't show up as weight gain till Wednesday or Thursday, and eating a moderated diet won't show up as weight loss for the same. It will show up eventually, but not the next morning. In fact, Tuesday morning may show the opposite loss or gain that Monday's calories would predict, not reflecting Monday's eating but actually the weekend's.
That's OK. You can compensate for the delay in your mind, and to some extent modify your behavior accordingly.
But wearing my behaviorist hat, I often think how much more useful it would be, from a behavioral point of view, if your weight instantly fluctuated to reflect your excesses and sacrifices.
Of course, the same principle applies to all species, including humans, though our ability to think abstractly gives us a bit more flexibility. For example, getting an occasional ticket in the mail for going thru a photo-enforced speed trap will eventually teach us to slow down, at least on that stretch of road. But many of us need half a dozen of those tickets before it sinks in, and we may still blow it occasionally.
However, if a ticket magically appeared on our dashboard the instant we passed the camera, we'd learn much faster, and the learning would be much more solid.
A similar issue applies to weight loss: the scale is an invaluable tool for losing weight, because it gives us an objective measure of our progress, assuming it isn't one of those scales that changes when you move around on it, and assuming we weight ourselves at the same time of day, with about the same hydration, and wearing the same weight of clothes each time.
But the problem is that any change in weight may not reflect the food intake of the previous 24 hours. Instead, at least for me, it seems to be offset by at least two days. That is, eating too many calories on Monday won't show up as weight gain till Wednesday or Thursday, and eating a moderated diet won't show up as weight loss for the same. It will show up eventually, but not the next morning. In fact, Tuesday morning may show the opposite loss or gain that Monday's calories would predict, not reflecting Monday's eating but actually the weekend's.
That's OK. You can compensate for the delay in your mind, and to some extent modify your behavior accordingly.
But wearing my behaviorist hat, I often think how much more useful it would be, from a behavioral point of view, if your weight instantly fluctuated to reflect your excesses and sacrifices.
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Replies
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I think you'd have to be a complete idiot to get a ticket and not figure out there was a camera there and slow down unless you were in a terrible hurry. Needing to get six? That's someone who just doesn't care about the tickets.
I have a cat and seriously envy people who can train their animal. Dogs do not jump up and stand on that 1" of counter between me and the sink while I'm working there, then act all surprised and put out when they're pushed away and just nudge themselves back in...over and over...several times, every day.
My diet wouldn't be any different if scale results were immediate. No better, no worse.0 -
I hadn't noticed this kind of 'delay' on the scales, but I suspect it might be there... I know that some days, when I'm expecting a loss, there isn't one and vice versa. I shall have to pay closer attention in future!
When I started my journey I needed more encouragements of one sort or another, but now - having seen what 2 months of caloric deficit means for my body - I don't need as many. (I guess because every time I look in the mirror I see an 'instant' result.) So perhaps we're rather more like our dogs than any of us realise... I also think a lot of people give up on their weight loss journey because they DON'T see immediate results.
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I think you'd have to be a complete idiot to get a ticket and not figure out there was a camera there and slow down unless you were in a terrible hurry. Needing to get six? That's someone who just doesn't care about the tickets.
I have a cat and seriously envy people who can train their animal. Dogs do not jump up and stand on that 1" of counter between me and the sink while I'm working there, then act all surprised and put out when they're pushed away and just nudge themselves back in...over and over...several times, every day.
My diet wouldn't be any different if scale results were immediate. No better, no worse.
Cats can be trained too. It just takes different techniques, and you can't expect to train a cat to do something that cats can't do.0 -
I don't see those kinda changes cuz I only weigh once a month. I used to obsess over the scale and had to personally break away from it.
As for cats my General Gingerwhiskers is well trained haha.0 -
Well said......Sorry that some folks are more interested in being a smarty pants than actually getting the point..Having said that I must say I have always been upset when I work my bottom off and dont get the reward....That being less numbers on the scale...I like the way you think....0
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Although I use my scale daily I agree that instant stats would motivate me more. To this end I bought the Fitbit zip.
The dashboard shows you how many steps you have taken and it gives instant results. For example today I went for a long walk and when I got back I downloaded the info and instantly saw how far I had walked, how many steps I had taken and how many calories I burned.
Because it syncs with MFP it also instantly adjusted my calorie goal. Not saying that it is exact but it gives a good indication of how much or in my case usually how little I move and it really helps me to try that bit harder. The scale however tends to be a bit depressing when you have worked hard but no result shows for a while.0 -
I like the idea of that toy manderson27.....It would be nice to get a reward....lol0
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The issue isn't that the scale has delayed reactions. Rather, it's that the phenomenon you want to measure—gains or (hopefully) losses in fat and lean body tissues—is an order of magnitude smaller than daily fluctuations in the weight of retained solid and liquid waste, not to mention your gut microbiome.
Many years ago, John Walker pointed this out (minus the microbiome part) in his free online book The Hacker's Diet. He also pointed out how an exponentially smoothed moving average of your daily scale weight can provide useful feedback that's fairly immediate. See the chapters on "The Rubber Bag" and "Signal and Noise."0 -
The fact is, our weight does instantly fluctuate when we eat too much. The same can't be said for not eating because we don't lose much weight at the dinner table. However, one of the things that makes us different from the brute beasts is that we can anticipate a reward that comes many months or years after an action.0
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Many years ago, John Walker pointed this out (minus the microbiome part) in his free online book The Hacker's Diet. He also pointed out how an exponentially smoothed moving average of your daily scale weight can provide useful feedback that's fairly immediate. See the chapters on "The Rubber Bag" and "Signal and Noise."
Oh goodness, I loved that book. It was wonderful to frame weight loss as a simple engineering problem, and to have the tools for individual feedback rather than go on inaccurate approximations based on someone else's body!
I wouldn't call a week's delay in feedback (which is about the finest granularity you can expect on the trend) immediate, though.
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TimothyFish wrote: »Cats can be trained too. It just takes different techniques, and you can't expect to train a cat to do something that cats can't do.
Like not be a furry little jerk? XD (I have three.)0 -
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Hmmm, I get what you're saying. But by the same token we also have increased weight fluxes due to starting/increasing exercise, hormonal changes, sodium, muscle mass.. And so forth. Weight gain on the scales isn't always a negative thing. As for eating too much one day.. Sure, it might show up - but you can balance that out over a week/months intake. And it won't have any bearing on the bigger picture. I prefer to think of myself as a human being who has the thought process avaliable to make long term choices. Not a dog that restricts it's thinking to what someone else deems fit to 'teach me'.0
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I second the fitbit idea. I know that hitting my steps helps with my weight loss efforts (I don't eat back fitbit calories, I consider them to be part of my activity level). I love reaching the green level every day (I will even walk in place while watching tv to hit it) and the happy buzzing when you hit your daily goal. It's a great "instant" feedback tool for doing the right things.0
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