Self-control is a limited resource, and what this means for your diet

ugofatcat

If you have 5 minutes, please watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaNt-tcnm6Q

My takeaway is that you only get so much self-control for the day, and once you use it up, it is easy to fall back into old bad habits. When you try to change a bunch of things in your life, it is easy to get discouraged easily and give up because you run out of self-control quickly.

On the other hand, if you pick one thing to change and just focus on that, you won’t deplete your self-control as quickly, and it will be easier to maintain this change. Once this change becomes a habit and it no longer takes self-control, add another change.

Agree or disagree? Has this been your experience with weight loss? Did you change things gradually, or make a whole bunch of changes overnight?

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts.

cwolfman13

I pretty much made small, incremental changes to my habits...chipping away at bad ones and incorporating better ones.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone make whole sale, 180* changes overnight and have any kind of long term success with anything. It also fosters an all or nothing mentality which will ultimately be detrimental to long term success.

kommodevaran

Of course I agree. I stopped buying sweets etc and then try to control myself around it at home. I can resist temptation for five minutes twice a week, not 24/7.

This time around I started out like I always did, by replacing junk food with oatmeal and salads and lean protein - and I would have fallen back to the junk if I hadn't discovered MFP. An amazing evolution happened (and is still happening). Now I'm eating quite like when I was growing up - regular meals, home cooked food, ordinary food for ordinary days, special food for special occasions - but portions and meal times are much more in line with my appetite, and of course I get to decide what's on the menu myself, every day

ugofatcat

kommodevaran wrote: »

Of course I agree. I stopped buying sweets etc and then try to control myself around it at home. I can resist temptation for five minutes twice a week, not 24/7.

I hear you! I can ignore all the sweets in the grocery store without a second thought. But having them at home in the cabinet? I can't stop thinking about them and I will end up eating the whole package. I have just learned I can't be trusted and I cannot keep anything I will binge eat.

janejellyroll

I agree. When I finally decided I was ready to lose weight and keep it off, I began with a series of small changes. A walk during my lunch break. Getting seven hours of sleep per night. Eating five servings of fresh vegetables per day. Then I discovered calorie counting and logging and adopted them.

I would focus on each of these until they became automatic and then I picked something new to add. I never felt like my life really *changed* although on the surface a lot about my life has changed since 2014.

If I miss a habit one day, like getting five hours sleep instead of seven because I stayed up watching a movie with my husband, then I'm back on it the next day because now it's just a habit. It's the way I live my life, not an endless series of resolutions that I'm having to force myself to keep. When you have true patterns in your life, the exceptions are never going to matter than much.

I'm still picking things and trying them out. Some make me feel better and I keep them. Other potential habits are discarded after a few weeks because I don't notice them adding anything to my quality of life.

I have habits now I never could have *dreamed* would be automatic for me in 2014. I virtually always am asleep by 10 PM. I regularly exercise before work. I prepare dinner at home six nights a week.

bowlerae

I'm pretty sure all of my self-control goes towards getting out of the bed before 7 am. I'm screwed.

middlehaitch

I changed everything in the same week.

Started counting calories, just a shaving of portion sizes- very little in dietary modifications (ie:after my first tasty pint of micro brewed ale I would switch to a light beer, sob).

Started exercising for the first time in my life. Aquafit 60x3 a week at 6pm. (Never got to love any exercise, just the benefits in real life activities.)

Did this for a year to lose the weight and aquire a reasonable fitness level not deviating.

Almost 8 years on these are still my basics, but I deviate now. Will almost always (except on vacation, sick, planned break, etc) do my 3 days at 6 pm of whatever routine is my main focus, but now tend to do 3 alternating days of secondary routines. Light beer may make it on the table; might not.

I think it depends on how much one has to change. The exercise was a killer for me, not the food. I couldn't take a day off working out at first or I would never have gone back- now it is habit, like cleaning the toilets.

Cheers, h.

JeromeBarry1

It is proven by science that self-control, or will-power is a limited and diminishing resource. I began my weight loss journey either vaguely aware or completely ignorant of that. After a few events of my having tried to practice self-control in some area, not just food, only to discover a failure and an excess when that failed, I tried to find ways of changing my approach to each issue so that self-control was not involved. That worked. Later I read the academic research on the topic and it served as confirmation bias. There are ways to structure your habits and plans which meet all your calorie and activity goals without depleting your will-power. You just have to find the unique ways that work for you.

French_Peasant

To me, what this experiment (and by experiment I mean these things that psychologists and other soft scientists conduct on college students, then dress up with a lot of turgid terminology, and publish in journals reviewed by other soft scientists, that are later proven to be absolutely wrong) says is that radishes are the worst and suck out your will to live. While cookies, on the other hand, give you a great dopamine boost and get you all jacked up with energy so you can do an awesome job at whatever task you are facing.

I don't think it's so much self-control as, why would you even want to do a good job for these manipulative punks that put cookies in front of you and don't let you eat them? Screw those punks!

TR0berts

French_Peasant wrote: »

To me, what this experiment (and by experiment I mean these things that psychologists and other soft scientists conduct on college students, then dress up with a lot of turgid terminology, and publish in journals reviewed by other soft scientists, that are later proven to be absolutely wrong) says is that radishes are the worst and suck out your will to live. While cookies, on the other hand, give you a great dopamine boost and get you all jacked up with energy so you can do an awesome job at whatever task you are facing.

I don't think it's so much self-control as, why would you even want to do a good job for these manipulative punks that put cookies in front of you and don't let you eat them? Screw those punks!

On their own? Yes.

But, put them on top of some vanilla soft serve? Oh, Canada, that's F'ing good.

French_Peasant

TR0berts wrote: »

French_Peasant wrote: »

To me, what this experiment (and by experiment I mean these things that psychologists and other soft scientists conduct on college students, then dress up with a lot of turgid terminology, and publish in journals reviewed by other soft scientists, that are later proven to be absolutely wrong) says is that radishes are the worst and suck out your will to live. While cookies, on the other hand, give you a great dopamine boost and get you all jacked up with energy so you can do an awesome job at whatever task you are facing.

I don't think it's so much self-control as, why would you even want to do a good job for these manipulative punks that put cookies in front of you and don't let you eat them? Screw those punks!

On their own? Yes.

But, put them on top of some vanilla soft serve? Oh, Canada, that's F'ing good.

Wait, you're talking about putting the cookies on the soft serve, right?

I grow these beautiful heirloom radishes, and every spring enjoy a few with a light dusting of freshly cracked sea salt and black pepper....then I'm like, screw that! Hope they enjoy them at the food bank, because they get a lot from me! (Kale too! Another plant that would lead to bitterness and rage if presented side by side with chocolate chips!)

zyxst

TR0berts wrote: »

French_Peasant wrote: »

To me, what this experiment (and by experiment I mean these things that psychologists and other soft scientists conduct on college students, then dress up with a lot of turgid terminology, and publish in journals reviewed by other soft scientists, that are later proven to be absolutely wrong) says is that radishes are the worst and suck out your will to live. While cookies, on the other hand, give you a great dopamine boost and get you all jacked up with energy so you can do an awesome job at whatever task you are facing.

I don't think it's so much self-control as, why would you even want to do a good job for these manipulative punks that put cookies in front of you and don't let you eat them? Screw those punks!

On their own? Yes.

But, put them on top of some vanilla soft serve? Oh, Canada, that's F'ing good.

Radishes on ice cream?

Canadians.

Gallowmere1984

Huh. Good thing my eating habits are borderline robotic.

leanjogreen18

Gallowmere1984 wrote: »

Huh. Good thing my eating habits are borderline robotic.

Mine too. I eat the same subset of foods day in and day out. It's how I've always eaten and it does become robotic.

bbell1985

Self control is fatiguing. I don't "fit it what I want everyday" like so many MFP members go on and on about. I eat my dang veg, protein, enjoy a choclately protein bar and that's that. When I want to indulge in something I go all out.

madamso1

ugofatcat wrote: »

If you have
My takeaway is that you only get so much self-control for the day, and once you use it up, it is easy to fall back into old bad habits. When you try to change a bunch of things in your life, it is easy to get discouraged easily and give up because you run out of self-control quickly.

On the other hand, if you pick one thing to change and just focus on that, you won’t deplete your self-control as quickly, and it will be easier to maintain this change. Once this change becomes a habit and it no longer takes self-control, add another change.

Agree or disagree? Has this been your experience with weight loss? Did you change things gradually, or make a whole bunch of changes overnight?

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts.

See this video discusses the same experiment.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2MDNvKXdLEM

Gallowmere1984

bbell1985 wrote: »

Self control is fatiguing. I don't "fit it what I want everyday" like so many MFP members go on and on about. I eat my dang veg, protein, enjoy a choclately protein bar and that's that. When I want to indulge in something I go all out.

This. As I have said before, I don't eat some pizza; I eat all of the pizza. This is limited to intentional overfeeds though, I stick to a medium "all of the everything" toppings, and I only bother if a bulk stalls.

SingRunTing

Two points (both very cliche, but I find them true):
1. self-control is a muscle, it gets stronger the more you use it.
2. building new habits takes self-control out of the picture.

When I first started losing, the only thing I did was track my intake. I didn't try to eat healthier, I just tried to stay within my calories. When that felt easy (was a new habit so I did it automatically), I started to pay more attention to my macros, mainly protein. I slightly adjusted the foods I was eating so that I could hit that goal. When that seemed easy (built a new habit), I started paying more attention to fiber. and so on and so on.

It doesn't take me any measure of self control to only eat one serving of ice cream or only 2 slices of pizza any more. It's just what I do. I don't even think "Oh I wish I could have more". I've been weighing out one serving of ice cream for so long that it doesn't even cross my mind that I should want more. Habits are strong and its completely possible to create new ones to replace the old.

I highly recommend reading "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg. Boring title, really interesting book.

snowflake954

I think some people just have more selfcontrol than others do. Some cave right away, and some never give in once they've made up their minds.

ugofatcat

@SingRunTing I will have to add that to my reading list. I am the opposite of you. I can't stop with just one serving of ice cream, I will eat it until it is gone. I don't trust myself so I just don't keep it in the house.

My fiancé got a whole bunch of mini snickers for Valentine's day. I told him he needs to bring them to work or throw them away, I cannot stop myself once I start. I envy your ability to stop.