Psychological effects of 'cheating'

I used to but not anymore. Can't tell you there's a magic formula that'll allow you to not worry about it, but at a certain point the desire to succeed overrides my cravings and desire for this or that.

That doesn't mean I don't fall off the wagon occasionally. I do. But it does help me stay focused and get back on track instead of being depressed that I failed again.

The most successful people in the world are the ones who failed the most-they just kept trying until they achieved their goals.

I'd strongly suggest that you focus on your calorie goals, and if you've earned a cookie or two then allow yourself that indulgence. Indulge in allowing yourself to enjoy it and not feel depressed just as you allow yourself the cookie(s).

And if you blow your calorie goals for the day? So what? Tomorrow is another day to try again.

Rumor has it that Walt Disney went to hundreds of different banks before getting a loan approved for his theme park. Could you walk into 10 banks? 20? 50? 100? How many times would you fail before giving up? Just think that if he had, we wouldn't have heard of Disneyland. Do you think of Walt Disney as a loser who should've felt bad about his failures? No? Why not? I bet he failed more than you have.

Stories like that are common among some of the most successful people. So, if it's ok for them to fail so much, and if they can be successful after so much failure, then so can you!

As counterintuitive as it sounds, failure can be the road to success. So, based on that, what do you have to feel bad about? Keep trying, and you have NO reason to feel bad about yourself.

Look at things differently - you exercise so you can eat a cookie if you want to. You don't exercise to burn off what you've eaten and are guilty of. If it fits your diary after your exercise, it's all that matters.

I keep telling my husband that he should factor in the chocolate bites or cookies that he loves into his diet so he doesn't have to have the pressure to cheat.

Then I went out to California for a family reunion. Everyone there ate so indulgently, and although I tried to eat well, I ended up eating too much (albeit healthy food), and it slid into eating sweets and stuff again. Now that I'm home and in control of what and when I eat, I am still craving desserts and other stuff I never ate while dieting, before the trip. What I just did to the leftover lemon curd last night is horrifying to me.

I've discovered that the psychological effects of cheating are to weaken my resistance to cheating. I used to just decline cheat food because I didn't want to have to do more exercise to afford it; now, I don't want to eat cheat food because it makes it really hard to get back to that quiet, calm place where i eat to nourish and there are no cravings for "bad" foods.

-Laurel

Look at things differently - you exercise so you can eat a cookie if you want to. You don't exercise to burn off what you've eaten and are guilty of. If it fits your diary after your exercise, it's all that matters.

YES! TOTALLY!

I definitely know what you mean about letting "cheats" get to you.

This will maybe make me sound insane but when I'm letting myself have a little treat, before I go into the restaurant, or while it's sitting on my plate - just at some point before it goes into my mouth - I stop and take a moment and say a little mantra in my head about how I am ALLOWING this treat and this is not making my healthy choices less valuable but rather validating the fact that I am living a healthy lifestyle and allowing myself to enjoy food. It has seemed to make it so that one off track meal doesn't send me on a downward spiral.

Thats what I try to do too! Think about how I can change my habits for the future...its hard though, to actually change. And I feel like I am making small changes all the time...but I get hung up on the fact that I have basically zero will power... And it takes so much to be able to change really big bad habits that ive had for such a long time. I guess I just need to take one day at a time...Easier said than done!

Discipline is more aligned with habit than will power. When you cry, “I have no will power” it is actually true. You have not had enough time to develop a procedural discipline to resist temptation. In other words, it’s human nature. It’s like learning to walk. You need to build up the muscles, learn the sequence of movements, and master balance. Once you learn the skill, it becomes second nature. Discipline becomes a habit you no longer need to think about.

Grab a bowl of radishes to munch on while you read this next story.

Imagine you are to work at a bake sale. You’ve been running around all day and haven’t eaten. You seat yourself in the only chair at a single folding table in a large gym. The skinny chairwoman walks in with a huge plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The cookies are so warm they cannot be covered with plastic wrap yet. The aroma wafts throughout the cavernous space as if the Keebler elves are pumping the smell through the ductwork. She sets the symmetrical pyramid of treats down, right under your nose.

“Don’t eat any of these. I brought some radishes for us to eat while working.” She then opens her purse and plops a bag of radishes on the table.

“Um, yummy,” you comment as your death stare bores laser holes in her Swiss cheese brain.

“Oh, they are. I ate one of the broken cookies while arranging the platter. Wait here while I get us the cash boxes.” She vanishes. You’re amaze by her inability to detect sarcastic in your radishes comment.

“Eat me!” The cookies scream at you. “Eat me!”

Slender Sally returns with a small steel box. She opens the case with a small key and begins counting the money out to you. “One, two, three . . . nineteen, twenty singles.”

“Eat me,” whispers the cookies while the counting hypnotizes you.

“Five, ten, fifteen, twenty in five dollar bills.”

Your stomach growls. Sally pushes the radishes closer to you, “I didn’t have time to eat either. Have some radishes. I grew them myself. They are the best you’ll ever have.”

Your husband Peter, does he pick pecks of pickles? Do you sell seashells by the seashore too? Eat me.

“Exactly $100 in change.” She locks the box and hands you a small key. “Let’s start setting up the tables.”

The two of you split the room in half, setting up rows of folding tables. You’re almost finished, six tables faster than Sally. Then one of your table legs won’t open. You pull and pry. Sally finishes another table. You wiggle and wretch the leg. Sally finishes another table. You bang and bounce the metal arm. Sally finishes another table. You scream, “This one won’t budge!”

Sally strolls over and tries. You move to her remaining tables and set up all three while Sally struggles with the trouble table.

You get some plastic wrap and suffocate the sinister cookies.

You attempt to open the lock box with the key. Arrggg!

You gave up on the table and Sally still continues to struggle with it. You’re not about to tell her you can’t get the cash box open too. Every ounce of energy seems too depleted to even try.

The janitor walks in and proclaims, “That table is busted, you won’t be able to get it open.” He sees your frustration and you hand him the key and lockbox. He jiggles and jams the keyhole.

Sally snorts, “I would’ve tried all day.” She saunters over, “Lets open the doors and get that cash box ready.”

“It won’t open,” you mumble, head downturned, eyes focused on the cookies. The janitor continues to jimmy the lock.

“Oh, I thought these keys were both the same. I don’t know what the one you have is for.” She uses another key and opens the box.

Someone is going to strangle Sally soon.

The above scenario is based on an experiment proving ego depletion (Baumeister Bratslavsky Muraven and Tice conducted in 1998). Ego depletion is a fancy way of saying, no will power.

Ego depletion is the temporary reduction of self-control caused by a prior act of volition. We're talking Freud here. Our egos deal with internal versus external conflicts. What we choose to do lies between what we want to do and what we should do. Making choices requires energy.

In the actual experiment, college student Guinea pigs ate or resisted chocolate chip cookies and radishes. Then they were given unsolvable puzzles. The students who resisted temptation quit. Individuals allowed to eat the cookies continued to work the puzzles until told to stop.

Neither Sally nor the janitor was told to resist the cookies. Sally ate one. The janitor was the equivalent of a control subject who didn’t smell the tempting cookies.

Dieting is difficult because you are using ego depletion. The harder you try to diet, the harder it is to accomplish.

To successfully diet, you want to be actively accountable for your actions. Your behavior changes if you take control compared to passive consequences. We all know if someone tells you not to think about a pink elephant, we will all think about a pink elephant. If someone tells you not to do something, you want to do it even more than if no one said anything.

So how do you get rid of the pink elephant? Magic. Simple misdirection – the key to the simplest magic trick.

The more you try not to think about the pink elephant the harder it is. So don’t stop thinking about it, change it – take control. Think instead of a gray elephant surrounded by a field of pink flowers. Poof, no more pink elephant.

Radishes are no substitute for chocolate chip cookies. What about a dark chocolate Hershey’s kiss? Will a 20-calorie kiss redirect your sweet tooth away from a 120-calorie cookie? Are your eating habits passive or purposeful?

When you keep a food journal, you are actively accountable for your actions. Think of it as a checkbook. If you jot down “ate a cookie” then the likelihood of eating a piece of cake later is reduced and you might not overdraw your account. This is twofold. One, because you didn’t resist the cookie you have not depleted your internal energy to resist the cake. Two, you know the consequences of eating fattening foods is weight gain. You also know that not eating too much will prevent you from gaining weight. If you don’t keep a food journal or when you are not dieting, what you eat results in passive weight gain. When you eat do you say, “I’m doing this to intentionally get fat.” No, it’s a passive temporary pleasure.