Diet Science: Techniques to Boost Your Willpower and Self-Control | Sylvia Tara | Big Think

I have a chapter in my book in which I talk about how to build a self-control muscle. It's really important to do because when they do, again, FMRI studies of some dieter's brain, people who have lost 30 pounds and managed to keep it off for three years or more, they have them hold a lemon lollipop in their mouth. The people who successfully lost weight, their reward center lights up pretty brightly. They're pretty excited by this lemon lollipop, more so perhaps than people who are obese or normal weight but haven't lost the weight, haven't been successful dieters.

The other part that lights up in their brain is associated with restraint, so it's self-control. And that lights up very brightly, showing that they have control over this emotional response. So at the same time they're getting excited, they're also having a high self-control activity. The other people, normal or obese people, are not having that self-control light up with the lemon lollipop. So it shows that one of the reasons we're able to stay on for three years or more on their diet is that they've gotten this really good control over what they eat every day, and they've managed to keep weight off for years.

Now any diet that you want to stay on, or that you like, it really does require willpower to stay on it. And I have to say that it might sound like it's something obvious, but because a diet doesn't just last for six months, it lasts for years and years. Because the effect of our lower metabolism lasts for years, you have to be able to stay on something for years. And one of the reasons that people come off quite a bit is they get tired of being on a diet. No one wants to stay on it for years.

You have to kind of build these self-control muscles, these habits, if you will, make it part of your lifestyle so that it's automatic, it's not a big effort for you anymore. And so in the chapter, I do write about some techniques we can use because a diet, it's like an eating regiment for the long haul. There are small things we can do, and we can build it up into larger accomplishments later.

Some of the small things are, there's a study that shows that just managing your posture, keeping your back straight for two weeks, just stopping the swearing for two weeks, those people are able to manage more stressful tasks later. They're able to do more tasks that involve physical discomfort after that two-week period. So in a way, they kind of start exercising self-control in one dimension, but it's leading into this other realm as well.

And then there's another study where they pay people to use a gym eight times in one month and they pay another group to use it once a month, and then they don't pay anyone at all the next month. And the people who have been using the gym for eight times, they were paid to go eight times, they just start using the gym without getting paid, and so they've built up this habit. And so you can start small, start with small things, make them a habit, and then build up to bigger things.

There's also something called temptation bundling. And so we compare a want activity with a should activity. No one really wants to do a should activity all the time. But in another study, they had people listen to a really juicy audio novel and some people could only listen at the gym while they work out. Other people, they say take it home, listen whenever you want.

And the people where the novel is tied to the gym, they go to the gym much more frequently than the people who get to listen to this novel all the time. In fact, after the experiment is over, that group of people actually wants to pay to stay on the experiment because it's so successful that it forces them to go to the gym all the time.

And so we compare like a should activity with a want activity to get us to do those things, and hopefully those things then become habits over time. But it is a muscle, and even willpower, you have to give it a little bit of a break. And so when people do a should activity all the time, they get fatigued, and they show healthcare workers they're supposed to wash their h...