Don't worry about willpower, distract yourself

Poor willpower is unavoidable. It is in short supply, and the area of the brain where it is stored has a lot of other jobs to fuss over, so willpower tends to get the short straw. It is inherently unreliable. We need other strategies.

A famous piece of research, the Marshmallow Test, by Walter Mischel of Columbia University, shows that the ability to distract yourself is really helpful in achieving your goals. He invited young children the chance to eat one marshmallow now, or to wait 20 minutes and get an extra marshmallow later on. Some succumbed to eating now, but those who held out were using their powers of distraction.

When we are making plans to lose weight, the goal is in the future, but the temptations are now. We need to find ways to keep that long term goal in sight. Distraction is one way. (This is a cognitive behavioural technique.)We all know that we eat less when we are really busy and focused. So what things allow you to get really involved? Finding one may make all the difference.

Another good cognitive behavioural technique has been developed by Peter Gollwitzer of New York University. He has identified that short strategic implementation plans make all the difference. For example, if your goal is to cut out snack foods at home, then he suggests making If Then plans. Find out the problem situation, such as coming home from work tired and snack-focused. So maybe the answer is, If I come home from work tired, then I shall put a ready meal in the oven, and go for a walk for 10 minutes. What If Then statements might help you?

And hypnosis will help you embed them so deeply that they become automatic. Great.

www.carolinebrowntherapy.com

More on that loss of willpower

Willpower is managed in the pre-frontal cortex part of your brain. This is the bit that deals with planning, proper social behaviour and other elements of "executive function".

Baba Shiv Professor at Stanford University, shows that it is pretty fragile in his research demonstrating why and how willpower is so feeble. Like Baumeister, his research shows that even small actions can deplete willpower.

But willpower can be developed. If you practice doing things that are a bit uncomfortable or a bit unpleasant, then you will strengthen your willpower. Shiv suggests that the prefrontal cortex can be compared to a bicep muscle. Exercise it and it will develop and strengthen.

This could be consciously improving your posture. Or regularly tidying up after yourself, or doing the filing regularly, or phoning your mother, or writing that letter. Avoiding procrastination generally. So if you face up to and do moderately unpleasant things, you will find that your willpower will increase. And you will be able to accomplish the goals that you desire.


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Shake, rattle and roll

I have said before that exercise will not really help in losing weight. Exercise is good for its own sake as it maintains your health. Eating less is a better way to manage your weight, because cutting down by 250 calories a day is much easier than exercising it off.

Indeed, you may have noticed that you consider walking to the bus stop with the goal of exercising away that chocolate bar. Wishful thinking because to work off 4 ounces of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk needs you to walk 5 miles (10,000 steps) at a fast pace.

We often make mistakes about weight control strategies. For example, drinking diet fizzy pop doesn’t help us reduce weight. We tend to compensate for it by eating something else, taking the view that diet pop is the diet!

But doing nothing and lying about is generally a bad thing.

Peter Katzmarzyk and colleagues at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center examined the links between time spent sitting (at school, work, and at home) and mortality (death) in a representative sample of more than 17,000 Canadians. They report that time spent sitting was associated with increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality (there was no association between sitting and cancer death). Individuals who sat the most were about 50% more likely to die during the follow-up period than individuals who sat the least, even after controlling for age, smoking, and physical activity levels.

The researchers also examined the association between sitting and mortality after control for body weight in some cases. They report that sitting remains a significant predictor of mortality. This suggests that all things being equal (body weight, physical activity levels, smoking, alcohol intake, age, and gender) the person who sits more is at a higher risk of death than the person who sits less.( Fidgetting has been shown to be an effective strategy. So don’t listen when people tell you to stop!)

Most of us are sedentary throughout the work day and so most of us are at risk. And at home too, we spend little time working in the kitchen, cooking, laying the table, washing up. Even in front of the telly we don’t get up to change the channel. Our whole environment seems to be geared to minimising effort.

What to do? Throughout the day to move about and fidget as much as possible. Seek out opportunities to make more effort. Walk whenever possible.

www.carolinebrowntherapy.com

Dieting makes you fat

One of my clients the other day told me that she had "been on a diet for 30 years on and off, but was stubbornly one stone overweight". Clearly dieting doesn't work for her.

Jennifer Savage and Leann Birch from Pennsylvania State University have just published research on this very problem!

A total of 176 women were assessed at baseline and followed over four years to see how their weight changed. There were 3 types of women identified.

1. Those making no effort to control their weights (N)
   
2. Those using healthy strategies (H)
   
3. Those using both healthy and unhealthy strategies (H+U)

Women using a mix of healthy and unhealthy strategies (H+U) gained significantly more weight (4.56 kg) than the N group (1.51 kg) and H group (1.02 kg) over the four year observation period. This was after taking statistical account of things like education, income and initial BMI..

Perhaps not surprisingly, the H+U weight control group demonstrated greater anxiety over weight concerns and restraining their food intake and had poorer eating attitudes than women in the H or N groups.

So what were the strategies these women were using to control their weight?

Healthy strategies included reducing calories and amount of food, eliminating sweets, junk food and snacks, increasing activity, eating more fruit and vegetables, eating less fat or less high-carb food, and eating less meat.

Unhealthy strategies included skipping meals, using diet pills, liquid diets, appetite suppressants, laxatives, enemas, diuretics, and fasting. The women who used these strategies gained weight.

As the researchers point out, the probable reason that women who used healthy weight control strategies were more successful was simply because these strategies are more sustainable. Unhealthy strategies can lead to loss of control, overeating and bingeing, which over time results in increased weight. So it is the way you try to control your weight that determines success.

Another important aspect of this study noted by the authors is that women who worry about their weight were more likely to engage in unhealthy practices. If this proves to be true, simply promoting weight concerns and worries may exacerbate weight problems in the long run.

But the study also shows that women who adopt healthy weight control techniques can very much minimise weight gain over time, even if no actual weight is lost in the long run.

www.carolinebrowntherapy.com

Eating fast makes you fat

Speed of eating turns out to be one of the earliest predictors of obesity. And obesity is a risk factor for diabetes.

In a study by Robert Berkowitz and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania, rapid eating (higher number of mouthfuls per minute) of a single laboratory testmeal was a remarkably strong predictor of subsequent weight gain in kids.

At 4 years of age, 32 children of overweight mothers and 29 children of normal weight mothers were given a test meal in a controlled laboratory setting. Mouthfuls of food per minute at this single meal not only predicted changes in BMI from 4 to 6 years but also changes in sum of skinfolds and total body fat. Of course you can always trick your 4-year old into eating slow by providing foods that take longer to eat and if your 4-year old prefers to play with her food and takes forever to finish, you can at least comfort yourself with the notion that she is probably not in danger of having to worry about excess weight any time soon.

But what about you? People who eat rapidly are at risk of being overweight. Research has shown that obese people eat fast and maintain the same rate of eating, whereas normal weight people slow down their rate of eating during the course of the meal. Slowing down allows the stretch receptors to signal to your brain that your stomach is full. Eating quickly means you pass the Full point and reach Stuffed before your brain has been alerted to the meal.

Another interesting piece of research by Yvonne Linne at Huddinge University Hospital in Sweden, hows that eating with a blindfold decreased the intake of food, without making subjects feel less full. Eating blindfolded, therefore, may force subjects to rely more on internal signals. Most of us have stopped using internal signals to guide our eating, and we are getting overweight as a result. With practice, we can start to identify when we are hungry (most of us never feel hunger) and when we are full.

So, focusing on your internal cues helps you reduce weight. To help you achieve this:

• eat slowly (putting your hands in your lap between mouthfuls really slows you down)
• do nothing else whilst eating (no telly, no radio, no reading)
• use a small plate

www.carolinebrowntherapy.com

Good news for Glasgow, Curry Central

Curcumin is the principle ingredient of tumeric or “haldi” as it is called in Hindi. This is the spice that gives Indian curries their bright yellow colour. The tumeric root (a relative of ginger) has long been thought to have all kinds of medicinal properties - antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritic, antioxidant and anti-cancer properties. Regular consumption is also alleged to increase brain power!!

A study by Asma Ejaz and colleagues from Tufts University, Boston, USA, published in the Journal of Nutrition, suggests that curcumin may also reduce fat formation by blocking the growth of new blood vessels which is necessary for the expansion of fat (adipose) tissue and by positively changing fat cell metabolism.

Their research used mice. In the high-fat fed mice, over 12 weeks, curcumin did not affect food intake but reduced body weight gain, adiposity, and microvessel density in adipose tissue. Curcumin also increased expression of key enzymes involved in fat oxidation. Blood cholesterol levels were also lowered by curcumin treatment.

Leaping from mouse to man, the authors speculate that dietary curcumin may not only help prevent obesity but may also have favourable effects on fat metabolism.

How much of an impact this finding may have on the obesity epidemic remains to be seen. But it makes going out for a curry an even more delightful experience!

www.carolinebrowntherapy.com

Now what shall we have for breakfast?

High-fibre carb-rich breakfasts make you feel fuller for longer, reducing your urge to snack, and keep you more alert during the morning.

There has been a lot of research done on breakfast. We are encouraged to eat it so that we are alert in the morning. The University of Sydney recommends a high-fibre carb-rich breakfast - which really means porage or muesli, rather than more processed cereals. They find that it has great benefits when you are trying to control your eating.

The study involved eating a breakfast of around 490 calories. The high-fibre, carb-rich breakfast was the least delicious but was the most filling. Their results showed that after this breakfast, people ate less during the morning and at lunch. Hunger returned at a slower rate than after the low-fibre, carbohydrate-rich meal (the more processed kind of cereal). On the other hand, people who ate fat-rich breakfasts (bacon, black pudding, sausage, fried egg) felt less satisfied and found they ate more later on in the morning

By the end of the day, the average total calories eaten were significantly greater after the fat-rich breakfast than after the high-fibre, carbohydrate-rich meal. There are 2 pointers here then: We should avoid fried breakfasts (eating them only as an occasional treat) because they tend to make you eat more overall, even after the breakfast. And that porage and muesli are more filling and satisfying, with those nice feelings lasting longer through the morning.

What else did they discover? They tested for alertness. On average, the high-fibre carb-rich meal was associated with the highest post-breakfast alertness ratings and with the greatest cumulative amount of alertness during the period between breakfast and lunch. Interestingly, alertness and a sense of fullness seemed to go together.

If you are in or near Glasgow and want to lose weight, try to make a few small changes every week. To help you, try hypnotherapy with me.

www.carolinebrowntherapy.com

Willpower

Trying to lose weight by squeezing out all our willpower doesn't seem to work. Most people who lose weight on a diet find that it just comes back on again, sometime with a few extra pounds too. So all that willpower focused on sticking to a diet could just be wasted misery.

Maybe a good alternative is to make frequent small changes to your eating pattern, adding good things and removing bad things bit by bit. This gives us the chance to embed each small change, making our new eating pattern automatic, and our new way of eating becomes normal.

"It is better to take many small steps in the right direction, than make a great leap forward only to stumble backward". (Chinese proverb)

If you are in or near Glasgow and want to lose weight, try to make a few small changes every week. To help you, try hypnotherapy with me.


www.carolinebrowntherapy.com