Losing Weight is About Psychology, Not Biology

If you want to lose weight, you’ve probably assumed that with the right information and a large amount of willpower, you would be able to crush your goals.

 

This is the thought process of everyone that tries to lose weight or build a more favorable body composition, but it almost never works.

 

Why is that?

 

The easy answer, because it’s the one that let’s you off the hook, is that the information was bad. If you just found the exact right scientifically validated diet, if you could just figure out if the Ketogenic diet or the Paleo diet is better, if you could just find the elusive missing piece of the information puzzle, your problems would be solved.

 

Here’s the thing: the information isn’t the problem.

 

Think about it for a second, no one out there thinks that if they want to lose weight, the answer is to eat more donuts and less vegetables.

 

Also, there are people who have succeeded with virtually every kind of diet available: the Atkins diet, the Paleo Diet, the Whole 30 diet, the Ketogenic Diet, the Slow-Carb diet, they all work.

 

Heck, you probably know enough about proper nutrition to come up with a diet that works yourself.

 

As entrepreneur Derek Sivers has pointed out, if information were the answer we would all be billionaires with six-pack abs.

 

The reason why weight loss (or any lifestyle change is hard) is because our willpower is limited and bad choices often represent the path of least resistance.

 

In the classic book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman, he talks about studies that conclusively demonstrate the concept of ego depletion, the notion that if you are forced to exert effort or willpower in one task, you will have “less in the tank” for the next task.

 

This means that if you win your battle in the morning and resist eating the donuts your co-worker brought in, you’re more likely to lose your afternoon battle of resisting the urge to purchase a snack from a the vending machine.

 

Here, from the book, are some examples of things that studies have shown take a hit on your willpower reserves:

 

• Making a series of choices that involve conflict.
• Trying to impress others.
• Responding kindly to a partner’s bad behavior.

 

Here are some examples of effects that have been observed when willpower runs low:

 

• Deviating from ones diet.
• Overspending on impulsive purchases.
• Reacting aggressively to provocation.

 

Now, obviously the most relevant of those effects for the purposes of this post is the fact that it is common to deviate from your diet when your willpower is depleted, but look at that list again. Your health, finances, and relationships could be negatively impacted by you trying to impress other people or making a series of choices that involve conflict. Managing your willpower reserves is a big deal.

 

You also have the problem that often times bad behavior is the path of least resistance. It comes time for dinner and you don’t feel like looking through your kitchen to see what ingredients you have available, coming up with a meal, and cooking it, so instead you go to McDonald’s.

 

These two problems, the limited supply of willpower and the ease and convenience of making bad choices, are the real reasons why so many diets fail.

 

This is why the most important thing when it comes to dieting is not to pick the diet that is scientifically proven to be the most effective if you stick to it, it’s to pick a diet you will stick to, a diet that takes into account the psychological factors involved and makes adherence the path of least resistance.

 

One of the biggest problems about trying to live a healthy lifestyle in our modern age is that in most cases unhealthy choices are the path of least resistance. Thinking of taking the stairs? The elevator is easier. Thinking of scrounging through your refrigerator to pack a healthy lunch for work? Going to McDonald’s is easier.

 

Not only are unhealthy choices more convenient, they are often more tempting. What would you rather have, a salad with spinach and arugula or a hot, fresh, pizza?

 

In order for a diet to work you need to implement systems that make the good behaviors almost automatic so that they are the path of least resistance.

 

The more work you can put into the front end when your energy and motivation is high, the better. So for instance, if as you are reading this you are highly motivated the best thing you could do is probably to find a meal plan that you can use for breakfast and lunch and set up a time to go shopping. Ideally these meals could be batch cooked once you got back from the store.

 

Automating your meal preparation gives less opportunity for you to cheat on your diet and actually makes adhering to your diet the path of least resistance.

 

You put in a little work up front to come up with meals to cook (and you can even avoid that if you sign up below to get the breakfast lunch combo that I use every day) then you only need to put in a little work once a week to prep your meals and the healthy choice will be the path of least resistance for the rest of the week.

 

Think about it like this, if you decide to eat the same simple meal every day for breakfast and the same pre-prepared meal every day for lunch (except cheat day), then for 13 of your 21 meals you’ll be eating healthy. Regardless of what happens at dinner time, nearly two-thirds of your meals are now conducive to getting in shape.

 

If at some point you get sick of eating the same thing you can change it up, but I think you’ll be able to go for a long time before that happens. First of all you will still have variety on dinner and on cheat day and you might even find that the monotony of your regular meal schedule makes those experiences more enjoyable than they were before. Secondly meals are the perfect places to seek out distraction. Pop in your headphones and listen to a podcast or audiobook. Seek out a friend to have lunch with. Distract yourself with media or conversation and you’ll be less aware of the fact that you are eating the same thing that you did yesterday.

 

The bottom line is that the more that you can do to replace willpower with systems, the more likely you will be to be successful in the long run.

 

And really when you think about it, the long run is what you should be concerned with. No 10 week diet or exercise program could ever make you fit and healthy for life. The best way to achieve sustainable results is to make sustainable changes.

 

Next week I’m going to be going into diet on the exact diet that I used to lose 30 pounds and get into the best shape of my life. I don’t think it’s the only worthwhile out there nor do I have any guarantee that it is the best. The reason why I knew it would work when I saw it however, was that it helps alleviate much of the psychological stress of attempting a diet.

 

I was worried that if I ever went on a diet, I would have to count calories, but this one has no calorie-counting. I was worried that I wouldn’t get enough to eat, but on this diet I can eat until I’m full. I was worried I would have to give up many of my favorite foods, but on this diet that’s unnecessary.

 

In short, I knew this diet had the lowest chance possible of introducing the feeling that kills diets: deprivation.

 

No one wants to feel like they are missing out. No one wants to be the one who can never have ice cream because they are trying to lose weight.

 

A diet that makes you feel deprived is a diet that is doomed to fail.

 

It might be suitable for weight loss on a biological level, but that doesn’t mean anything if you can’t keep it up longer than a few weeks.

 

Biology is Still Important

 

This post may seem strange coming a week after I posted an argument that sugar and refined carbs, not overeating and laziness, were the true culprits behind obesity.

 

Does that stuff not matter?

 

Of course it does.

 

But, like I pointed out last week, even the misguided diets that think that weight loss is about creating a caloric deficit will end up severely cutting your sugar and refined carbohydrate consumption. Every single diet–except the Standard American Diet that most people default into–is a low-carb diet. Even the ones that say they are “high-carb.”

 

Given that most diets will improve your eating habits to the extent that they will likely cause you to lose weight if you follow them, the big question is what kind of diet are you most likely to follow?

 

Every diet will have its restrictions and inconveniences, but some provide a framework that can guide you through with minimal psychological friction.

 

Stay tuned for next week as I explain why I think the slow-carb diet is the best at doing that.

 

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