http://www.oprah.com/health/How-to-Lose-Weight-Think-Like-a-Thin-Person
Monday, September 26, 2011
think like a thin person
While we have been discussing basic cognitive psychology concepts these first few classes I could not help but think about an episode of Oprah I had seen a few years ago. The episode was about a diet plan designed by Dr. Oz and involved associating food that people craved with undesirable things so that the dieter would no loner crave those particular foods. While searching for an article about it, I stumbled upon this, an entire book about this type of dieting. It was also written by Judith Beck, daughter of famed psychologist who pioneered cognitive therapy.
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I think one of the most important parts of this article is when Judy said, "I had to accept that for the rest of my life, I would have to eat differently from how I used to eat". The way in which you change your lifestyle is also a psychological task. It requires re-thinking about your past habits, creating new memories, and changing your attitude. There has to be reason involved in order to convince yourself that this is the right thing to do. Motivation is also another important factor that can be applied to a multitude of instances throughout life. While this problems manifest themselves in people's eat habits, it is interesting to think about this in relation to the basics of cognitive psychology that these habits are produced by.
What really struck me about this article was the role fear of failure plays in obstructing us from our goals. Graham said "Like most chronic dieters, I've felt helpless, out of control, demoralized by my inability to keep weight off." This feeling of helplessness is one of the first steps one needs to overcome in order to successfully break bad habits and set up new ones. As Ryan pointed out, "the way in which you change your lifestyle is also a psychological task." By the sound of it, Beck's book aims to overcome this task by creating a new regimen to follow and grow accustomed to over the course of six weeks. With the accomplishment of this no-excuse method, the dieter would thereby be so far into a routine of eating as to not go back, or even want to. From this, we can draw that any bad habbit can be kicked in very much the same way. If you're trying to quit smoking for instance, the cold turkey method seems to be the best way to go about it. "No-excuse, no-tolerance, this is me on my way to a better life" is an attitude I think we could all use a little bit more of.
What I found most interesting about articles like this one is that they often discuss simple, practical strategies or mindsets as though they were revolutionary breakthroughs. As difficult as accepting these strategies may be for many people, most of us already know exactly what needs to be done or changed in order to achieve our physical goals- we just have a hard time willing ourselves to accept it. What I'm very curious about is how we can scientifically measure that which we call "willpower", and why some people seem to have it more readily available than others.
A point of concern for me, however, is the extension of such strategies to people who do not need to lose weight, medically speaking. Of course tracking what you eat is important if you are medically overweight, but for people within a healthy range, this kind of obsessive self-surveillance can become very dangerous.
What I found most interesting in this article was the huge possibility for altered memories. The concept of "thinking like a thin person," though cliche, forces one to adapt a certain persona where the weight-loser's memories are stifled. This is almost a positive form of denial, using denial as an active, instead of negatory tool.
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