
The best way to exercise self-control is not to exercise it at all - MurizS
https://psyche.co/ideas/the-best-way-to-exercise-self-control-is-not-to-exercise-it-at-all
======
rmoriz
A personal anecdote: I'm seriously obese and all diets and habitual changes to
cut calorie intake failed except doing strict OMAD (one meal a day, 23:1).

For me dealing with food in just one (1) meal/sitting a day is way easier than
cutting meal sizes and incredients 5+ times a day. I also "know" that I will
be sated 1 time per day, so no prolonged hunger phase anxiety. "Opportunity
makes the thief" so just limit the opportunities.

So to speak "marshmallows are secured" in any case, except that over time I
learned that high carb foods/sweets will make me hungry much earlier again.

I'm sticking to this for 374 days as of today and lost ~44kgs/97lbs with
regular medical support of my GP (recent blood work was really great).

~~~
olingern
Congrats on the progress! 20/4 IF'er (intermittent fasting) here.

Thought I'd offer a few of my own tricks in case anyone finds them useful:

Coffee and seltzer water get me through the more difficult hunger pangs. Doing
any sort of cardio also makes me not hungry (YMMV). Pairing IF and ketosis has
been great to treat hypoglycemia and not feel hungry in general.

I wasn't obese, but I was ~20lbs / 9kg overweight at one point. IF + keto has
changed my body composition in a really profound way. I'm still a similar
weight, but with ~10% less body fat (25% -> %15, not exact, no dexa scan).

Keep going OP!

~~~
Daynil
Keto is absolutely the missing ingredient in most dieters' arsenal. I'm sure
most IF'ers end up keto intermittently anyway, but you'd be more efficient at
it if you develop the full metabolic machinery for it by specifically
targeting it. Would you believe you can avoid feeling hungry without eating
all day if you're keto? I never thought it was possible until I tried it. Now
when I "forget" to eat when I'm in the middle of a coding spurt during lunch I
don't subsequently feel like shit the rest of the day. In fact, I feel great.
It's kind of a superpower.

~~~
Gene_Parmesan
This is a major aside, and maybe I'm alone here, but I really dislike this
common trend usage of the term 'keto.' Real ketosis is almost impossible to
achieve in adults; virtually no one who thinks they are in ketosis actually
are.

What people don't seem to realize is that real keto diets have strict
limitations on protein intake, as your body just breaks protein down into
glucose. I believe it's something like 85% of your calories each day need to
come from _fat_ , not protein.

Luckily, it's actually a good thing that people aren't actually in ketosis.
It's an extreme diet developed as a treatment for epilepsy, and it can be very
hard on your body's systems. The circulating ketones turn your blood acidic,
which starts leeching out calcium from your bones. A lot of people get their
fat from sources high in saturated fat (animal fat), which is bad for your
body long-term. And with no real fiber intake, your gut flora will suffer. I
don't believe a single nutritionist recommends real keto for adults trying to
lose weight.

For sure most of us could stand to reduce our carb intakes a bit, but our
bodies literally run on glucose. We have evolved to survive on carbs, it's
okay to eat them! The healthiest countries in the world eat LOTS of carbs.
[edit: 'lots' meaning, a high percent of their macros each day, not lots as in
large portions] I in general dislike HuffPo as a source, but a quick google
found this which I thought was an interesting read:
[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/japan-healthiest-people-in-
th...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/japan-healthiest-people-in-the-world-
carbs-high-grain-diet_n_56f08cc4e4b084c6722139ca)

Now on the otherhand, I love IF. I used it without knowing it had a name to
lose ~65 lbs at the end of highschool. I think it's super effective and what I
recommend to others who ask for advice.

~~~
halbritt
"Real ketosis" is the presence of markers that demonstrate fat metabolism.
This is most commonly done by measuring beta-hydroxybutyrate with the same
device that diabetics use to measure blood glucose (using a different kind of
test strip). It wouldn't be uncommon for any given person on any diet to show
signs of fat metabolism if, for example they've fasted for 12 hours or more
and have done any kind of exercise.

Nutritional ketosis as practiced by anyone doing "keto" is generally
considered to be somewhere between 1.0 to 3.0 mmol/dL BHB. Getting there is
not hard for anyone on a fat-adapted diet.

~~~
halbritt
For anyone following this, here I am 12 hours later after having dined on a
relatively low-carb meal with some sweet potatoes and a couple of small bites
of the wife's dessert of crème brûlée. I've yet to have breakfast and did some
low to moderate intensity cycling this morning. My BHB is 1.6 mmol/dL,
definitive signs of nutritional ketosis with very little effort on my part.

------
ApolloFortyNine
>Research in my own lab and others suggests that, if you want to improve your
self-control, what you should do instead is focus on proactively reducing,
rather than reactively overpowering temptation. Fortunately, there are several
ways and opportunities to do this.

Am I the only one who has, many times, encountered people who say "I don't buy
junk food because if I do I'll end up eating it?"

This is one of my gripes with psychology articles/self help books. So so many
topics are simple 'revelations' that many of us have figured out by the time
we are 20. Can't eat a cookie if you don't have any cookies.

I've read some good psychology books ("Thinking fast and slow" was great), but
most of the others I've read I could have have read the one page summary and
realized I don't need to read it.

~~~
baby
My problem is that my GF buys a lot of snacks and cookies and chocolates
and... which completely broke my tactic of not having any snacks/sweets at
home

~~~
haltingproblem
I am not saying that this happened to me ;) But if I was facing a choice
between (eventually) getting Metabolic syndrome and a having to find a new GF,
I would definitely not choose to get metabolic syndrome :)

~~~
Enginerrrd
Yeah and frankly it's a bit of a red flag to me now whenever I see one partner
sabotage (whether intention or not) the achievements of their significant
other. That's not to say that their girlfriend is lacking moral high ground,
but rather it may not be an optimal coupling. A good partner will naturally
encourage you to be your best self and you will encourage them similarly.

~~~
haltingproblem
This. The definition of a partner over time shifted from someone who does
stuff with me and eats dinner with me and watches movies to someone who
understands my goals and dreams and supports and pushes me to get there and
_vice-versa_.

Life is too short.

------
dreeves
Related:
[https://blog.beeminder.com/willpower/](https://blog.beeminder.com/willpower/)

Excerpt:

Here’s what I mean when I say there’s no such thing as willpower, despite
having just defined it. Paraphrasing Laplace, I can explain all behavior
simply in terms of responding to incentives. You want this whole pie in your
body right now, and also you want to be two sizes smaller by next summer.
Conflicting preferences are normally no big deal. You just, y’know, weigh
them, make your tradeoffs, and reach a decision. But when the preferences
apply at different timescales (pie now, thinner later) humans suffer from a
massive irrationality which philosophers call akrasia and economists call
dynamic inconsistency and normal people call … being stupidly short-sighted,
or in the case of time management: procrastination.

Commitment devices are a way to change your own incentives so that willpower
is a non-issue. They make your short-term and long-term incentives line up.
There are many less drastic things you can do as well.

PS: Also the whole "willpower is like a muscle" theory, known as Ego
Depletion, failed to replicate.

~~~
noncoml
> You want this whole pie in your body right now, and also you want to be two
> sizes smaller by next summer.

Isn't this more like a fight between instinct and rationality?

Wanting the pie is rarely a rational decision, while on the other hand wanting
to be healthy so you can live longer is absolutely rational.

Hence willpower is one's ability to rationally control their own anamalistic
instincts and emotions.

~~~
Godel_unicode
Wanting to eat things that are delicious because you enjoy the flavor sounds
perfectly rational to me. I'll enjoy the anticipation while I'm getting it,
I'll enjoy the experience when I'm eating it, and a piece of pie is not going
to stop me from being healthy by itself.

Sure wanting to eat the whole pie might be irrational, but that's seldom the
way people think about it. I can't eat a whole pie at once, but I can
definitely eat the bite on my fork, add one more slice to my plate, etc.

This mistakes thinking long-term vs thinking marginally, which is the larger
point being made.

~~~
ineedasername
It's not rational when at the same time the fact that you're overweight with a
heart condition and cholesterol problem that could kill you is a flashing
through your brain.

~~~
sukilot
"rationality" is about how your reason about your goals. Goals themselves
cannot be rational or irrational, even if they are in conflict.

~~~
ineedasername
By that definition everything is rational as long as you have reasons for your
goal. Logic has to enter it too, and reasons aren't always logical. Having a
reason doesn't make it rational.

~~~
elliekelly
I’m not sure rational and logical have a 1:1 meaning as you assume. For
example, if I look both ways before crossing a one-way street, I think I would
call that rational but I’m not sure I would call that logical.

I could certainly be convinced otherwise but it’s interesting to think about.

~~~
corin_
Surely it depends on how the decision to look both ways was made?

If you do it out of instinct and immediately think "oh yeah, forgot I only
need to look one way" then it wasn't logical.

But if you know it's one way, yet think "I've witnessed bikes and even cars
going the wrong way before, better check both directions" that seems like it
could be a perfectly logical action.

------
adrianmonk
I think one barrier to applying this advice is we tend to look down upon the
idea of avoiding temptation, but we praise the idea of resisting it.

Resisting temptation requires strength. So it is viewed as a virtue in and of
itself. There is a heroic struggle. Avoiding temptation is sometimes seen as a
sign of weakness. The implication is you're only avoiding it because you can't
resist it. Almost like running away from a fight instead of facing your enemy.

Ultimately, I think it's more constructive to employ both strategies. You need
to develop the ability to resist temptation because there are times when you
cannot avoid it. But there is no sense in sabotaging your success by dealing
with temptation when you don't need to.

~~~
tryauuum
Reminds me of how people praise a person who quit smoking, but do not do the
same for a person who never tried smoking.

I wonder if it will ever change.

~~~
gauchojs
Nobody ever praises me for not writing another programming language too! I
assure you it would be crappy.

~~~
O_H_E
I am in a happy mode. Thank you for consolidating our human efforts and
avoiding reinventing the gear. :)

------
war1025
This seems in line with both my personal experience and the "systems vs goals"
approach advocated by Scott Adams.

Build systems into your life that lead to desired outcomes naturally. Don't
put yourself into situations that are likely to lead to bad outcomes.

The easiest way to get results is to live a life that gives you the desired
results by default.

~~~
dreeves
Back in 2015 we (Beeminder) wrote a blog post praising Scott Adam's "systems
vs goals" insight which I still stand by:
[https://blog.beeminder.com/systems/](https://blog.beeminder.com/systems/)

Excerpt (quoting Adams):

If you do something every day, it's a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it
someday in the future, it’s a goal. […] Goal-oriented people exist in a state
of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if
things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their
systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people
are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people
are feeling good everytime they apply their system. That’s a big difference in
terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.

Also related: SMART goals.

~~~
teddyh
If you want it from Adams himself, here’s a link to a blog post:

[https://www.scottadamssays.com/2013/11/18/goals-vs-
systems/](https://www.scottadamssays.com/2013/11/18/goals-vs-systems/)

Alternatively, as a ~5-minute video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcKTYvupJw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcKTYvupJw)

------
rdiddly
"perhaps you’ll upset your kids if you throw away the cookies" is given as an
example of the situation being _outside your control_. (Thankfully this author
is apparently still slaving away in grad school and probably doesn't yet have
time for this ruinous approach to raising kids.) Applying the same strategy to
that situation is simple: Just don't let the kids know there are cookies in
the house! Or better yet, don't buy cookies (i.e. the same answer as for your
earlier 20-something solo non-kid-having Netflixing self).

~~~
coldtea
Even better, learn its ok to sometimes say "no" to your kids whims.

~~~
travisp
Nothing in the article suggests that you should not say no to your kids -- it
just says that your kids will be upset about you saying no, which is probably
beyond your control and therefore is a factor that will weigh in your
decision. Your response seems to me like criticizing the whole article by
saying "Even better, learn to have the willpower to just not eat the damn
cookies".

------
ineedasername
This was based (in part) on Angela Duckworth's work-- approach with great
skepticism.

She over simplified. Her Grit model is a good example. Grit is an awful metric
that tries to boil down complex and independent behaviors to a single number.
And the measurement tools are short 8 or 12 question assessments. In my
experience the results are meaningless. (Source: I conducted a study of a
population & their success at a task that takes 2 years. The result? Grit had
no predictive value. Others have been equally unable to obtain results.)

In this article, her model of self-control is both too complex and over
simplified at the same time. The last 3 stages-- attentional, appraisal,
response-- are presented as 3 discrete phases. In reality, these often blur
together into a single split-second decision. The proposed solutions to each
stage are laughable: Instead of sitting staring at cookies, read book! Instead
of thinking about how good they taste, tell yourself they look old! (you just
bought them) Instead of eating the cookies, don't eat the cookies! Ridiculous.

~~~
stekern
She may be oversimplifying certain aspects, and the examples may not be that
practical, but my main take away from the article was that it can be
advantageous to shift focus from taking control (by sheer force of will) in a
situation where you've already succumbed to some kind of temptation, to avoid
ending up in those kinds of situations by taking comparatively easier
preventive measures earlier in the cycle.

------
skinnymuch
How did the old children marshmallow test get through to the final draft. It
comes right before the author relates a specific thing to his own study. The
marshmallow test original results and thoughts have largely been seen as
incorrect. Wealth was the main factor. It can relate to the title, but still
the incorrect info shouldn’t be there.

~~~
suzzer99
The marshmallow test makes no sense to me. You're telling me I get one
marshmallow now, or I get _one more_ if I wait 30 minutes and have to sit here
bored looking at the one marshmallow I could have already eaten? The reward
just isn't there. It seems like it measures kids who want to please the
researcher.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _It seems like it measures kids who want to please the researcher_

There are the kids who immediately eat the marshmallow. And then there are
those who try not to eat it and fail. The latter is relevant. The former is
not.

------
austincheney
If you narrowly define willpower as impulse control the article and many
comments here are spot on, but that’s not what willpower is.

Willpower is better defined as _presence_. More specifically it is a knowledge
of _self_ in the present. For example high willpower in the cerebellum allows
awareness without a separate cognitive effort of where are your hands and feet
are right now and what they are doing.

Impulse control in the cognitive sense of desire regulation suggested by the
article is a limited example of cognitive self-awareness and possibly thought
of as deliberation. In that sense impulse control is just one of many benefits
of increased willpower.

Increased willpower has many benefits from increased motor-coordination,
increased effectiveness of interpersonal engagement, career management, and
even data/trend analysis. Willpower is perhaps the defining characteristic of
perceived intelligence bias in the absence of a formal intelligence measure.

See _volition_
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volition_(psychology)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volition_\(psychology\))

~~~
djur
How is "high willpower in the cerebellum" measured?

~~~
austincheney
Probably similarly to any other motor coordination based cognitive activity,
but starting from a resting position.

------
aaronchall
> Look on the bright side, at least it was fat-free milk.

This seems like a bad presumption. I suspect skim milk may have lead our
hypothetical binger to drink more of it and eat more cookies.

Whole milk is known to be more filling. [1] And I believe it's the healthier
option:

> In the past, whole milk was considered to be unhealthy because of its
> saturated fat content, but recent research does not support this
> recommendation. [2]

[1] [https://www.eatthis.com/skim-milk-vs-whole-
milk/](https://www.eatthis.com/skim-milk-vs-whole-milk/)

[2] [https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/whole-vs-skim-
milk#sect...](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/whole-vs-skim-
milk#section2)

------
sukilot
The title is misleading as usual.

The article is about removing temptation being a better strategy than
exercising self-control in the face of temptation (This is then
"cultural/religious conservative morality" theory for protecting against
immoral behavior).

Judaism calls it "building a fence around the boundary of the law".

~~~
hinkley
I don’t think we’ve begun to appreciate the bottleneck that our short term
memory places on our ability not just to accomplish things but to Reason.

Being preoccupied with one distraction is like having a bucket in your foot.
Every additional handicap - being tired, irritable, distracted by the
environment, piles on top with a multiplier. It makes us rash, or stupid, or
both,

I suspect we know this subconsciously, and it’s cheaper to just entertain the
preoccupation and get it out of your head.

Building up patterns, habits that keep such things off of your radar is costly
in the short term but cheaper in the long term. That problem rarely ends up
hanging out in working memory.

------
yesenadam
_I can resist everything except temptation._

– Lord Darlington, in Oscar Wilde's _Lady Windermere 's Fan_.

Some other great lines from the same play:

 _Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it._

 _My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people 's._

 _We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars._

 _In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one
wants, and the other is getting it._

 _[What it a cynic?] A man who knows the price of everything and the value of
nothing._

 _Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes._

 _What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to
us._

------
11thEarlOfMar
One approach that has helped me with weight is greatly reducing the calories
in beverages. When in my 20s, I drank whole milk, full sugar soft drinks,
coffee with sugar & cream, sweetened iced tea. Over time, I graduated from
whole milk to 2%, then 1% then non-fat. That took about a year. I went from
full sugar to diet sodas then found that fresh lime juice and carbonated
mineral water was immensely satisfying. I dropped the sweetener from iced tea
and added more lemon. Dropped the sugar in coffee and made a go a the cream,
but so far, I still prefer it with cream.

It'd be a bit of work to figure out how much I might weigh if I hadn't reduced
it that much, but likely 20 pounds or so?

------
jameslk
> In 2007, the American psychologist Roy Baumeister put forward what has
> become the most influential psychological model of self-control. His
> strength model likens willpower to a muscle.

Ego depletion, the premise this article is based upon, has had a lot of issues
with reproducibility:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_controversy_and_conflicting_meta_analyses)

~~~
yamrzou
The article is not based on that premise, it is proposing an alternative model
instead: "the process model of self-control".

------
mlazos
This kind of approach has generally worked for me but I take it a little
further. I’ve gone by this adage that “a little bit each day” is better than
doing a lot in a single day with a few days off. For instance with exercise
(Running) instead of saying no to doing it I say ok maybe half the distance.
And as a result it turns into a habit which I think is the single most
important tool we have to improve ourselves. It’s kind of taking this
situational approach and applying it every day. Another example from my life
is soda. I read a lot about the negative effects sugar has on my body and as a
result I feel guilty when I buy it, this is another way to motivate myself
into a habit of “not buying soda” I started to buy less and now when it isn’t
even available my laziness prevents me from leaving the house to go get it :)
this is really similar to another comment that said “create systems” where the
inevitable outcome is your goal, and I find parallels between this “system”
idea and culture in general. Culture is what can drive large groups of people
to desirable outcomes. This is as if we apply having a good “culture” within
ourselves.

~~~
rocqua
A thing I read a long time ago that really encapsulates this recently came up
in my mind again.

If you want to get better, work on your B-game, not your A-game. The goal is
not to excel even harder on days that are good. The goal is to move up the
baseline performance. This will probably lift up your A-game as well. But more
importantly it gives you a base to build on.

It stops me from over-reaching. It stops me from being disappointment most of
the time because I don't reach my lofty goal. Instead, it gives meaningful
improvement, and many small successes.

------
jgilias
I've found two approaches that seem to work quite well, especially when both
are exercised.

1\. Brainwash yourself. Taking the cookie example this would mean brainwashing
yourself about the evils of sugar to the point that you really don't want the
cookies anymore. This has to be consistent though, we're very good at
forgetting uncomfortable things.

2\. Building beneficial habits. If there's something that takes willpower to
do, try building a habit of doing it. Takes around 40 days to achieve, and
there are plenty of apps that can help. Once a habit is set though, the
activity takes no willpower whatsoever. It's just something you do.

~~~
mettamage
I agree with 1. that works for me as well.

With regards to 2. that has never worked for me by itself, unfortunately. What
I do instead is to find a way to be intrinsically motivated. For example, with
exercise I notice that the gain in alertness feels like drinking coffee. So I
now tell myself to drink coffee (and by that I mean exercise), that really
works well in my particular case and makes me intrinsically motivated to
exercise as the alertness gained by exercise is its own reward. Though, I do
need the right setup for this, I'm currently house sitting and I'm not
exercising because I don't have my weights. So how habit formation for me does
help is that the more I practice a routine, the easier it is to execute. Which
is why I'm not exercizing right now as I'd need to do body weight exercises
and I'm used to weight exercises.

------
Al-Khwarizmi
Funny how this coincides almost point to point with what religions have been
doing for centuries or millennia.

Situational strategies: temptation with the opposite sex? Segregate education
by sex, make women wear burkas, forbid shorts, etc.

Distraction: "if you feel tempted, pray/read the Bible/think about God" is a
very common religious tip.

Reappraisal: reminding yourself of the consequences of sin, confession,
atonement.

Not defending any of that (I'm not even religious), but I just find the
coincidences interesting. Are psychologies reinventing things that religions
have known for centuries?

~~~
ntsplnkv2
> Not defending any of that (I'm not even religious), but I just find the
> coincidences interesting. Are psychologies reinventing things that religions
> have known for centuries?

Take it a step further. Most of this is common sense. There's a reason a lot
of religious from different areas have similar ideals - it comes from man.

------
waihtis
This is why I do keto. There are no cravings, no hunger spikes; After about
the 3rd week, I haven't had a physical itch for anything sugary (it went away
after the 3rd day, but kept mildly lingering for the first three weeks.) It's
extremely effortless to keep kcal intake between 1500-2000.

It becomes such a natural flow that no discipline is needed to keep it up. And
if you're wondering, before this I used to be what can be accurately described
as a "food extremist."

~~~
read_if_gay_
Food extremist in what sense?

~~~
waihtis
Major junk food and sugar addictions.

------
forgotmypw17
I have a problem with over-eating of calorie-dense foods such as bread and
sugar-containing food-like products.

If they are in front of me or accessible, I can rarely resist, because my body
(designed for food scarcity and occasional abundance) wants to eat it all.

The easiest solution I have found to this is just not to bring anything like
that into my living area, so that I am not tempted.

If I come across it in my day, I may be tempted and succumb, but I make sure
that I don't carry it with me.

------
lasky
I was motivated to quit smoking cigarettes because the girl I started seeing
said they were gross.

The way I quit was by purchasing a brand new pack, unwrapping it, and placing
them in the glove-box of the truck I worked out of all day, doing
construction. I believed as long as they were always in close reach and I
could still resist, then I could likely resist all other times.

It worked.

------
082349872349872
Similar results, without any psychological approach, are in a meat processing
industry safety guide:
[https://www.ekas.ch/download.php?id=7869](https://www.ekas.ch/download.php?id=7869)

The cover page says "accidents are not happenstance". ("Unfall – kein
Zufall!")

p.8 shows the strong correlation between workplace safety scores and accident
rate.

p.19 ranks various safety measures from most effective to least, with a
mnemonic "STOP" that works also in english.

S - (most effective) Substitution. Use completely different processes or
materials so the safety issue can't occur.

T - Technical measures. Make the workplace safe for the worker (via
"idiotproofing")

O - Organisational measures (education, safety rules and checks)

P - (least effective) Personal protective measures. Rely on the worker to make
the workplace safe. (via their own efforts and equipment)

With that in mind, I'd say TFA wants to observe that T is more effective than
P, adding a pyschological interpretation.

------
anoniuyiu33412
This is a so millenial take on self-control that I cannot help to comment
about it.

Old school resilience and persistance is what you will miss all the way into
"I will do as I please to do things".

Not good. Many, many things require years to be built. For example, if you
want to study medicine, you're up for maybe 10-15 years of hard training, long
hours of dedication, most certainly you won't see any "light at the end of the
tunnel" before a decade into the challenge.

But also most certainly you will have the impulse to just throw away all your
efforts, not one, but dozens of times, but, if you remain commited to your own
path and true to what you would really want to do in life, you will get to the
end.

How far in similar challenges would you think a person with a "lets go to
whatever direction I want to go "right now" " approach?, will get?

Most certainly not the astronaut, highly trained all kind of professionals
(scientists, military specialists, even politicians), type.

------
scarface74
Speaking of a commitment device -> HN’s own noprocast feature. I’ll turn it on
when I know I need to be doing something useful for an extended period of time
or I just need to take a break. I can still read stories on my RSS feed and if
I really want to see the comments I can open a private browsing window. But, I
can’t respond.

------
tracer4201
I’ll share my story...

Just a couple years ago, I weighed 25lbs less. I could bench press 200lbs,
although I only weighed ~170lbs. I could do 10 pull ups with a super wide grip
with a belt on my waste and two 45lb plates hanging off that belt.

As I’ve progressed further in my career, my priorities have shifted to the
detriment of my health. With COVID, I stopped working out completely and began
eating garbage. I went back to the gym two weeks ago and could hardly bench
press 135lbs.

After getting married, my spouse purchases foods that I previously never ate
before. Genetically, she’s inclined to be more naturally fit. On the other
hand, I have to massively cut carbs and do cardio to avoid forming love
handles.

So with all that extra stuff in our pantry and the stress I now have from
work, I naturally grab potato chips and whatever else to call my nerves (not
that it really helps buts it’s immediate comfort)

~~~
kubanczyk
No worries. Firstly, you are being honest with yourself. Secondly, you've got
some of the causes identified already. Thirdly:

> Just a couple years ago...

... that's a well-known phenomenon called: getting old. Fourthly:

> I went back to the gym two weeks ago

... aaaand you're all set - just keep it up now. It doesn't matter if you
bench 135lbs or 90lbs. Frankly, after a certain age it's one step forward two
steps back, all the way.

Just know: you'll be on a bit of a slope from now on. Observe that the work
you put into it is _still_ paying off anyhow. It's encouraging, ain't it? Best
of luck to you.

------
minikites
I used to be significantly overweight and the advice in the first box of the
flow chart was the most helpful for me. I avoid buying tempting food items in
the store to begin with and I have often eaten one or two cookies that have
been sent to me as gifts and thrown the rest away so I wouldn't eat them.

~~~
suzzer99
Same here. When I was looking for jobs, companies would always tout their
snack room. To me that was a huge impediment that I'd have to fight against
every day.

~~~
verroq
Maybe the incentive should be extra pay for not using the snack room.

~~~
toast0
Who wants to work for a company that tracks your usage of the snack room. If
you're going to tie snacks to money, just put in a coinop snack machine (with
credit card support, I suppose)

~~~
verroq
I was under the impression it would be an honour system.

------
theonemind
Some people have iron self discipline--they simply make a decision, or will
themselves to something, and if it lies within their power in any way, it gets
done, end of story. I sort of did myself in my mid 20s for a few years, but I
can't really explain it. I'd sort of like to see the psychology of that. Even
having experienced it, I still can't entirely explain it. (I used to meditate
for 2 hours a day in that time period, but ...cause or effect? I don't know.)

------
emadabdulrahim
Perhaps I'm the only one who thought the article was going to suggest eating
the entire dozen cookies in one go until I'm disgusted with myself, then I'll
stop.

------
ubertoop
This becomes much more difficult if you want to cut down on a habit, but not
cut it out completely.

Take video games.

Sure, you could throw out your Playstation and the temptation is no longer
there. But what if you want to play just 1 hour a day, instead of 5?

How doe you remove the temptation for most of the day, but allow it to be
there for part of it?

Gotta get more creative I guess. Work somewhere else. Or something...

~~~
b3kart
Disconnect the console and put it away on some remote shelf. Make it more
difficult to act on impulse, while still being able to play if you _really_
want to. Sticking to 1hr at a time is more tricky...

------
agumonkey
Who uses the trick to divert impulses into other ones ? your brain seems to
seek stimuli.. hunger is just one source, you can clean, jog, challenge
yourself somewhere else.

Few times I did that I was surprisingly effective (and the original impulse
disappeared in an instant)

------
SubiculumCode
Those who are married (and want to stay that way) follow this advice. If you
don't want to cheat, don't put yourself in a situation where you will
encounter temptation. Temptation is best beaten by not giving it a chance to
tempt you.

------
renewiltord
Interesting. Isn't this the ego depletion thesis? I recall that later evidence
has meant we should reduce priors on the existence of this effect to very low.

Unrelatedly, if you want to maximize weight loss, use appropriate
pharmaceuticals.

~~~
waihtis
> Unrelatedly, if you want to maximize weight loss, use appropriate
> pharmaceuticals.

...But do a cost-benefit analysis first.

------
tus88
Psychology is not science, just an excuse to sell books with culturally
provocative titles.

------
arkanciscan
the eighteenth-century essayist Samuel Johnson. When a friend urged him “ to
take a little wine,” Dr. Johnson explained, “I can’t drink a little , child;
therefore I never touch it. Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would
be difficult.”

------
ribs
Avoid staring at a big plate of cookies if I want to avoid eating them. This
is not news.

------
sukilot
The author of this article appears to be a philosopher specializing in
philisophy and ethics of University culutre. It's easy to see why a Provost
might want him gone.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frodeman](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frodeman)

------
Bellamy
Best advice I ever had was to install the Habinator app and start executing my
plan.

------
viburnum
I thought all these self-control and willpower studies have been recently
debunked.

~~~
jldugger
They have. Or at least, replication studies have called the publication into
question. And the marshmallow study the article cites is questionable.

Frankly, the whole edifice of psych research is built on top of a statistical
lie that only 1 in 20 experiments will fail to replicate, when it's more like
1 in 3: [https://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/08/27/this-is-what-
happened-w...](https://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/08/27/this-is-what-happened-
when-psychologists-tried-to-replicate-100-previously-published-findings/)

------
beamatronic
If I’m understanding this correctly, you need to control your self-control.

~~~
oliverobscure
I don't think it's "control" so much, just "be aware" of it.

------
stephen_cagle
“Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.”

― St. Augustine

------
elwell
Misread the title as a suggestion to not exercise!

------
amoitnga
I wish these kinds of articles had tldr. does it really need that much text to
communicate the point.

------
hprotagonist
all things in moderation, including moderation.

------
dboreham
The Big Lebowski doctrine.

------
ryanmarsh
tl;dr David Goggins is right.

