Showing posts with label habit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label habit. Show all posts
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Kill the Big Pill: Body Comp Change is Complex, not Single Factor
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What does body comp change take to succeed? There's a UK surgeon, Nick Finer, who says it's too hard for seriously fat people to lose weight because we just keep adjusting homeostatically to the weight we're at. Now i've seriously questioned this before (see: set point theory is crap). But Finer's solution for body comp success? Gastric Bypass. One gets the impression that he'd like roaming NHS trucks to pull the overweight over into the vans and gut clamp 'em on the spot. Cheap fix. Consequences? A few. Enduring effectiveness? Maybe not so much (interesting discussion of this report on obesity discussion). No successful, enduring change it seems, is so simple. We must, it seems, be willing to get a bit more complex.
Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler
- attributed to Einstein
Indeed, as other professionals, like Susan Roberts of Tufts, suggest from actually working with people when they're conscious rather than innert and knocked out on an operating table as so much plumbing, our engagement with food is complex - involving yes homeostatic components (the physiological us), but also hedonic components (the social/psychological us) - and the multiple factors of the one can and do affect the multiple factors of the other (discussed here in change is pain).
So if we are such complex systems (and we are) how likely is *ANY* single factor solution - whether Pill or Clamp or Diet - to succeed? As complex systems, the body comp solutions that last and endure and have positive long term effects seem to be the ones that respect this complexity. And they are the ones that take work, and a readiness to engage what it takes to change.
Consider Arnold's advice (yesterday's post) that a champion will want to do "anything it takes" to achieve their vision (or goal). Ok, one might say, great to talk about bodybuilding - the hotbed of drug use. Sure. Let's say that's so. But one still cannot *just* pop a pill and, ta da, succeed. Arnie describes spent five hours in the gym a day, one of which was posing practice, another flexibility work, the rest, working working working. Success takes reps - lots of them - to succeed. And success means also practice on a variety of levels. For arnie, he had a head game, posing, movement, weights work, training plans. All of that took reps. Multi-factor.
And success also takes a willingness to confront failure, learn from mistakes and keep going. Arnie notes it in his video, but so do all the writers on talent of late like the Talent Code
and Talent is Overrated
: the neurological role of making mistakes and figuring out what went wrong and correcting those errors is a key factor in getting better, improving performance. Enter the Coach to help figure these things out. Pat Summitt, below, is just one example of a great coach who, in her case, helps her athletes succeed as scholars and bball players.
Learning from mistakes, by the bye, in body comp is we can see very different than so-called yo-yo dieting where one keeps doing the same thing - sticking to a diet, losing weight, and then as soon as off the diet, regaining the weight, so pick another diet - and getting nowhere. That doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results has often been given as the definition of insanity.
So, given that enduring success (a) takes practice, (b) using errors for feedback on refining prcess and (c) in particular is Multi Factor, what are the components of success in body comp?
If someone asked me "hey mc, newly precision nutrition level 1 certified person, taking Arnie's Champion attitude, i'll do anything it takes to change my body comp. What does it take? Just tell me," i might be inclined to say:
Ok, it the key factors are time, patience, perseverance, some ongoing self-love, social support, and coaching/knowledge (food later: we have to plan for success first).
Strategies for Enduring Change
Time
Time is probably the biggie. Why? well, we can get that one pretty easily: physical change takes time to affect. But more than that, the biggie about enduring change is behavioural as well as physiological, and that means changing habits. IT takes both time and lots of reps to create new habits; we're rewiring the brain. Literally. Especially if what we're doing around food is often already habituated as a stress response, i'll say again: change is pain on the brain.
How Prep for Time: Once up for this notion of Taking Time, then having strategies to support new practice of change, and having support to persist with these changes is pretty key. Are strategies in place? Is the social support system in place?
Strategies for Time Change: Approaches like Precision Nutrition has several strategies for change: the precision nutrition system,
overviewed here; their lean eating program with daily support, discussed here, and their certified coaches for one on one support. Martha Beck's Four Day Win 
has step by step strategies for building up food practice habits and supporting some self-love in the process. Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat has very simple strategies: stop eating once a week.
Commitment
Body comp change does take a pretty constant level of commitment - that's the patience and perseverance - where, as arnie says, his happiness is that every rep was one more leading to his goal. So what are the reps in body comp? In a way we get to count the done and the note done. Here, the reps are often as much what one does do - eat right, exercise - as what one doesn't do - skip the multiple cookies for just one; skip the extra helping.
Prep & Strategies for Committment: Celebrating the Reps of the Done and the Not Done: how about keeping a log as one might for exercising to track not calories, but all the times we've said Yes to the right things, and One Less to the "wrong"?
Self-Care and Support
It will take some self-love and self-support - to care about and for oneself and be as gentle with oneself as one would with a best friend - to see the scale weight fluctuate up and down, but to trust the trend to be heading down. If it's not heading down after two weeks of New Practice, awesome to have an expert in your corner for guidance and support.
The main message here is time, patience, self-love, support and balanced guidance: when engaging in body comp change, that's a long term committment - even if one only has the proverbial five pounds to lose - and that that's ok. It's like a long term relationship - there are the ups and the not so ups. But being in for the long haul with ourselves is ok: we have the rest of our lives.
After all, if something takes months rather than weeks or a year rather than a month, presumably we have a few more years after that to enjoy the fruits of our labours? That so sounds like it kinda sucks that it's not now and today, or "in just 60 days" and it's not that one can't do extreme programs and get some results acceleration (and be exhausted), but our bodies do kind need the long view.
We're cyclical
Another thing i've been learning about is another "well that's obvious" - is that body comp is cyclical, and our own cycles are different from each others' There are times when we have more energy to give to change and maintenance than others. The winter when it's colder we may put on more fat to stay warm, or that may be the time we really peel it off - working out to stay warm. This is another reason to say it takes time to do body comp work: part of the process is learning our cycles, and by learning them we can tune them.
Food?
Intriguingly, with all this talk of commitment, "getting on a diet" may be less important than heuristics
about food and some basic food knowledge. Michael Pollan puts it well in Defence of Food
: eat less; mostly plants.
Precision Nutrition has a few more heuristics: eat protein at each feeding; get veggie variety at each feeding; get good fats in during the day; skip useless calories drinks of all kinds like juice and pop; save starchy fast carbs till you deserve them - post workout. Eat Stop Eat says eat less daily, and stop eating once or twice a week for about 24 hours. There's also the "change one thing diet" - commit to one less meal in front of the tv for a week, then maybe two less - it's part of the long haul: pick *one* thing to change, commit to that and build up success from there. As Martha Beck suggests, develop strategies that you believe will be successful, and then make that one even easier. Build successes.
Folks like Georgie Fear have created recipe books that make following these heuristics delicious and fun. Hers is called Dig In and it's great. Georgie's site also has TONS of free recipes, too.
Gourmet Nutrition vol. 2 is a lovely book of recipes (hit the free sample download) likewise tested for flavour and sitting well with good eating habits. And once we know what to look for in good food, we can start to assess food recipes for ourselves. If you find another source you like, please post it in the comments.
Take Home: We need MultiFactor Strategies for the Long View.
Arnie's view of success is that each rep takes the champs closer to their goals. Implicit in each rep is that it's part of a plan for success, and that plan is multi-factorial, complex (not complicated). Arnie got that winning is not just about lifting big, but moving well, attitude, balance, timing, etc. Why would our own body comp change goals be less complicated?
So how can we help each other to take the long view, and celebrate that anrie-esque joy that each rep is one step closer to the vision we have of ourselves?
Part of that success is getting that taking a single factor approach is likely doomed. I once read that the reason that most small businesses fail is that they don't plan for success. Martha Beck in the Four Day Win concentrates vigerously on planning each action for diet success ahead of time; Precision Nutrition likewise takes pains to emphasis progressive practice of habits before thinking about individualization. Good coaches likewise work with a us based on where we're at with stages of change. But in each case, there's respect for the fact that we're talking about change, and that's a multifactorial thing that requires DYNAMIC multifactorial approaches.
So when considering a new practice - and body comp change is just such a practice - ask: does that thing i'm looking at respect the complexity that is me? does it recognize the physiological, social and psychological parts of the process? Does it have plans to address each of those parts? If not, change that one thing?
If you need a hand, the above are some great starting points. If you'd like some one on one guidance beyond the PN forum for instance, a list of coaches certified in multifactorial nutrition coaching is here. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
- attributed to Einstein
Indeed, as other professionals, like Susan Roberts of Tufts, suggest from actually working with people when they're conscious rather than innert and knocked out on an operating table as so much plumbing, our engagement with food is complex - involving yes homeostatic components (the physiological us), but also hedonic components (the social/psychological us) - and the multiple factors of the one can and do affect the multiple factors of the other (discussed here in change is pain).
So if we are such complex systems (and we are) how likely is *ANY* single factor solution - whether Pill or Clamp or Diet - to succeed? As complex systems, the body comp solutions that last and endure and have positive long term effects seem to be the ones that respect this complexity. And they are the ones that take work, and a readiness to engage what it takes to change.
Consider Arnold's advice (yesterday's post) that a champion will want to do "anything it takes" to achieve their vision (or goal). Ok, one might say, great to talk about bodybuilding - the hotbed of drug use. Sure. Let's say that's so. But one still cannot *just* pop a pill and, ta da, succeed. Arnie describes spent five hours in the gym a day, one of which was posing practice, another flexibility work, the rest, working working working. Success takes reps - lots of them - to succeed. And success means also practice on a variety of levels. For arnie, he had a head game, posing, movement, weights work, training plans. All of that took reps. Multi-factor.
And success also takes a willingness to confront failure, learn from mistakes and keep going. Arnie notes it in his video, but so do all the writers on talent of late like the Talent Code
and Talent is Overrated: the neurological role of making mistakes and figuring out what went wrong and correcting those errors is a key factor in getting better, improving performance. Enter the Coach to help figure these things out. Pat Summitt, below, is just one example of a great coach who, in her case, helps her athletes succeed as scholars and bball players.Learning from mistakes, by the bye, in body comp is we can see very different than so-called yo-yo dieting where one keeps doing the same thing - sticking to a diet, losing weight, and then as soon as off the diet, regaining the weight, so pick another diet - and getting nowhere. That doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results has often been given as the definition of insanity.
So, given that enduring success (a) takes practice, (b) using errors for feedback on refining prcess and (c) in particular is Multi Factor, what are the components of success in body comp?
If someone asked me "hey mc, newly precision nutrition level 1 certified person, taking Arnie's Champion attitude, i'll do anything it takes to change my body comp. What does it take? Just tell me," i might be inclined to say:
Ok, it the key factors are time, patience, perseverance, some ongoing self-love, social support, and coaching/knowledge (food later: we have to plan for success first).
Strategies for Enduring Change
Time
Time is probably the biggie. Why? well, we can get that one pretty easily: physical change takes time to affect. But more than that, the biggie about enduring change is behavioural as well as physiological, and that means changing habits. IT takes both time and lots of reps to create new habits; we're rewiring the brain. Literally. Especially if what we're doing around food is often already habituated as a stress response, i'll say again: change is pain on the brain.
How Prep for Time: Once up for this notion of Taking Time, then having strategies to support new practice of change, and having support to persist with these changes is pretty key. Are strategies in place? Is the social support system in place?
Strategies for Time Change: Approaches like Precision Nutrition has several strategies for change: the precision nutrition system, overviewed here; their lean eating program with daily support, discussed here, and their certified coaches for one on one support. Martha Beck's Four Day Win has step by step strategies for building up food practice habits and supporting some self-love in the process. Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat has very simple strategies: stop eating once a week. Commitment
Body comp change does take a pretty constant level of commitment - that's the patience and perseverance - where, as arnie says, his happiness is that every rep was one more leading to his goal. So what are the reps in body comp? In a way we get to count the done and the note done. Here, the reps are often as much what one does do - eat right, exercise - as what one doesn't do - skip the multiple cookies for just one; skip the extra helping.
Self-Care and Support
It will take some self-love and self-support - to care about and for oneself and be as gentle with oneself as one would with a best friend - to see the scale weight fluctuate up and down, but to trust the trend to be heading down. If it's not heading down after two weeks of New Practice, awesome to have an expert in your corner for guidance and support.
Prep for self-love: Do we celebrate the Wins of Change, let's call them? whose your buddy who's there for you? where's your on-call expert to reality check what you're doing?
Strategies for self-love and support: Finding a friend can be hard, since one's current posee might not feel one with a person's committment to change. There are however quite a few diet forums on the web for folks in similar situations to oneself. Again, this is why i dig precision nutrition: the forum is a huge asset since not only experts but folks in exactly the same place as ourselves who have been through it, are going through it, are there.
A note on Threat Reduction and Diet: In z-health Sustenance, we also talk about change as being percieved as a threat. Being in a threat place is not an optimal place to support performance change. Threat means our nervous system, responsible for all sorts of hormonal interactions, perceives a threat to our very survival. Interest in shedding calories is the antithesis of being in a threat place. So we need strategies to help support change that lets us reduce the threat response so we can get to a place to work on performance. Without that, how likely are performance oriented strategies like diet change going to be?
Likewise, each stage of change
, too, may take slightly different strategies. Finding support/expertise for those changes may be key.
All the Time in the World; With a little (self) Love in Your HeartA note on Threat Reduction and Diet: In z-health Sustenance, we also talk about change as being percieved as a threat. Being in a threat place is not an optimal place to support performance change. Threat means our nervous system, responsible for all sorts of hormonal interactions, perceives a threat to our very survival. Interest in shedding calories is the antithesis of being in a threat place. So we need strategies to help support change that lets us reduce the threat response so we can get to a place to work on performance. Without that, how likely are performance oriented strategies like diet change going to be?
Likewise, each stage of change
, too, may take slightly different strategies. Finding support/expertise for those changes may be key. The main message here is time, patience, self-love, support and balanced guidance: when engaging in body comp change, that's a long term committment - even if one only has the proverbial five pounds to lose - and that that's ok. It's like a long term relationship - there are the ups and the not so ups. But being in for the long haul with ourselves is ok: we have the rest of our lives.
After all, if something takes months rather than weeks or a year rather than a month, presumably we have a few more years after that to enjoy the fruits of our labours? That so sounds like it kinda sucks that it's not now and today, or "in just 60 days" and it's not that one can't do extreme programs and get some results acceleration (and be exhausted), but our bodies do kind need the long view.
We're cyclical
Another thing i've been learning about is another "well that's obvious" - is that body comp is cyclical, and our own cycles are different from each others' There are times when we have more energy to give to change and maintenance than others. The winter when it's colder we may put on more fat to stay warm, or that may be the time we really peel it off - working out to stay warm. This is another reason to say it takes time to do body comp work: part of the process is learning our cycles, and by learning them we can tune them.
Ever considered an energy log? When do workouts feel great? when is energy more up or more down than usual? does it correlate to anything else in our days?
I've been finding sleep is a great indicator/corelator of differences, and being lazy about logging it's why i like things like Zeo for logging those subtle differences in quality of sleep, or occasionally monitoring my heart for HRV to see if i'm more pooped than not?
Food?
So where's the food in all this?
Intriguingly, with all this talk of commitment, "getting on a diet" may be less important than heuristics about food and some basic food knowledge. Michael Pollan puts it well in Defence of Food: eat less; mostly plants.Precision Nutrition has a few more heuristics: eat protein at each feeding; get veggie variety at each feeding; get good fats in during the day; skip useless calories drinks of all kinds like juice and pop; save starchy fast carbs till you deserve them - post workout. Eat Stop Eat says eat less daily, and stop eating once or twice a week for about 24 hours. There's also the "change one thing diet" - commit to one less meal in front of the tv for a week, then maybe two less - it's part of the long haul: pick *one* thing to change, commit to that and build up success from there. As Martha Beck suggests, develop strategies that you believe will be successful, and then make that one even easier. Build successes.
Yes but what about the Food?
Gourmet Nutrition vol. 2 is a lovely book of recipes (hit the free sample download) likewise tested for flavour and sitting well with good eating habits. And once we know what to look for in good food, we can start to assess food recipes for ourselves. If you find another source you like, please post it in the comments.
Take Home: We need MultiFactor Strategies for the Long View.
Arnie's view of success is that each rep takes the champs closer to their goals. Implicit in each rep is that it's part of a plan for success, and that plan is multi-factorial, complex (not complicated). Arnie got that winning is not just about lifting big, but moving well, attitude, balance, timing, etc. Why would our own body comp change goals be less complicated?
So how can we help each other to take the long view, and celebrate that anrie-esque joy that each rep is one step closer to the vision we have of ourselves?
Part of that success is getting that taking a single factor approach is likely doomed. I once read that the reason that most small businesses fail is that they don't plan for success. Martha Beck in the Four Day Win concentrates vigerously on planning each action for diet success ahead of time; Precision Nutrition likewise takes pains to emphasis progressive practice of habits before thinking about individualization. Good coaches likewise work with a us based on where we're at with stages of change. But in each case, there's respect for the fact that we're talking about change, and that's a multifactorial thing that requires DYNAMIC multifactorial approaches.
So when considering a new practice - and body comp change is just such a practice - ask: does that thing i'm looking at respect the complexity that is me? does it recognize the physiological, social and psychological parts of the process? Does it have plans to address each of those parts? If not, change that one thing?
If you need a hand, the above are some great starting points. If you'd like some one on one guidance beyond the PN forum for instance, a list of coaches certified in multifactorial nutrition coaching is here. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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Monday, January 4, 2010
Possibly Why the Drudge Report (part of it anyway) points to b2d as the answer to fat loss.
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Words fail me. begin2dig has been sited on the Drudge Report (a political, not a known to be physical, blog) as an alternative to fat loss surgery. Goodness.
The post reads
NoGov4Me at 2010-01-04 06:23 AM
THe main post itself seems to have been about someone getting surgery to lose weight - though what the surgery is is a bit of a mystery:
And so if someone from there finds their way here, allow me to point out a few pages that may help unpack what this kind general pointer may have meant.
First: weight loss is hard. The reason? Trying to lose weight is often more about our wiring and habits (very deep wiring) than about food. Oh sure that comes into it, but we're so flexible as systems we can make useable calories from a very constrained set of resources. So some resources necessary are people - have written about that here - supportive and knowledgeable people. Other resources are getting some knowledge about how we are wired around food can also help. See the discussion/resources on "food and change" here. Likewise resources on sustaining successful change here.
Second, part of the knowledge for success can certainly be about food itself. Here's why i've found precision nutrition successful in this education. From there as a base line, other actual eating plans may beckon depending on goals. Here's a wee review of some to consider if you scroll down this post from habits on down.
Third, learning about how the body actually uses foods can be empowering to begin to understand why less or more is necessary or not. Here's a whole whack of resources about fats, proteins, carbs and the such like in terms of the little we know about them. The stuff on fat is my fave. it's amazing.
Fourth, another part of the equation is understanding how physical activity supplements but doesn't run weight loss. Diet first; action second. But that action is so valuable for us as brains with bodies. Action helps reduce stress around things like those habitual cravings, helps us sleep better, helps support change (here's 10 tips for destressing too). Here's some discussions about the roles of fitness in well being.
Finally
Bottom line, i'll say it again, weight loss is not easy. If it were obesity wouldn't be an epidemic. I agree with the discussions that show we evolved for scarcity not abundance. And i agree that a good part of the problem is that what is abundant in the west is cheap subsidized crap based on corn and spuds rather than greens and food goodness. So staying lean (being in the minority now) requires rewiring, knowledge to support better eating choices, and a certain level of affluence to afford those choices - and the knowledge of how to make using those healthier ingredients practicable rather than mythically out of reach (see part two on precision nutrition for resources there, and here's a free ebook overview of same).
So thank you, nogov4me, for pointing folks to b2d. Hope the above may be a bit of what you were thinking about when you did so.
And heck if you're here looking for help yourself, i do nutrition coaching via email too.
All the best of the new year!
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Words fail me. begin2dig has been sited on the Drudge Report (a political, not a known to be physical, blog) as an alternative to fat loss surgery. Goodness.The post reads
NoGov4Me at 2010-01-04 06:23 AM
THe main post itself seems to have been about someone getting surgery to lose weight - though what the surgery is is a bit of a mystery:
Of the 3 comments on the post, nogov4me - a member of the drudge community it seems - simply provides the above URL to b2d as the response. Goodness.After spending the majority of her 48 years trying, and failing, to slim down, Veronica Mahaffey was still 50 pounds overweight -- not morbidly obese by a long shot, but still far from the size she wanted. Worried about her health, she called a San Diego weight-loss surgery clinic last spring and asked for help.
She was told no.
Her experience may soon be shared by thousands of Americans.
Ultimately, she got the surgery through a clinical trial of one of several new weight-loss procedures. Now 10 pounds from her goal weight of 135, she says she looks better, feels better and is confident she'll no longer have to fight her weight.
And so if someone from there finds their way here, allow me to point out a few pages that may help unpack what this kind general pointer may have meant.
First: weight loss is hard. The reason? Trying to lose weight is often more about our wiring and habits (very deep wiring) than about food. Oh sure that comes into it, but we're so flexible as systems we can make useable calories from a very constrained set of resources. So some resources necessary are people - have written about that here - supportive and knowledgeable people. Other resources are getting some knowledge about how we are wired around food can also help. See the discussion/resources on "food and change" here. Likewise resources on sustaining successful change here.
Second, part of the knowledge for success can certainly be about food itself. Here's why i've found precision nutrition successful in this education. From there as a base line, other actual eating plans may beckon depending on goals. Here's a wee review of some to consider if you scroll down this post from habits on down.
Third, learning about how the body actually uses foods can be empowering to begin to understand why less or more is necessary or not. Here's a whole whack of resources about fats, proteins, carbs and the such like in terms of the little we know about them. The stuff on fat is my fave. it's amazing.
Fourth, another part of the equation is understanding how physical activity supplements but doesn't run weight loss. Diet first; action second. But that action is so valuable for us as brains with bodies. Action helps reduce stress around things like those habitual cravings, helps us sleep better, helps support change (here's 10 tips for destressing too). Here's some discussions about the roles of fitness in well being.
Finally
Bottom line, i'll say it again, weight loss is not easy. If it were obesity wouldn't be an epidemic. I agree with the discussions that show we evolved for scarcity not abundance. And i agree that a good part of the problem is that what is abundant in the west is cheap subsidized crap based on corn and spuds rather than greens and food goodness. So staying lean (being in the minority now) requires rewiring, knowledge to support better eating choices, and a certain level of affluence to afford those choices - and the knowledge of how to make using those healthier ingredients practicable rather than mythically out of reach (see part two on precision nutrition for resources there, and here's a free ebook overview of same).
So thank you, nogov4me, for pointing folks to b2d. Hope the above may be a bit of what you were thinking about when you did so.
And heck if you're here looking for help yourself, i do nutrition coaching via email too.
All the best of the new year!
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Friday, December 18, 2009
Motivation as Skill: a Functional Definition of same
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If asked, "what is motivation" what's the reply you'd give? Is it practical? Useful? Most definitions are not. They are amorphously about goals, ambition, drive. Wikipedia talks about "activation of goal oriented behaviour" but doesn't talk about what that behaviour is. Then there's "desire or aspiration, combined with effort" to achieve a goal. How far does just Will Power get one? One article refered to it as a specific "characteristic to achieve anything in life." Does that mean one might not have that gene? And to be Goal directed sounds so Big rather than immediate (more about various processes of coping with goals here). you'd swear from the way it's discussed, motivation is the key to any success. And yet how do such urfy flurfy definitions help us achieve anything?
For instance, if one looks out the window in the morning and it's snowing (as it is in southern england right now) and one is cold a 'bed, and well, as the Stanislovski inspired actor might say "What's my motivation?" to leave this happy state, what "goal" is there to which we might appeal to say "i have to go into work. blast"
Somehow going to work on a regular basis just does not seem like a goal, does it? It's rather a Maslow-ish necessity if that's how we maintain food, shelter, and not least that nice, warm bed? Let's get real - with motivation.
Getting Functional. In the i-phase z-health certification, motivation is a key component of the course as a key part of good coaching practice, and Eric Cobb, one of the most de-mystifying people i've heard present, takes what i've come to understand is a typically Cobbish/Cobbsian, view of motivation in terms of what can be turned into actual practice. That is, it's functional rather than personal. Motivation is the assessment between two consequences. That is we tend to weigh up the cost of doing the thing and not doing the thing, and go from there. So, in my mind, is the cost of not trudging through this untenable blustering british snow and going to work greater than the cost of getting up and going and out the door to work?
There's a certain appeal to this approach to motivation, not the least because, as Cobb puts it, one doesn't have to be all chipper to take the necessary action - something else that motivation seems typically to imply. One can be in a dreadful mood and still do the deed. One might even sulk a bit, and still have the Force of Negative Consequences to motivate one out the door. And if you dear reader need help with letting go of a dire mood cuz such things just suck one's energy, i have another post/idea for you here.
Death to the term "unmotivated" But then on the other side of the non-chipper doing, is the potentially happy decision to work from home rahter than work if such is an option. By putting the decision in terms of a cost/benefit analysis, removing the personal character traits, one may not be tarred with the offending brush that one is simply therefore "unmotivated." That is so disparaging. It seems to assert that there is a deep problem at the character level if one decides the costs outweigh the benefits of taking action.
The other context of course in which we see the harmful use of the term "unmotivated" is with folks who have struggled to acheive something -say a body comp goal - and repeatedly diet and miss or rebound. They are "unmotivated" or they'd succeed. Piffle. Lack of strategies for success is not the same as lack of decision to act.
Getting Practical: Skills rather than Flurfiness. But to the point, the idea of what i'm calling a functional definition of motivation is that it takes the Mystical and Emotional and Innate Characteristic out of the concept and makes it a practicable skill.
That is, rather than being about the right attitude - whatever that may be - it's about good, informed analysis. And it's way easier to chart out skills (that's the functional part) for analysis of consequences, and to define practicable skills to support any other practice one wants to perform (like getting to work or lifting a heavy object), than it is to develop something as mystical as Attitude. After all, if work required one always to be desperately in love with what one were doing to be motivated to do it, how much work would get done?
Aside - in discussing these ideas with colleagues at the dragondoor forum, someone brought up
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow. Excellent book. If you haven't read it, or heard it, by all means, recommended.
The flow state is where one is doing something such that one is taxed sufficiently that skills are being called to bear so that one is engaged enough to find an action challenging and interesting. If one is overtaxed - say by a far more skilled opponent in a match of some kind - the task is hopeless - no place for purchase. Likewise if the task is underengaging one becomes bored and can be depressed or frustrated as well though for other reasons. So the author argues for any task, it is optimal to find a way to be in flow. But to get to flow, we assume that one has decided to engage in the activity, knows what they're doing to exectute it at an appropirate level of demand.
Familiarity of Cost/Benefit Analysis. The thing about this working definition of motivation is that it's based on something we already do quite regularly: i have to go to work lest i be fired. I must teach this class else folks take their money back and i starve.
What having the definition made explicit does, it seems to me, is it takes it outside of some innate mystical quality and makes it something accessible for discussion and analysis. So we can take apart our regular practice, interrogate it, and find ways to address obstacles. For instance Cobb has a tip that if we don't want to do something, find a way to get moving with it for three minutes and after that it will get into gear. Cool.
Likewise, thinking about the Season of Regret nigh upon us with body comp oriented goals or other New Years oriented deferrals of action promised, we have a very functional way to look at, say, food: we know that eating this additional mince pie will mean 40 more minutes of HIIT that we mayn't have in our bodies to erase. But what happens if that particular negative consequence isn't enough of a cost-as-motivation (rather than benefit as motivation) for the immediate denial of the extra Mince Tart? The consequence seems too far away for immediate payment. And so we still keep chomping?
What this suggests are potential opportunities to build up a bunch of things:
interrogating the perceived cost/benefits.
are the reasons what colleagues talk about as intrinsic or extrinsic? immediate or long term? I will be fired (extrinsic) or i will gain weight (too far away to be perceived) vs i have promised to do this thing and i value my word (intrinsic & immediate). Moving towards cost benefit analysis that focuses on intrinsic & immediate costs and benefits can help sustain a practice when extrinsic motivators may weaken.
In the mince tart example, this kind of instrinsic cost/benefit analysis framing may have more immediate usefulness. For instance, i made a promise to myself that i would only have one tart at this party, and i can keep that promise to myself. It's an important principle to me to do what i say, even to myself.
Skills in Motivation Analysis: Finding out what these both more intrinsic & immediately effective motivators are SKILLS based, not innate knowledge. It's not because we're a bad person and have no Will Power that we may fail in what we are motivated to do. We may have that in spades, but without the techniques of how to develop the analysis (recognise intrinsic vs extrinsic; what will be helpful at an immediate decision point rather than some far away goal etc)
Hence the value of seeing motivation as an assessment of consequences first (analysis not character), and then getting a set of related skills going (the right level of analysis) that will best support the desired consequence throughout practice. In other words, finding the right cost/benefit analysis that will keep mince tart munching to an acceptable level.
If we work with others, coaching, teaching, whatever, this also gives us a framework, it seems, to help
them look achieving what they want: what are the extrinsic and intrinsic benefits and costs?
It's this kind of skills and functional approach around developing habits that i've been finding particularly fascinating of late because it says knowing how to make change per se isn't the main issue; knowing how to make change sustainable is, and that sustenance is NOT innate knowledge.
Sustaining Successful Change
There are a couple of books i've found that really touch on getting and the sustance-as-skills part of change. One of the, in the diet space, is Martha Beck's 4 Day Win. Not unlike Cobb's Three Minutes of Movement to Get Stuck In, Beck finds strategies that are completely and totally doable, and sets up a 4 day win strategy for each towards building better habits for change in the diet space. Her work in psychology has shown that if you can get a new practice going for 4 days, you can get some important re-wiring done.
If you're interested in this kind of plastic brain rewiring, there are other related books recommended here.
The other book i'd recommend for consideration coming into the new year is Stephen Covey and R&A Merril's First Things First. This book is focused on re-wiring habits and perspectives to help get things done.
I like it because it is NOT about how to make To Do lists; it's about figuring out one's real and foundational motivation for something - principles as Covey calls them - and having pracitces to support those principles. Very functional. He talks about how to keep the first things the first things. Or, a fave: don't prioritize your schedule; schedule your priorities. No kidding.
Habits as Skill Sets; Skill Sets as Habits: Both these books represent approaches to develop habits - or what we might call automatic or reflexive or neurologically wired, practiced responses to situations - to help us rather than achieve goals per se, live principled lives. As Covey and colleagues argue, once we know what we're saying "yes" to - what's important to us - it's easier to say "no" to what is not. The heuristics offered in the book for getting to a place in life where, for instance, most activities are Important but Not Urgent is very cool (the other parts of this quad are Not Important and Not Urgent, Urgent (for usually someone else) but not Important (for your Yes), and Urgent and Important. First things First argues that the goal is to get as much as possible happening in that quality quadrant that is non-reactive and then has room for the real and unexpected emergencies, rather than living regularly in the reactive, as many of us do. Functional.
Covey's Quadrants
Who's Involved? Covey, Merril and Merril also tend to look at those Important but Not Urgent things relative to Roles and Relationships. In which of my roles is this task assigned; what trust relationship does that engage? It seems when we situate our responsibilities or things we're motivated to do relative to relationships that we care about because they feature Real People, those actions can become more meaningful. Am i not eating this tart just for myself, or because i care about my family and a commitment i've made to them to get healthy, and this frickin' little tart is one part of that commitment? Or if not to family, i've made a promise to myself that i'll stop at one, and whether it matters or not, in terms of calories, i'm practicing doing what i say i'll do. This is one small act i will have at the end of the day to say i did what i said i would do.
Beck likewise spends time getting to grips with real inner self parts who tend to look out for opposing interests (the wild child and the judge for instance) and come to a place that by understanding these positions, and observing them, and learning some new skills for working with them, we can get our collective acts together.
Skills Aren't Innate, but they can become Wired. Where this all gets to for me, as you can probably
tell, is the notion of being more gentle with ourselves because we ain't born knowing how to do stuff we ain't wired to do.
Consider the fascinating work by Susan Roberts of Tufts around the ways we seem to be wired almost instinctively to go for just the kinds of foods that when there's an abundance of 'um, they become "bad" foods, but at just about any other time than now (now being our supra abundant food always in reach affluent culture), really survival smart: energy dense, familiar, available, satisfy hunger, and even variety rich.
In other words, we need to rewire ourselves to have new instinct-like responses to our 21st C affluent environment, where motivation is more subtle than move or die (though actually that's still the case).
It's Neurological and it's a Skill and So needs Reps. Rewiring is achieved through learning, repping in new neural pathways. And when we learn something, the best teaching is usually that which breaks a practice down into manageable, practicable, learn-able skill sets.
My suggestion is that if you're in doubt about some of those skill sets, the above framing and books may be a useful ways to begin to get to grips with practice, and tune up the motivation to something that can fire up the behaviours, once learned, we want to fire up reflexively to help keep us happy, healthy and wise into the new year.
And coaching: When we work with others - supervising, teaching, coaching - what's good for the
goose is good for the coaching space too. I used to teach a lot of so called "required courses" - courses students had to take as part of their program, and so did not meet with love. One thing found out there is that often students doing a required course hit boredom pretty fast. If we have the Flow model, we can get pretty quickly that the material is either too simple to engage them or too far out of reach to find a way to get engaged. So that's one problem - how to help get to a flow place to provide a pathway.
The same can happen with movement-related goals: the person doesn't have something that allows them to hit a flow state: the prospect of sitting on a stationary bike and pedalling for 40mins is too tedious to endure. So finding flowful practice (to coin a term) is coaching job one.
But let's assume we hit that flow. How stick with it?
In the required course, helping to figure out ways to make a course relevant for a 300 students in one lecture is a bit of a challenge, but actually taking time to talk about what their reason is for being in the room via Covey-like unpacking can be useful: what principle does doing this course support? What are the uber goals to which this particular course is part of the process? How find relevance (and if we can't, well, perhaps that is a Sign Unto Us to Find Something that Is).
That's one tack. Creating a craving may be another. Finding the hook to associating the action with pleasure (reward) such that there's a gap, a loss, when it's not there, is a Good Thing, too. So we can imagine that finding flow may help find the reward/pleasure in something and doing that thing becomes one way to get that feeling back. How do we find that hook?
Assuming someone wants to figure that out, wants to get to that place of Doing the Thing, Motivational Interviewing
is a strategy for helping folks self-talk towards supporting these behaviours they've already decided they want to undertake. Generally the strategy is about how to listen effectively and affectively. I mention this in passing right now for reference if you are working especially one on one coaching (whether athletically or otherwise) someone towards that intrinsic motivation path.
Move along little doogie, move along. A quickie path to better days seems to be movement in general. One of the best things about creating a habit of moving (and if we walk we already have some of that habit to build upon) is that we're designed to move; not moving is not as much fun as moving. We feel better when we do it.
The challenge for a coach may be making the case that there are LOADS of options that fulfil the movement criteria. Don't want to lift heavy today? Fine. Let's do something else. The movement is the habbit. That's the pleasure; not the guilt trip of not doing *exactly* what one imagined one was supposed to do. Shoot that word "should" please.
IT seems easier to stay motivated - to get the cost/benefit effect when the practice of the action becomes pleasurable, desireable rather than a chore. A good coach - of movement or any activity - will help make that happen with us.
Practice: it never frickin' stops
The intriguing thing i have found is that like any skill, to stay razor sharp, or even just half way effective, even these skills have to be practiced regularly. They need their 10thousand hours, too. And right now that's exactly what i need (am motivated) to do. Get my 3 min. dig in going. And heh, it's actually stopped snowing and there's a blue sky. In the UK. In december. Wow, makes me feel, oh i dunno, motivated? Na. The consequences haven't changed from 5 mins ago, but there's one less obstacle now to getting down to it.
All the best to you and your practice.
Related Posts
For instance, if one looks out the window in the morning and it's snowing (as it is in southern england right now) and one is cold a 'bed, and well, as the Stanislovski inspired actor might say "What's my motivation?" to leave this happy state, what "goal" is there to which we might appeal to say "i have to go into work. blast"Somehow going to work on a regular basis just does not seem like a goal, does it? It's rather a Maslow-ish necessity if that's how we maintain food, shelter, and not least that nice, warm bed? Let's get real - with motivation.
Getting Functional. In the i-phase z-health certification, motivation is a key component of the course as a key part of good coaching practice, and Eric Cobb, one of the most de-mystifying people i've heard present, takes what i've come to understand is a typically Cobbish/Cobbsian, view of motivation in terms of what can be turned into actual practice. That is, it's functional rather than personal. Motivation is the assessment between two consequences. That is we tend to weigh up the cost of doing the thing and not doing the thing, and go from there. So, in my mind, is the cost of not trudging through this untenable blustering british snow and going to work greater than the cost of getting up and going and out the door to work?
There's a certain appeal to this approach to motivation, not the least because, as Cobb puts it, one doesn't have to be all chipper to take the necessary action - something else that motivation seems typically to imply. One can be in a dreadful mood and still do the deed. One might even sulk a bit, and still have the Force of Negative Consequences to motivate one out the door. And if you dear reader need help with letting go of a dire mood cuz such things just suck one's energy, i have another post/idea for you here.
Death to the term "unmotivated" But then on the other side of the non-chipper doing, is the potentially happy decision to work from home rahter than work if such is an option. By putting the decision in terms of a cost/benefit analysis, removing the personal character traits, one may not be tarred with the offending brush that one is simply therefore "unmotivated." That is so disparaging. It seems to assert that there is a deep problem at the character level if one decides the costs outweigh the benefits of taking action.
The other context of course in which we see the harmful use of the term "unmotivated" is with folks who have struggled to acheive something -say a body comp goal - and repeatedly diet and miss or rebound. They are "unmotivated" or they'd succeed. Piffle. Lack of strategies for success is not the same as lack of decision to act.
Getting Practical: Skills rather than Flurfiness. But to the point, the idea of what i'm calling a functional definition of motivation is that it takes the Mystical and Emotional and Innate Characteristic out of the concept and makes it a practicable skill.
That is, rather than being about the right attitude - whatever that may be - it's about good, informed analysis. And it's way easier to chart out skills (that's the functional part) for analysis of consequences, and to define practicable skills to support any other practice one wants to perform (like getting to work or lifting a heavy object), than it is to develop something as mystical as Attitude. After all, if work required one always to be desperately in love with what one were doing to be motivated to do it, how much work would get done?
Aside - in discussing these ideas with colleagues at the dragondoor forum, someone brought up Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow. Excellent book. If you haven't read it, or heard it, by all means, recommended.
The flow state is where one is doing something such that one is taxed sufficiently that skills are being called to bear so that one is engaged enough to find an action challenging and interesting. If one is overtaxed - say by a far more skilled opponent in a match of some kind - the task is hopeless - no place for purchase. Likewise if the task is underengaging one becomes bored and can be depressed or frustrated as well though for other reasons. So the author argues for any task, it is optimal to find a way to be in flow. But to get to flow, we assume that one has decided to engage in the activity, knows what they're doing to exectute it at an appropirate level of demand.
Familiarity of Cost/Benefit Analysis. The thing about this working definition of motivation is that it's based on something we already do quite regularly: i have to go to work lest i be fired. I must teach this class else folks take their money back and i starve.
What having the definition made explicit does, it seems to me, is it takes it outside of some innate mystical quality and makes it something accessible for discussion and analysis. So we can take apart our regular practice, interrogate it, and find ways to address obstacles. For instance Cobb has a tip that if we don't want to do something, find a way to get moving with it for three minutes and after that it will get into gear. Cool.
Likewise, thinking about the Season of Regret nigh upon us with body comp oriented goals or other New Years oriented deferrals of action promised, we have a very functional way to look at, say, food: we know that eating this additional mince pie will mean 40 more minutes of HIIT that we mayn't have in our bodies to erase. But what happens if that particular negative consequence isn't enough of a cost-as-motivation (rather than benefit as motivation) for the immediate denial of the extra Mince Tart? The consequence seems too far away for immediate payment. And so we still keep chomping?
What this suggests are potential opportunities to build up a bunch of things:
interrogating the perceived cost/benefits.
are the reasons what colleagues talk about as intrinsic or extrinsic? immediate or long term? I will be fired (extrinsic) or i will gain weight (too far away to be perceived) vs i have promised to do this thing and i value my word (intrinsic & immediate). Moving towards cost benefit analysis that focuses on intrinsic & immediate costs and benefits can help sustain a practice when extrinsic motivators may weaken.
In the mince tart example, this kind of instrinsic cost/benefit analysis framing may have more immediate usefulness. For instance, i made a promise to myself that i would only have one tart at this party, and i can keep that promise to myself. It's an important principle to me to do what i say, even to myself.
Skills in Motivation Analysis: Finding out what these both more intrinsic & immediately effective motivators are SKILLS based, not innate knowledge. It's not because we're a bad person and have no Will Power that we may fail in what we are motivated to do. We may have that in spades, but without the techniques of how to develop the analysis (recognise intrinsic vs extrinsic; what will be helpful at an immediate decision point rather than some far away goal etc)
Mince Tart Eating Analysis
| Motivation Cost/Benefit | immediate | longer term |
| intrinsic | promise to self | health |
| extrinsic | maybe not a lot | - public image: fat - lower cost & effort of calories to make up |
Hence the value of seeing motivation as an assessment of consequences first (analysis not character), and then getting a set of related skills going (the right level of analysis) that will best support the desired consequence throughout practice. In other words, finding the right cost/benefit analysis that will keep mince tart munching to an acceptable level.
If we work with others, coaching, teaching, whatever, this also gives us a framework, it seems, to help
them look achieving what they want: what are the extrinsic and intrinsic benefits and costs? It's this kind of skills and functional approach around developing habits that i've been finding particularly fascinating of late because it says knowing how to make change per se isn't the main issue; knowing how to make change sustainable is, and that sustenance is NOT innate knowledge.
Sustaining Successful Change
There are a couple of books i've found that really touch on getting and the sustance-as-skills part of change. One of the, in the diet space, is Martha Beck's 4 Day Win. Not unlike Cobb's Three Minutes of Movement to Get Stuck In, Beck finds strategies that are completely and totally doable, and sets up a 4 day win strategy for each towards building better habits for change in the diet space. Her work in psychology has shown that if you can get a new practice going for 4 days, you can get some important re-wiring done.If you're interested in this kind of plastic brain rewiring, there are other related books recommended here.
The other book i'd recommend for consideration coming into the new year is Stephen Covey and R&A Merril's First Things First. This book is focused on re-wiring habits and perspectives to help get things done.I like it because it is NOT about how to make To Do lists; it's about figuring out one's real and foundational motivation for something - principles as Covey calls them - and having pracitces to support those principles. Very functional. He talks about how to keep the first things the first things. Or, a fave: don't prioritize your schedule; schedule your priorities. No kidding.
Habits as Skill Sets; Skill Sets as Habits: Both these books represent approaches to develop habits - or what we might call automatic or reflexive or neurologically wired, practiced responses to situations - to help us rather than achieve goals per se, live principled lives. As Covey and colleagues argue, once we know what we're saying "yes" to - what's important to us - it's easier to say "no" to what is not. The heuristics offered in the book for getting to a place in life where, for instance, most activities are Important but Not Urgent is very cool (the other parts of this quad are Not Important and Not Urgent, Urgent (for usually someone else) but not Important (for your Yes), and Urgent and Important. First things First argues that the goal is to get as much as possible happening in that quality quadrant that is non-reactive and then has room for the real and unexpected emergencies, rather than living regularly in the reactive, as many of us do. Functional.
Covey's QuadrantsWho's Involved? Covey, Merril and Merril also tend to look at those Important but Not Urgent things relative to Roles and Relationships. In which of my roles is this task assigned; what trust relationship does that engage? It seems when we situate our responsibilities or things we're motivated to do relative to relationships that we care about because they feature Real People, those actions can become more meaningful. Am i not eating this tart just for myself, or because i care about my family and a commitment i've made to them to get healthy, and this frickin' little tart is one part of that commitment? Or if not to family, i've made a promise to myself that i'll stop at one, and whether it matters or not, in terms of calories, i'm practicing doing what i say i'll do. This is one small act i will have at the end of the day to say i did what i said i would do.
Beck likewise spends time getting to grips with real inner self parts who tend to look out for opposing interests (the wild child and the judge for instance) and come to a place that by understanding these positions, and observing them, and learning some new skills for working with them, we can get our collective acts together.
Skills Aren't Innate, but they can become Wired. Where this all gets to for me, as you can probably
tell, is the notion of being more gentle with ourselves because we ain't born knowing how to do stuff we ain't wired to do.Consider the fascinating work by Susan Roberts of Tufts around the ways we seem to be wired almost instinctively to go for just the kinds of foods that when there's an abundance of 'um, they become "bad" foods, but at just about any other time than now (now being our supra abundant food always in reach affluent culture), really survival smart: energy dense, familiar, available, satisfy hunger, and even variety rich.In other words, we need to rewire ourselves to have new instinct-like responses to our 21st C affluent environment, where motivation is more subtle than move or die (though actually that's still the case).
It's Neurological and it's a Skill and So needs Reps. Rewiring is achieved through learning, repping in new neural pathways. And when we learn something, the best teaching is usually that which breaks a practice down into manageable, practicable, learn-able skill sets.
My suggestion is that if you're in doubt about some of those skill sets, the above framing and books may be a useful ways to begin to get to grips with practice, and tune up the motivation to something that can fire up the behaviours, once learned, we want to fire up reflexively to help keep us happy, healthy and wise into the new year.
And coaching: When we work with others - supervising, teaching, coaching - what's good for the
goose is good for the coaching space too. I used to teach a lot of so called "required courses" - courses students had to take as part of their program, and so did not meet with love. One thing found out there is that often students doing a required course hit boredom pretty fast. If we have the Flow model, we can get pretty quickly that the material is either too simple to engage them or too far out of reach to find a way to get engaged. So that's one problem - how to help get to a flow place to provide a pathway.The same can happen with movement-related goals: the person doesn't have something that allows them to hit a flow state: the prospect of sitting on a stationary bike and pedalling for 40mins is too tedious to endure. So finding flowful practice (to coin a term) is coaching job one.
But let's assume we hit that flow. How stick with it?
In the required course, helping to figure out ways to make a course relevant for a 300 students in one lecture is a bit of a challenge, but actually taking time to talk about what their reason is for being in the room via Covey-like unpacking can be useful: what principle does doing this course support? What are the uber goals to which this particular course is part of the process? How find relevance (and if we can't, well, perhaps that is a Sign Unto Us to Find Something that Is).
That's one tack. Creating a craving may be another. Finding the hook to associating the action with pleasure (reward) such that there's a gap, a loss, when it's not there, is a Good Thing, too. So we can imagine that finding flow may help find the reward/pleasure in something and doing that thing becomes one way to get that feeling back. How do we find that hook?
Assuming someone wants to figure that out, wants to get to that place of Doing the Thing, Motivational Interviewing
is a strategy for helping folks self-talk towards supporting these behaviours they've already decided they want to undertake. Generally the strategy is about how to listen effectively and affectively. I mention this in passing right now for reference if you are working especially one on one coaching (whether athletically or otherwise) someone towards that intrinsic motivation path. Move along little doogie, move along. A quickie path to better days seems to be movement in general. One of the best things about creating a habit of moving (and if we walk we already have some of that habit to build upon) is that we're designed to move; not moving is not as much fun as moving. We feel better when we do it.
The challenge for a coach may be making the case that there are LOADS of options that fulfil the movement criteria. Don't want to lift heavy today? Fine. Let's do something else. The movement is the habbit. That's the pleasure; not the guilt trip of not doing *exactly* what one imagined one was supposed to do. Shoot that word "should" please.
IT seems easier to stay motivated - to get the cost/benefit effect when the practice of the action becomes pleasurable, desireable rather than a chore. A good coach - of movement or any activity - will help make that happen with us.
Practice: it never frickin' stops
The intriguing thing i have found is that like any skill, to stay razor sharp, or even just half way effective, even these skills have to be practiced regularly. They need their 10thousand hours, too. And right now that's exactly what i need (am motivated) to do. Get my 3 min. dig in going. And heh, it's actually stopped snowing and there's a blue sky. In the UK. In december. Wow, makes me feel, oh i dunno, motivated? Na. The consequences haven't changed from 5 mins ago, but there's one less obstacle now to getting down to it.
All the best to you and your practice.
Related Posts
- - Habits in Eating - not about the food - practice approaches.
- - Mentor and Group support as part of reaching goals/changing habits
- - review of precition nutrition, habit-based eating.
- - getting rid of crap around goals
- - the perfect rep quest series
Monday, August 10, 2009
We're Happy happy Happy With our Fat - or maybe not
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We are amazing. We adapt to anything. Including our own states when 
they are less than our once-cherished ideals. We settle. We get on. We make the best of. Or so it seems. It seems that since 1987, at least white folks' idea of an ideal weight has increased - higher BMI is ok'er. And with that, it seems, a desire to move or adjust diet has gone down. Oh dear.
A new study - indeed it's published in the future because its date is Aug 15, 2009 and it's not quite that date yet - looks at exactly the steady progress of how heavier people have become happier with heavier selves. This is pretty amazing on the one hand considering how much we're inundated with images of the Super Lean, but then perhaps not considering the reality of the Super Size (and it's another kick at set point theory being set, ha!)
In the following, therefore, i'd like to review that study and its focus pretty much on concerns around food and movement that come out of the data, and top it off with some work that considers a focus on work other than diet and movement may be in order.
And so to begin, here's the abstract of our perception changing study.
First, it's cool to have a study say we're not exactly sure yet what to make of these finding, but something's going on. Second, the findings themselves are pretty interesting - especially considering the main sample is from three times more men than women, and this is unusual in the obesity area where folks tend to focus more on women.
So what's going on here?
The authors are motivated by a simple, intriguing question: since BMI has gone (and continues it seems to go) up, and so many people (65% in the US) are now classed as overweight, has the perception of what is a "normal" weight changed? There are some interesting tensions in that question: the research that shows obese individuals perceive higher body weight as healthy and attractive - that's one direction - and the media's still constant drive towards the other extreme with associated research showing resulting body dissatisfaction - that's the other. So where are we at, culturally, with perceptions of what's normal?
Cool question
Approach
So the researchers hit the Cooper Clinic and looked at the data from 1987 to 2001 as part of the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study. Only folks with at least 15 measures over that period were considered. It's amazing to find a data set that's relatively unchanged in the data gathering model for such a period. There are rich questions asked about health history here.
One of the key questions in the intake form is about self-reported ideal weight.
Finding: who's "ideal weight" view goes up? What the data showed is that "the slope of the rise in ideal body weight between 1987 and 2001 was greatest in obese and young adults (0.18 kg/year to 0.25 kg/year) and the smallest in older adults (–0.07 kg/year to 0.01 kg/year)."
Who's satisfied with their weight - over time? "Only 2% of obese men and one obese woman reported being satisfied with their weight. BMI, examination year, and ideal weight were all independent predictors of weight satisfaction...In the same model, with each passing examination year, weight satisfaction was 3%–4% higher (P <0.01)...Higher cardiorespiratory fitness also was independently associated with greater weight satisfaction (men: OR = 1.23, 95% CI: 1.18, 1.29; women: OR = 1.35, 95% CI: 1.23, 1.48) and less intention to lose weight (men: OR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.76, 0.89; women: OR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.69, 0.97; Ptrend <>"
What did folks more satisfied with weight do? The folks more satisfied with their weights had lower BMI's and lower percentages of body fat, but they also MOVED.
Intention to change. Almost everyone (93% men and 95% women) of the group who said they were dissatisfied with their weight said they planned to change their diet. About the same ratio (95%/94%) of all men and women said they planned to "change their stamina or physical condition)". 53%/63% of the whole group said they planned to change both. Folks who were happy with their weight had less intention to change their diet or workouts (duh?)
Lifetime: the magic 100. Men who'd lost more than 100 pounds over their lifetime had a lot of stuff going on than the satisfied with their weight.
What's it all mean?
here's where the researchers reflect on their findings, and what they find, overall, is that ideal reported weight has gone up (at least in this very large group) overall, but "particularly among obese individuals."
There main concerns is that younger overweight/obese folks are progressively happier, it seems with higher body weights (going up .3kg/year). Here's the crucial thing: higher body weight correlating with lower ratings of body weight dissatisfaction was also coupled with less intention to move, less consumption of fruit and veg, but also ironically more caloric restriction cycles with higher total pounds of fat lost (but not kept off) over a life time.
In other words, a lot of dieting cycles without super food choices that don't translate into persistent weight loss.
What the researchers are unsure of, is how to leverage these findings strategically for effective change. Is weight disatisfaction a good thing to help motivate change? How would that work, though, without a lot of readily available support? - Good questions.
These resaerchers are also concerned that of those disatisfied in weight who express an interest to change their diet don't also express an interest to change their activities - they feat that without getting physical activity into the mix, weight loss doesn't stick. I'm not so sure about that but am keen to check out the papers they cite to support that concern. If you wish to do so, too, here are the sources:
Today indeed in Science Daily, there's another cry to add to the above that the sedentary are setting themselves up for huge health collisions. Move it Move It. But as i'll come to below, the question may be if movement is such a great thing, why aren't folks doing it, hmm? Quit yelling at doctors to tell patients to move. Where's the support? This is sort of what the speaker, Steven Blair, is quoted as saying, too.
Limitations
The authors acknowledge that while the data they have is a super sample size looking at the same folks over a considerable amount of time (a) it's 95% white folks and (b) the measures are limited. For instance diet and movement were only assesed by single points like fruit and veg consumption and walking/jogging distance. And of course, these data are all self-reported, not objectively measured.
But where self-reporting might normally be an issue in a study if that's the sole measure, it's intriguing the authors highlight it, since after all, this study is about self-perception - and it's intriguing to see how one self-reports practice against attitude - regardless of objective accuracy - but maybe that's just me. And just in this case.
humans on the spaceship in Wall-E are sedentary blimps (above)
who see themselves as svelt (below)
Bottom Line
People (at least in the ACL study) are happier being heavier. That their ideal weights have increased across the board. Higher BMI's are ok. And this mayn't be ok. Let me quote the authors:
While these authors' work shows a thought-provoking trend around getting comfy with being heavier and more sedentary, work by Susan Roberts from Tufts, and her colleagues, has looked more at some of the *why's* behind the effect that gets folks overweight in the first place: eating more.
The authors of the current study touch briefly on the success of various approaches that look less at calories and more at behaviour/attitude around food, and say more work needs to be done to see how successful such non-calorie focused approaches are, and that may be true.
But when looking at Roberts' work, it's hard to deny what her colleague Nicolas Hayes and she found in looking at a particular age group of gals
In other words, what work Roberts' has been doing for the past while keeps showing is the strong correlation between eating as a response to particular situations and stressors. Consequently, one might say that looking at diet and activity alone (as the ACL study review above about ideal weight perception) is likely not going to be a solution for meaningful and lasting change towards health and healthy body weight.
Consider that the self-reporting in the ACL shows that the folks most dissatisfied with their own weight are those most likely to be dieting and have lost more weight overall than others more satisfied. Roberts' and Colleagues work tends to suggest that unpacking what's going on there and helping folks with those habitual responses may be key. She is certainly not alone in this view, but her work puts numbers and facts on this approach: dealing with habits is tough, but critical for health and well being. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
they are less than our once-cherished ideals. We settle. We get on. We make the best of. Or so it seems. It seems that since 1987, at least white folks' idea of an ideal weight has increased - higher BMI is ok'er. And with that, it seems, a desire to move or adjust diet has gone down. Oh dear.A new study - indeed it's published in the future because its date is Aug 15, 2009 and it's not quite that date yet - looks at exactly the steady progress of how heavier people have become happier with heavier selves. This is pretty amazing on the one hand considering how much we're inundated with images of the Super Lean, but then perhaps not considering the reality of the Super Size (and it's another kick at set point theory being set, ha!)
In the following, therefore, i'd like to review that study and its focus pretty much on concerns around food and movement that come out of the data, and top it off with some work that considers a focus on work other than diet and movement may be in order.
And so to begin, here's the abstract of our perception changing study.
Ideal weight and weight satisfaction: association with health practices.
York University, Toronto, Canada. jennkuk@yorku.ca
Evidence suggests that individuals have become more tolerant of higher body weights over time. To investigate this issue further, the authors examined cross-sectional associations among ideal weight, examination year, and obesity as well as the association of ideal weight and body weight satisfaction with health practices among 15,221 men and 4,126 women in the United States. Participants in 1987 reported higher ideal weights than participants in 2001, an effect particularly pronounced from 1987 to 2001 for younger and obese men (85.5 kg to 94.9 kg) and women (62.2 kg to 70.5 kg). For a given body mass index, higher ideal body weights were associated with greater weight satisfaction but lower intentions to lose weight. Body weight satisfaction was subsequently associated with greater walking/jogging, better diet, and lower lifetime weight loss but with less intention to change physical activity and diet or lose weight (P < style="font-weight: bold;">Although the health implications of these findings are somewhat unclear, increased weight satisfaction, in conjunction with increases in societal overweight/obesity, may result in decreased motivation to lose weight and/or adopt healthier lifestyle behaviors.
First, it's cool to have a study say we're not exactly sure yet what to make of these finding, but something's going on. Second, the findings themselves are pretty interesting - especially considering the main sample is from three times more men than women, and this is unusual in the obesity area where folks tend to focus more on women.
So what's going on here?
The authors are motivated by a simple, intriguing question: since BMI has gone (and continues it seems to go) up, and so many people (65% in the US) are now classed as overweight, has the perception of what is a "normal" weight changed? There are some interesting tensions in that question: the research that shows obese individuals perceive higher body weight as healthy and attractive - that's one direction - and the media's still constant drive towards the other extreme with associated research showing resulting body dissatisfaction - that's the other. So where are we at, culturally, with perceptions of what's normal?
Cool question
Approach
So the researchers hit the Cooper Clinic and looked at the data from 1987 to 2001 as part of the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study. Only folks with at least 15 measures over that period were considered. It's amazing to find a data set that's relatively unchanged in the data gathering model for such a period. There are rich questions asked about health history here.
One of the key questions in the intake form is about self-reported ideal weight.
Finding: who's "ideal weight" view goes up? What the data showed is that "the slope of the rise in ideal body weight between 1987 and 2001 was greatest in obese and young adults (0.18 kg/year to 0.25 kg/year) and the smallest in older adults (–0.07 kg/year to 0.01 kg/year)."
Who's satisfied with their weight - over time? "Only 2% of obese men and one obese woman reported being satisfied with their weight. BMI, examination year, and ideal weight were all independent predictors of weight satisfaction...In the same model, with each passing examination year, weight satisfaction was 3%–4% higher (P <0.01)...Higher cardiorespiratory fitness also was independently associated with greater weight satisfaction (men: OR = 1.23, 95% CI: 1.18, 1.29; women: OR = 1.35, 95% CI: 1.23, 1.48) and less intention to lose weight (men: OR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.76, 0.89; women: OR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.69, 0.97; Ptrend <>"
What did folks more satisfied with weight do? The folks more satisfied with their weights had lower BMI's and lower percentages of body fat, but they also MOVED.
Weight satisfaction was also associated with higher levels of walking/jogging per week, higher cardiorespiratory fitness, less restrained eating, consumption of more fruits and vegetables, and higher self-rated health compared with those reporting body weight dissatisfaction (all PWhat seems interesting to me here is that there is not a lot of difference - really - in the amount moved per week between the satisfied and the dissatisfied groups. 18.9km per week vs 15.9? 3km (about two miles) separating BMI levels of happiness and health? Food for thought there. And speaking of food for thought.0.01). Body weight satisfaction was associated with greater distance walked/jogged per week compared with those reporting body weight dissatisfaction, whereas BMI category was negatively associated with distance walked/jogged per week (men—overweight or obese: 18.9 km/week vs. 15.8 km/week, lean: 20.8 km/week vs. 18.6 km/week; women—overweight or obese: 14.4 km/week vs. 14.3 km/week, lean: 18.2 km/week vs. 17.3 km/week, respectively) after adjustment for age, ethnicity, and smoking for both men and women (P < 0.001).
For men, there was a significant interaction between BMI category and body satisfaction on fruit and vegetable consumption such that only the overweight or obese men dissatisfied with their body weight consumed significantly fewer fruits and vegetables (overweight or obese: 14.9 vs. 13.6 per week; lean: 15.1 vs. 15.1 per week; P = 0.01). For women, only a positive main effect of body weight satisfaction was observed (overweight or obese: 17.8 vs. 15.7 per week; lean: 17.4 vs. 15.6 per week; P < 0.001).So guys who are overweight to obese and dissatisfied with their bodyweight also tend not to eat their veggies. Hmm. Interesting habit.
Intention to change. Almost everyone (93% men and 95% women) of the group who said they were dissatisfied with their weight said they planned to change their diet. About the same ratio (95%/94%) of all men and women said they planned to "change their stamina or physical condition)". 53%/63% of the whole group said they planned to change both. Folks who were happy with their weight had less intention to change their diet or workouts (duh?)
Lifetime: the magic 100. Men who'd lost more than 100 pounds over their lifetime had a lot of stuff going on than the satisfied with their weight.
- higher BMI
- higher ideal weight
- more likely to report current dieting
- subtly lower cardiovascular fitness
What's it all mean?
here's where the researchers reflect on their findings, and what they find, overall, is that ideal reported weight has gone up (at least in this very large group) overall, but "particularly among obese individuals."
There main concerns is that younger overweight/obese folks are progressively happier, it seems with higher body weights (going up .3kg/year). Here's the crucial thing: higher body weight correlating with lower ratings of body weight dissatisfaction was also coupled with less intention to move, less consumption of fruit and veg, but also ironically more caloric restriction cycles with higher total pounds of fat lost (but not kept off) over a life time.
In other words, a lot of dieting cycles without super food choices that don't translate into persistent weight loss.
What the researchers are unsure of, is how to leverage these findings strategically for effective change. Is weight disatisfaction a good thing to help motivate change? How would that work, though, without a lot of readily available support? - Good questions.
These resaerchers are also concerned that of those disatisfied in weight who express an interest to change their diet don't also express an interest to change their activities - they feat that without getting physical activity into the mix, weight loss doesn't stick. I'm not so sure about that but am keen to check out the papers they cite to support that concern. If you wish to do so, too, here are the sources:
- Diaz VA, Mainous AG III, Everett CJ. The association between weight fluctuation and mortality: results from a population-based cohort study. J Community Health (2005) 30(3):153–165.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
- Nguyen ND, Center JR, Eisman JA, et al. Bone loss, weight loss, and weight fluctuation predict mortality risk in elderly men and women. J Bone Miner Res. (2007) 22(8):1147–1154.[CrossRef][Medline]
- Rzehak P, Meisinger C, Woelke G, et al. Weight change, weight cycling and mortality in the ERFORT Male Cohort Study. Eur J Epidemiol (2007) 22(10):665–673.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
- Provencher V, Bégin C, Tremblay A, et al. Short-term effects of a "health-at-every-size" approach on eating behaviors and appetite ratings. Obesity (Silver Spring) (2007) 15(4):957–966.[CrossRef][Medline]
- Saris WH, Blair SN, van Baak MA, et al. How much physical activity is enough to prevent unhealthy weight gain? Outcome of the IASO 1st Stock Conference and consensus statement. Obes Rev. (2003) 4(2):101–114.[CrossRef][Medline]
- Martins C, Robertson MD, Morgan LM. Effects of exercise and restrained eating behaviour on appetite control. Proc Nutr Soc. (2008) 67(1):28–41.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]
Today indeed in Science Daily, there's another cry to add to the above that the sedentary are setting themselves up for huge health collisions. Move it Move It. But as i'll come to below, the question may be if movement is such a great thing, why aren't folks doing it, hmm? Quit yelling at doctors to tell patients to move. Where's the support? This is sort of what the speaker, Steven Blair, is quoted as saying, too.
We need numerous changes to promote more physical activity for all, including public policies, changes in the health care system, promoting activity in educational settings and worksites, and social and physical environmental changes. We need more communities where people feel comfortable walking. I believe psychologists can help develop better lifestyle change interventions to help people be more active via the Internet and other technological methods.but i digress...
Limitations
The authors acknowledge that while the data they have is a super sample size looking at the same folks over a considerable amount of time (a) it's 95% white folks and (b) the measures are limited. For instance diet and movement were only assesed by single points like fruit and veg consumption and walking/jogging distance. And of course, these data are all self-reported, not objectively measured.
But where self-reporting might normally be an issue in a study if that's the sole measure, it's intriguing the authors highlight it, since after all, this study is about self-perception - and it's intriguing to see how one self-reports practice against attitude - regardless of objective accuracy - but maybe that's just me. And just in this case.
humans on the spaceship in Wall-E are sedentary blimps (above) who see themselves as svelt (below)
Bottom Line
People (at least in the ACL study) are happier being heavier. That their ideal weights have increased across the board. Higher BMI's are ok. And this mayn't be ok. Let me quote the authors:
Another Line
In conclusion, we have provided evidence that, in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study group, there have been secular increases in ideal weight perception, which relate to increased body satisfaction for a given BMI. Body weight satisfaction is associated with lower intentions to change weight, physical activity/stamina, or diet. In combination with the known consequences of obesity, failure to change lifestyle factors may further compound future health problems.
While these authors' work shows a thought-provoking trend around getting comfy with being heavier and more sedentary, work by Susan Roberts from Tufts, and her colleagues, has looked more at some of the *why's* behind the effect that gets folks overweight in the first place: eating more.
The authors of the current study touch briefly on the success of various approaches that look less at calories and more at behaviour/attitude around food, and say more work needs to be done to see how successful such non-calorie focused approaches are, and that may be true.
But when looking at Roberts' work, it's hard to deny what her colleague Nicolas Hayes and she found in looking at a particular age group of gals
Aspects of eating behaviors "disinhibition" and "restraint" are related to weight gain and BMI in women.
D.W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. NPHays@uams.edu
OBJECTIVE: The causes of adult weight gain leading to obesity are uncertain. We examined the association of adult weight gain and obesity with subscales of eating behavior characteristics in older women.
METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Current height and weight, eating behavior subscales (disinhibition subscales-habitual, situational, and emotional; restraint subscales-flexible and rigid; hunger subscales-internal and external) as assessed using the Eating Inventory (EI), and self-reported body weight at six prior age intervals were reported by 535 women aged 55-65 years. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationships between EI subscale scores and weight change from the age interval of 30-39 to 55-60 years and current BMI.
RESULTS: The strongest correlate of weight gain over 20 years was susceptibility to overeating in response to everyday cues within the environment (habitual disinhibition; partial correlation coefficient (r) = 0.25, P < r =" 0.17,"> and susceptibility to overeating in response to specific situations such as social occasions (situational disinhibition) was not associated with weight gain. Flexible control of dietary restraint attenuated the influence of habitual disinhibition in particular on weight gain and BMI, and was less effective in attenuating associations of emotional or situational disinhibition.
DISCUSSION: Lifestyle modification programs for prevention and treatment of adult-onset obesity currently focus on reducing situational and emotional overeating; the results of this study suggest that a stronger emphasis on strategies that target habitual overeating may be warranted.
In other words, what work Roberts' has been doing for the past while keeps showing is the strong correlation between eating as a response to particular situations and stressors. Consequently, one might say that looking at diet and activity alone (as the ACL study review above about ideal weight perception) is likely not going to be a solution for meaningful and lasting change towards health and healthy body weight.
Consider that the self-reporting in the ACL shows that the folks most dissatisfied with their own weight are those most likely to be dieting and have lost more weight overall than others more satisfied. Roberts' and Colleagues work tends to suggest that unpacking what's going on there and helping folks with those habitual responses may be key. She is certainly not alone in this view, but her work puts numbers and facts on this approach: dealing with habits is tough, but critical for health and well being. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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