Laura’s Psychology Blog

When I finally reached my goal weight of 135 lbs. (thank you Jenny Craig!), actually settling out to 131, in August of 2007, I was thrilled to join the National Weight Control Registry run by Rena Wing of Brown University and James Hill of the University of Colorado. I was so impressed by all the success stories of the people on the Registry, and felt honored and humbled to join them. Being a Skinnerian behaviorist at heart, I also appreciated the negative reinforcement potential of joining–I would be horrified and humiliated to have to write to these people and tell them to take me off the Registry because I’d gained my weight back. Hey, whatever works, right?

My 70 lb plus weight loss on Jenny Craig

This year, I expected to see the enormous packet I had filled out the previous two years, in which I was asked exactly how much of everything I ate every day. I guess I must have passed a milestone now, because I got a two-page questionnaire asking me if I had gained, lost, or stayed the same, and how I felt about it (I answered “extremely happy.”)

Along with my questionnaire, I received a xerox copy of an article from Time in 2004 about some of the members of the National Weight Control Registry entitled “The Secrets of their Success.” If you’re looking for some diet inspiration, this isn’t a bad place to start.

My funniest moment with the NWCR came after I submitted my very first questionnaire. I reported that I walk approximately 4 miles a day, and they emailed me back to make sure that I hadn’t made a mistake. I DO walk at least 4 miles a day (2 miles back and forth to our favorite coffee shop each afternoon for a writing break and another 2 after dinner around our nearby lake–pretty). That doesn’t count the walking I do up and down the hills at Cal Poly when school is in session or the 12 hours of pacing around my classrooms each week while I teach. I don’t consider myself very active (I haven’t done anything sweaty in years), but maybe this sounded like a lot to them.

In the meantime, I’m just keeping doing what I’ve been doing–seems to be working. The longer I keep my weight down, the more natural it seems. Friends who do drug rehab work tell me that it usually takes an addict about 5 years of abstinence to “reset” their physiology. I’m guessing the same is true of weight loss. But it does get easier.

"Here I am at the 'HOME" of the Boston Cream Pie!"

Here are some of the things I am reading for today:

X-TREME eating 2010

“With close to 30 percent of young Americans too heavy to join the military, you’d think that restaurants would at least stop introducing new heavyweight items.”

What happens when we become angry?

“Inducing emotions generates profound changes in the autonomous nervous system, which controls the cardiovascular response, and also in the endocrine system. In addition, changes in cerebral activity also occur, especially in the frontal and temporal lobes…”

Comparing income with peers causes unhappiness

Researchers analysing data from a Europe-wide survey found three-quarters of those asked thought it important to compare their incomes with others.

But those who compared salaries seem less content, especially if they looked at those of friends and family rather than work colleagues.

Einstein’s Brain unlocked!

“Now we can see scores of ways in which astrocytes could be involved in many cognitive processes,” Fields says. “And now it’s not so crazy to find that there were abnormally high numbers of astrocytes in the parts of Einstein’s brain involved in imagery and mathematical ability and that sort of thing.”

the science of self-motivation

“The popular idea is that self-affirmations enhance people’s ability to meet their goals,” Professor Albarracin said. “It seems, however, that when it comes to performing a specific behavior, asking questions is a more promising way of achieving your objectives.”

Blaeberries as an aid to Diabetes?

“Dr Hoggard added: “Traditional folk remedies have cited the blaeberry as a natural resource to help combat diabetes for centuries.”

As a confirmed mindless eater (who knows better than to go to buffets, salad bars, and all-you-can-eat restaurants), I applaud Brian Wansink’s new initiative…the Mindless Method. As one of their banners proclaims, “the best diet is the diet you don’t know you’re on.” In other words, to keep your weight down, it’s important to make the lifestyle changes that let you do that instead of always feeling deprived and “on a diet.”

The Mindless Method Guides You to Better Eating Habits

So instead of counting your calories, the Mindless Method helps you avoid your personal “mindless” traps and designs a healthy eating program that is tailored to your particular challenges. It’s not free–plans run between $12 and $20 per month for full site access, but sometimes paying for something helps people stick to it better. “I paid for this, so I’m going to use it.”

I’m always surprised when people resent paying for a diet program–most people think nothing of spending tons of money on nails, hair, make-up, clothes–and what truly makes the biggest difference in your appearance is your weight. Not to mention the amount of money people waste on prescription drugs and medical procedures that are 100% avoidable with weight loss. Oh, and there are those little things called cancer and heart disease that are tremendously weight-related.  I didn’t join Mindless Method, though, as I’m comfortable with my Jenny Craig maintenance. Still, if I were first starting out again, it might be something I would seriously consider, if for no other reason than to enjoy Brian Wansink’s sense of humor. If a person can make weight control funny, that’s worth the money in my book. And you gotta love the North Dakota wine and the bottomless soup bowl….

Nicholas Christakis has a lot to say about the importance of the company we keep. Not only do your friends’ smoking and eating habits affect your own, but their loneliness and drinking habits do as well.

Christakis and his colleagues note that if you are directly connected with a person who drinks heavily, you are 50 percent more likely to drink heavily yourself. Even if a friend of a friend drinks heavily, your odds go up 36 percent.

Is this just another example of “birds of a feather flock together?” Do people who share similar personalities and habits simply find each other? While some of that is true, your friends also have important roles as part of your reference group. A person’s definition of eating too much or drinking too much or smoking too much might definitely be affected by the behavior he or she sees in friends and family. The “everybody does it” idea is much easier to accept if that’s all you see.

Understanding the impact of social networks on these important health behaviors is crucial to helping people improve their health. I’m hoping that Christakis and company start looking at the spread of positive behaviors, as well as negative ones. My family is telling me that one of the things that is helping them maintain weight loss is the fact that all of us are doing it together. Nobody wants to be the “fat Freberg.”

While updating some writing on eating disorders, I realized that I had some contradictory data. In a section on obesity, I used some WebMD data on the number of calories in some restaurant meals.  Among the cited meals was the Cheesecake Factory’s chicken and biscuit meal, at an incredible 2,500 calories. A few paragraphs down, in a discussion on bulimia nervosa, I had a reference to the “average” binge session of a patient with bulimia as 1,500 calories [1].  Oops. Something weird is clearly afoot.  If 1,500 calories at one sitting constitutes a binge, nearly everyone eating in today’s restaurants must be bingeing away.

On further examination, I realized that my citation for the 1,500 calorie binge dated back to 1986, before our current epidemic of obesity got underway. In 1986, fewer than 12% of American adults had a BMI of 30 or more, but today’s figure is nearly three times that—34%. Perhaps one of the many changes involved with the obesity epidemic is our notion of what constitutes “too much” on the plate. Several media reports echo the figure 10,000 to 20,000 calories at a sitting, and attribute this figure to the Mayo Clinic, but I was unable to find these numbers on the Mayo site. It’s possible that the Mayo staff decided not to quantify a binge.

All You Used to Need to Qualify for a Binge

To help unwary diners from inadvertently bingeing, the Center for Science in the Public Interest is attempting to pass laws that will label menus in fast food and chain restaurants clearly calorie information. They suggest that most people are unlikely to know that a slice of carrot cake at the Cheesecake Factory is 1,560 calories (our old binge standard), an order of cheese fries with ranch dressing is 3,010 calories, a large theatre popcorn with “butter” topping is 1,600 calories, and a cafe mocha and a pastry from Starbucks is over 1,000 calories.

1.  Rosen, J. C., Leitenberg, H., Fisher, C., & Khazam, C. (1986). Binge-eating episodes in bulimia nervosa: The amount and type of food consumed. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 5, 255–257.