Clench for Willpower Boost

Tempted? Clench your lip muscles shut!

Tempted? Clench your lip muscles shut!

A study reported in the Journal of Consumer Research says firming muscles can shore up self-control. Of course, it only works if the choice you are faced with is in alignment with your goals and the muscle clenching is done at the moment of highest self-control dilemma. For example, when faced with the choice to snag a high fat snack when your goal is to lose weight is the perfect time to clench your muscles – adding will-power to your self-control dilemma.

Apparently it doesn’t matter which muscles you clench – what matters is the timing. You must clench DURING a crisis of will-power – like when you’re staring that cigarette in the face! It doesn’t help – in fact it works to your detriment – to clench muscles before the temptation.

So, next time you feel the urge to break your diet, clench your lip muscles shut instead!

Study source: Iris W. Hung and Aparna A. Labroo. “From Firm Muscles to Firm Willpower: Understanding the Role of Embodied Cognition in Self-Regulation.” Journal of Consumer Research.

Chocolate For Stress?

Dark chocolate - good for stress? Yes!

Dark chocolate – good for stress? Yes! Good for you? Maybe not so much.

Maybe. Maybe not!

A recent article by the American Chemical Society (ACS) purports to extol the virtues of dark chocolate as a possible cure for stress. Apparently there is some substance to their study as it is getting plenty of press. Maybe that’s because we Westerners do like chocolate – and having a report that substantiates our appetite for the sweet confection adds to its reasonableness as a snack for us stressed-out folks.

Although it is nice that 1.4 oz of dark chocolate a day can significantly reduce stress over a two week period, it’s also true that “nobody can each just one!”

Let’s face it, some of us like chocolate A LOT – so much so that we might find it difficult to cut back to 1.4 oz per day!

I think it’s a bit early to start patting ourselves on the back for eating what is good for us each time we reach for the bonbons.

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Death Thoughts Cause Excess

Watching TV news late at night can cause you to gain weight.

Watching TV news late at night can cause you to gain weight.

No surprise – “People want to consume more of all kinds of foods, both healthy and unhealthy, when thinking about the idea that they will die some day,” write the authors Naomi Mandel (Arizona State University) and Dirk Smeesters (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands).

The theory – “When people are reminded of their inevitable mortality, they may start to feel uncomfortable about what they have done with their lives and whether they have made a significant mark on the universe. This is a state called ‘heightened self-awareness.’ One way to deal with such an uncomfortable state is to escape from it, by either overeating or overspending.”

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Think to Lose Weight

Thinking about HOW to exercise works better than thinking about WHY you should exercise.

Thinking about HOW to exercise works better than thinking about WHY you should exercise.

A recent study by Laura L. Ten Eyck, PhD, Dana P. Gresky, PhD, and Charles G. Lord, PhD, involved 61 college students who did not exercise on a regular basis or exercised inconsistently. Researchers asked students to think about either the reasons why they should increase the performance of a target cardiovascular exercise they had previously selected, such as to be healthier or lose weight or to list actions they could take to increase exercise performance, such a joining a gym or working out with a friend.

Over an eight week period, students who brought to mind a list of actions they could take to increase exercise performance showed an increase in exercise and improved cardiovascular fitness. However, students who repeatedly brought to mind the reasons why they should do the target exercise did not increase time spent exercising.

Conclusion: if you want to lose some weight by increasing your level of exercise – particularly if you are prone to couch potatoing, think about HOW specifically you can increase your level of exercise rather than WHY you should.

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More Chocolate Magic

Dark chocolate - my miracle drug of choice.

Dark chocolate – my miracle drug of choice.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that a compound in dark chocolate may protect the brain after a stroke by increasing cellular signals already known to shield nerve cells from damage. They found that mice given the compound suffered significantly less brain damage after induced stroke – even when given to them hours afterward.

OMG! Is there nothing dark chocolate can’t do?!

It seems the more research is done on the miracle drug, dark chocolate, the more amazing things they find it will do for you.

I’d write more about it now, but I gotta get down to the See’s Candy Store. I gotta replace my emergency supplies. You never know when I might have a stroke and need it! And, of course, it’s only reasonable that I test for quality before I have to use it for real – don’t want the EMTs stuffing BAD chocolate down my throat at the moment I need the good stuff!

Be right back…

And what was that about my weight-loss regime? Hey! You know what they say? A pound of prevention……..

The Illusive Commodity

lanes

Changing lanes requires only the slightest lateral movement of the wheels.

Of course you know what you are thinking about right now. Maybe you are thinking about your lunch or the kids or a project you are engaged in. Or maybe you are totally focused on my words right here as you read them. The ability to focus on one train of thought to the exclusion of others is the illusive commodity of which I write.

It’s called a scotoma – a thought that blinds you to other thoughts you may be having simultaneously to this one. You are always employing a kind of scotoma. That is, you are focusing on one or two trains of thought to the exclusion of others you are having simultaneously. If you entertained every thought simultaneously, you’d go mad in a hurry. Why? Because you are always in the mode of action upon thought. Every thought in one direction is simultaneously thought of in the opposite direction – just not acted upon as much.

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Environment Key to Weight Loss

Replacing that cake tray with a small basket of fruit could shave many pounds off your waistline.

Replacing that cake tray with a small basket of fruit could shave many pounds off your waistline.

“Our homes are filled with hidden eating traps,” said Brian Wansink, PhD, a consumer psychologist, in an address given at the American Psychological Association’s 119th Annual Convention.

“Most of us have too much chaos going on in our lives to consciously focus on every bite we eat, and then ask ourselves if we’re full. The secret is to change your environment so it works for you rather than against you.”

“People don’t think that something as simple as the size of a bowl would influence how much an informed person eats.”

Eating out a smaller bowl or off a smaller dish is likely to make you feel full sooner and importantly, make you eat less. Eating less is a well-known and fairly obvious way to lose weight. Wansink identified several myths associated with eating than can easily be addressed by simple changes in environment. One myth identified by Wansink, is that people know when they are full and stop before they overeat. His Lab at Cornell University completely debunked this myth with several studies.

Basically, if you want to lose weight and do so easily, you might try the following:

  • Seriously shrink the size of your bowls and plates. Oddly, a smaller plate of food tends to make people feel full sooner than big plates of the same amount of food does.
  • Remove unhealthy foods from prominence. For example, removing a large cake from the counter and placing it behind something or out of sight can help.
  • Place healthy foods in prominent places – preferably at eye-level or where you most often look. Replacing the cake tray with an apple tray might do this trick nicely.
  • Eat in the kitchen instead of in bed or on the couch in front of the TV.

“These simple strategies are far more likely to succeed than willpower alone. It’s easier to change your environment than to change your mind.”

Source Address: “Modifying the Food Environment: From Mindless Eating to Mindlessly Eating Better,” Brian Wansink, PhD

Effects of Materialism on Body Image

Americans tend to attribute all that is good to the acquisition of wealth - to their emotional detriment.

Americans tend to attribute all that is good to the acquisition of wealth - to their emotional detriment.

“Not all women are affected in the same way by looking at idealized media models, and it has therefore been important for research to identify factors that make some women more vulnerable than others to feeling negative about their body when exposed to such media images. We found that women focus more strongly on their appearance when materialistic values are highlighted momentarily to them through priming. At the same time, their awareness of how their bodies fall short of the idealized image is heightened during this priming process, particularly for women who are already materialistic. This means that the influence of materialism is a further factor that makes women more vulnerable to negative body image.”

Yes, as a western society, Americans tend to give more cred and respect to those who look the ideal and who have lots of money and toys. It’s part of our materialistic make-up. When we Americans say that we’re the greatest country on earth, what we really mean (speaking generally) is that we OWN and can BUY lots of stuff. Using a materialistic measuring stick, we are indeed RICH. But at what cost?

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Give Your Goals a Simple Boost

Students asked about how much they'd exercise next week, exercised 138% more.

Students asked about how much they'd exercise next week, exercised 138% more.

Or break a bad habit easier!

If you ask people to predict how much they will exercise in the coming week, they’ll exercise more – if that’s a personal goal. This according to a study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

“When people have set for themselves targets about how much they should engage in a behavior (say, if the behavior is how much to exercise per week), asking them to predict whether they will exercise in the next week makes them think about what they think they should do,” write study authors Pierre Chandon, Ronn J. Smith, Vicki G. Morwitz, Eric R. Spangenberg, and David E. Sprott. “This reduces the chances that they will simply repeat their past behavior and hence breaks their habits.”

When the researchers asked students to predict how much they would exercise in the next week, it led to an estimated 94 additional minutes of exercising (+ 138 %).

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Want a Promotion? Here’s a Novel Approach!

Want a promotion? Women - lose a few pounds. Men - gain a few.

Want a promotion? Women - lose a few pounds. Men - gain a few.

A study reported in the Wall Street Journal concludes that thinner women tend to earn much more money than average or overweight women while men tended to earn more if they were a bit overweight – but not quite obese. It’s called stereotyping and employers tend to do it. However, it could also mean that thinner women and heavier men actually do tend to be more productive due to their looks. Studies have shown that thinner women and heavier men tend to make more sales than their average sized counterparts. It seems the bias goes both ways – affecting employers just as it does customers.

So, the novel approach for getting that promotion? It’s different for women than for men, but the principle is the same: for women of average weight or overweight – drop a few pounds before seeking that promotion; for average weight or underweight men – maybe add a few pounds, but stay short of outright obesity. The idea here is to use a bias to your advantage. I didn’t say it was nice or right or even ethical – just possibly effective.

The flip side of this bias is the health effects involved. What do you think?