The Willpower Myth and The Oatmeal Comic

I don't own this. Visit the comic The Oatmeal for more of these gems.

For those who are "language sensitive" I apologize for the crudeness.

The reason that The Oatmeal often gets the laughs and the cringes is because of the frankness. That overwhelming element of truth is that most of us feel utterly helpless in the face of dieting and at some point feel as though we have absolutely no willpower.

In an admittedly older article from 1999 in the New York Times
Scientists Unmask Diet Myth: Willpower, Dr. Michael R. Lowe says:

''Willpower as an independent cause of behavior is a myth,'' Dr. Lowe said. In his clinical practice, he takes a behavioral approach to weight control. In part, that involves counseling dieters to take a more positive attitude about their ability to lose weight. It also involves some practical steps. ''Most importantly,'' he said, ''you need to learn what behavioral steps you can take before you get in the situation where you're in the chair in front of the television with a bowl of potato chips.''

Willpower requires us to be in a constant struggle against feeling deprived of something and somehow having the inner fortitude to conquer it. In such cases, we're always doomed to be the person in the comic freebasing pie.

Instead, it's about planned behavior modification. For example, I was craving cake. And starting to go a little crazy over my cake craving. But having been living the Weight Watchers thing for a while now, I know I can get away with small amounts of things I crave and I can be satisfied. In fact, while I was craving cake it wasn't like some of my cravings in the past, where I was thinking about giant slices and gobs of fudgy frosting. All of that, over time and thanks to modifying my eating habits, became far less appealing. Could I eat a few bites? For sure. But the thought of too many forkfuls of gooey cake was a little nauseating.

So instead I made a snack cake and divided it into 12 small pieces. It was rich. It was chocolaty. It gave me the satisfaction I needed without the feeling of remorse, regret, and failure that accompanies a binge.

It's much more about replacing our bad habits with good ones. How do you react to the urge to stress eat, and how do you reward yourself for a job well done? The choices you make in those circumstances have much more to do with success than notions of willpower.

Willpower sets a set of high expectations. No one is that perfect and no one can achieve it.