Mental Prep for Healthy Living and Dieting

Chapter summary

The mind is one leg of the three-legged stool. It explains why diets fail and how they can succeed.
The subconscious may have a different agenda from your conscious goal. You may not know you are in a battle.
Food is often an emotional reward. People battle sugar addiction, depression and self-worth, and worry about what others think.
Human studies are confounded by mental state. In animal studies, food intake can be controlled.

Low social connection weakens immunity. First-year college students who were lonely had a weaker response to flu vaccination.
Poor mental health links to poor physical health. Australian data (Mental Illness Fellowship) show higher rates of stroke, cancer and diabetes in people with schizophrenia. About 40% of remaining Australian smokers have a mental illness, and oral health is much worse.
Hypnotherapy and self-help books also appear to help. The author wonders if combining them with diet science could double the 20% success rate.

From Dr George Blair-West’s Weight Loss for Food Lovers. Each mini-binge cancels the calorie saving and weakens willpower.

Last Supper Effect: If you know a food will be banned, you overeat it first, as though preparing for famine.
What the Hell Effect: You eat one biscuit, then the whole packet.
Restraint theory: Give up too many foods and you rebel. We want what we cannot have.

Sort foods into three groups: fattening high-sacrifice foods you love, fattening low-sacrifice foods you can drop, and healthy foods.
Drop only the low-sacrifice group. Keep the high-sacrifice foods, but manage when you eat them.
Examples: Hugh ate chocolate cookies mid-morning, after a high-protein breakfast, so he could stop at two. A friend had one slice of bread at breakfast with bacon and eggs and chicken inside a salad at lunch, not four slices.
Hugh avoided Christmas cake for six months because he could not stop at one slice.

Willpower view: Eat less and push through. Many diet programs rely on it.
Psychology view: Willpower is a short-term skill and strict rules trigger rebellion. Plan around your triggers.
Strict versus flexible: Some prefer a clean break, as with cold-turkey smoking. The author says do not remove too many foods at once.

Blair-West, G. (2010) Weight Loss for Food Lovers: Understanding Our Minds and Why We Sabotage Our Weight Loss. Alclare.
Pressman, S. et al. (2005) Loneliness, social network size, and immune response to influenza vaccination in college freshmen. Health Psychology 24(3).
Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia (2011) The Physical Health of People Living With a Mental Illness.