2008-05-12T21:47:55Z urn:uuid:60a76c80-d399-11d9-b93C-0003939e0af6 CoalEngine CoalSpeak urn:uuid:1225c695-cfb8-4ebb-aaaa-80da344efa6a 2008-05-12T21:47:55Z

Unraveling the Myth of Willpower By: Warren Huberman, Ph.D. Printer Friendly Unraveling the myth of willpower I’ve always despised the term “willpower” because it’s one of those words that seems to say something, but says nothing. Applied to weight loss or keeping weight off, willpower is always cited as something you must have to be successful. When patients struggle to lose weight, they tell me it’s because they have no willpower. Willpower is spoken of as if it is the secret weapon in the battle of the bulge but nobody seems to be able to define what willpower is or how to acquire it. What truly bothers me is that willpower is often explained as something intrinsic…that you either have it or you don’t. This is utter nonsense. Anyone who has ever lost weight can recall at least one time when they thought “This is it! This is the time I’m really going to keep it off!” You felt as if you were in a groove. You turned away from cake and potato chips. You said no to second helpings. You were invincible! You even bought the smaller jeans to punctuate your accomplishment! But then there was a wedding, or a cruise or just a little, harmless piece of chocolate that you let yourself enjoy. Suddenly, your “willpower” seemed to be gone and you didn’t know how to get it back. Well that ends today. I have news for you. Successful weight losers do not have more willpower than you do. Unsuccessful dieters do not have less willpower than you do. The popular conception of willpower is nonsense. There is nothing magical about willpower. It is not something that you have one day and lose the next. I’m going to teach you how to make your own willpower. First, let’s expose the myth of willpower. Willpower found! When you lost all that weight way back when, it began with a conscious decision and a few key factors lined up in your favor. While it may seem that you suddenly had the willpower to start the diet and successfully begin to lose weight, what actually occurred was that emotion (motivation) and an awareness of the positive and negative consequences of weight loss were both in focus. Often by chance, the emotional energy to persevere is so strong that we tolerate hunger, frustration, cravings, etc. You might think that you were not feeling hunger, cravings, or frustration when you were losing the weight but in fact you were. They were simply dwarfed by the high level of emotion and motivation you had to tolerate them. Willpower lost! Unfortunately, this initial emotional thrust eventually wears off if there’s nothing else to give it more fuel. When willpower seems to suddenly disappear what has happened is that the equation has shifted. Reasons to eat the chocolate and the desire to eat it are suddenly greater than the initial emotional thrust to tolerate this discomfort. At this point, you begin giving yourself permission to go off track. You find yourself in an environment where temptations seem greater than before. You tell yourself things that enable a setback. Willpower didn’t go anywhere. And as you well know, from that point on, it was only a matter of time until the weight returned. You probably remember that awful feeling of powerlessness that you couldn’t grab hold of the reigns and turn things around. Of course, there are also times where an overwhelming emotional event may occur that throws your motivation out the window. 9/11 was such an unfortunate example for many of my patients. Making your own willpower Whether it is losing weight, quitting smoking, or accomplishing any other endeavor, there are a few specific actions that successful people take that make them successful: 1) Create measurable goals and write them down. If you’re not willing to write them down then you’re not really serious about success. Keep reading your goals every day or they won’t stay in the front of your mind. If they’re not in the front of your mind, they’re in the back of your mind. If they’re in the back of your mind, they’re useless. 2) Motivate yourself to accomplish each goal. Ask yourself “What’s in it for me (WIIFM) to accomplish this goal?” Then ask yourself “What is the consequence of failing to accomplish this goal?” Identify short and long-term goals as well as short and long-term consequences. Don’t dance around this issue…be honest. There are real negative short-term consequences of dieting and keeping weight off. Hunger, feelings of deprivation and temporary emotional distress are a few. Fear of being without food as a comfort is another. Having a clear list of benefits that you will gain in the future in exchange for tolerating these negative consequences in the short-term can help you through these tough times. Ask yourself “What do I stand to gain, both now (within a few days) and in the future if I stick to my goal of losing weight.” This is the real definition of willpower: being able to tolerate frustration or discomfort in the present in exchange for a desirable outcome in the future. Perhaps a better phrase for willpower is discomfort tolerance or frustration tolerance. Take your time with this step. Remember, in order to have the ability to tolerate frustration and discomfort when they strike, you need to be acutely aware of “what’s in it for me?” 3) Make clear action steps that you plan to take to accomplish the goal. The goal itself is not as important as understanding the behavioral steps you plan to enact in order to accomplish them. Ask yourself “what am I going to do to accomplish my goal. Also ask, “What do I need to stop doing or do differently if I am to accomplish this goal. For example, don’t ask yourself “How am I going to find the time to exercise?” Ask yourself “How am I going to make the time to exercise.” Then take out your blackberry or schedule book and figure out exactly what you are going to shift around to create the time to exercise. 4) Practice your strategies. Ever notice that the best athletes practice almost EVERY DAY?! Batting practice, free throw practice, the driving range, and on and on. Practice is what makes people successful. It’s not willpower. In case you’re telling yourself that it’s the money, you’re mistaken. There are plenty of highly paid athletes that are bums. Our favorite athletes are generally the ones that practice the most. They try harder and give a little more than the “prima donnas.” We tend to like the players who are shorter, slower, injured, or who are older but simply refuse to give up. Its constant effort, and a refusal to quit, not talent that makes the difference. 5) Think like a winner. When a winner has a setback, they don’t pack it in. They start over. Don’t “catastrophize.” Don’t categorize everything into good or bad, pass or fail. Stop being critical and demeaning of your shortcomings and missteps. If you have a bad day at the Chinese buffet, it’s just one high-calorie meal. It doesn’t mean a thing…unless you tell yourself it does. If you tell yourself it’s a bad day, it becomes a bad day. Tell yourself that your Chinese meal ruined the weekend and you’ve ruined the weekend. Suddenly you’re telling yourself that Friday is a wash and that you might as well give yourself the weekend to have some fun promising that you’ll get back on track on Monday, only Monday never comes. How you think is everything. There you have it…the mystery of willpower unraveled. The power to make real change and MAINTAIN real change is well within your grasp. You don’t suddenly get it and just as suddenly lose it. Make a commitment to your goals, write them down, document what’s in it for you, read your goals daily, diligently engage in behaviors that support each goal, think like a winner and you will be successful. I know that some of you are reading this and sighing, saying that it’s not so simple. It doesn’t have to be so complicated either. Take a bold step. Start writing some goals down right now and follow the steps I’ve outlined above before you log off. You have the power to change right at this very moment. No willpower required! Printer Friendly

urn:uuid:1225c695-cfb8-4ebb-aaaa-80da344efa6a 2008-02-21T14:23:20Z

Developing Discomfort Tolerance (Something to try when you get hungry) By: Warren Huberman, Ph.D. Printer Friendly One of the most common questions I am asked by patients prior to surgery is “What do I do if I want to eat something after surgery when I know I’m not hungry?” This question stems from anxiety regarding emotional eating and the possibility of weight regain. Many patients recall that these thoughts and feelings triggered relapse from previous efforts to lose weight. There is also the growing concern about what is being called “addiction transfer.” Patients are nervous that if their ability to eat is inhibited by the surgery or by efforts to avoid eating that this urge will somehow morph into some other maladaptive coping mechanism like consuming alcohol. Interestingly, despite much anectodotal discussion about “addiction transfer” there is not much clinical support for such a phenomenon. But the question remains…”What do I do if I want to eat after surgery and I know that I’m not hungry?” Many patients tell me that they have tried at least one of hundreds of suggestions to cope with hunger…drink some water, go for a walk, eat something healthy, do a crossword puzzle, call a friend…and the list goes on and on. One suggestion that is seldom discussed is to do nothing at all, but rather to try and understand and tolerate the discomfort. Perhaps this sounds shocking to you. Our culture places such a premium on being comfortable that we seem to have lost the ability and the skills to tolerate discomfort. We have 26-way adjustable seats, televisions in every waiting room, drive-through pharmacies, and remote controls for every electronic device. Heaven forbid that we experience any inconvenience or discomfort! Where did we get the idea that we must be comfortable all the time? Why do we believe that we must deperately try to distract ourselves away from all sources of discomfort such as hunger or emotional distress by talking with friends, taking walks or doing crossword puzzles? These activities of distraction, although not harmful, are a means of escape. By engaging in one of these activities we are essentially telling ourselves that “I can’t stand the discomfort of being hungry…I must find something to distract myself away from this absolutely intolerable feeling…danger, danger, danger!” It’s simply not true. The next time you experience the urge to eat something when you’re not truly hungry, instead of engaging in an activity to escape from the discomfort, sit with it for a few minutes. Examine the feeling and ask yourself just how intolerable it is. Consider rating it on a 1-10 scale and ask yourself if you truly “can’t stand it!” Is it a mild discomfort or genuinely painful and intolerable? Try sitting in a chair and taking a few deep breaths over the course of two to three minutes and see if you can manage to reduce the anxiety and discomfort. Sounds crazy but at times it will most certainly work. By practicing this exercise and gaining some mastery and control over your response to the discomfort of hunger, you learn that you can actually tolerate the discomfort. Therefore, it is less likely that you will feel anxiety the next time the hunger occurs as you will know that you can “stand it” and that you don’t have to run away. This is how we develop discomfort tolerance and the ability to take care of ourselves despite the presence of discomfort. We try very hard to teach it to our children as we do not indulge all of their crying episodes and tantrums. We teach them to try and cope until the discomfort subsides. It is a great skill to learn to tolerate discomfort and ride it out until it subsides. Try it out! Printer Friendly

urn:uuid:1225c695-cfb8-4ebb-aaaa-80da344efa6a 2008-01-16T16:38:26Z

Warren L. Huberman, Ph.D. By: Warren Huberman, Ph.D Category: Warren L. Huberman, Ph.D. Printer Friendly Dr. Huberman’s blog will focus on a number of topics including: Considerations prior to surgery. Managing emotional eating and binge eating after surgery. Avoiding self-sabotage. Relapse Prevention. How to keep the weight off and make behavior changes that last. Strategies to develop a positive self-image after surgery. Dating, intimacy and relationships. Managing depression and anxiety after surgery. Learning to adjust to life after surgery and after weight loss. Other topics of interest to readers of the blog. Hello, and welcome to my blog. My name is Warren Huberman and I am excited to participate in the WLS Lifestyles blog. I am a Clinical Psychologist and a Cognitive-Behavior Therapist with a strong background in health behavior change including weight loss and weight loss maintenance. For the past seven years, I have worked as a member of the clinical team of the NYU Program for Surgical Weight Loss and have had the pleasure of working with thousands of patients both before and after weight loss surgery. I’ve learned a great deal over the years and have enjoyed helping others make the attitudinal, behavioral and emotional changes to be successful with weight loss surgery. In my way of thinking, the true definition of success is not simply losing weight, but becoming able to pursue and achieve your real goals, accomplishing all of the things that you hoped “thinnerness” would provide. These include improving your physical functioning; being more engaged in relationships, and becoming a happier and more fulfilled person…truly living rather than simply just being alive. As you may know, I have been contributing to writer to WLS Lifestyles magazine for a number of years and am a member of the Editorial Review Board. Although I’ve never been morbidly obese, I’ve had my struggles with weight over the years. I was quite heavy as a child and peaked out at 225 pounds in my teens. I can identify with all of the emotional pain and suffering that being overweight can bring as I experienced it myself. My patients tell me that my own history and understanding of obesity has been very helpful to them. I’ve managed to drop back to a normal weight but continue to watch my weight and examine as much as I can. I’m always fighting the fight. However, I understand that while fat body may be gone, fat brain still lurks. The struggle with obesity and its scars are still familiar. It is a true joy to be able to use my experience, both personally and professionally to help others in their struggle with obesity. It was once said that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. That’s kind of how I feel and I look forward to helping you as best I can. I am excited about the prospect of helping others through this blog. Although I may not be able to answer every question, I’m certainly going to do my best to offer my thoughts on a number of topics that I hope will be of interest to you. I welcome your input and look forward to the dialogue. Best Regards, Dr. Huberman Printer Friendly