The Single Greatest Threat to Your Fitness Goals

July 26, 2013 9:43 pm / Posted in ,

A lot of my customers start with clear fitness goals that they want to achieve. Their motivation levels are high. They’re following advice on nutrition. They’re 80% compliant with their program. They enjoy the exercise and how it makes them feel. They are OK with slow and steady weight loss rather than ridiculous 20 in 20 “lose weight fast” programs. But then their efforts stagnate or their results go in reverse and they start putting on weight. Why?

I can say with total confidence that 9 times out of 10, the same culprit torpedoes fitness goals. See if you recognize yourself in these scenarios:

– “Well, I ordered a coffee, I might as well have a muffin with it.”

– “If I’m going to have a burger, I’ll just go ahead and have the fries with that.”

– “Well, I already had two glasses of wine, why not have a fourth…and a slice of cake.”

Do you see what’s at work here? It’s a powerful psychological force that some refer to as the “What the Hell Effect” and it’s the single biggest threat to you achieving your fitness goals.

How Does the “What the Hell Effect” Impact My Fitness Goals?

Researchers at the University of Toronto (Polivy et al., 2010) conducted an interesting experiment in 2010 that shows how the “What the Hell Effect” impacts your fitness goals. They had a bunch of subjects in for an experiment – some on diets, others not – and handed each of them a slice of pizza before “starting the experiment.” They then gave the subjects some cookies to review for taste.  Except the researchers really couldn’t care less what the cookies tasted like.

They wanted to know how many cookies the subjects ate. The experiment began with the slice of pizza. While everyone received the exact same slice of pizza, the slices were disguised to look bigger for some participants. The results were telling: the dieters who ate a so-called “bigger” slice of pizza ended up eating many more cookies than those who didn’t. In contrast, those who at a “regular” size slice ate the same amount of cookies as everyone else.

Why did they eat more? Because they thought they had already missed a fitness goal and compensated by going overboard on the cookies.

The “What the Hell Effect” has nothing to do with motivation – it has everything to do with emotional release after days or even months of discipline.

How do You Prevent it From Affecting You?

Unfortunately, dieting and exercise – like drinking – are some of the most common places that the “What the Hell Effect” takes root. Researchers suggest that this is because:

1. You’re focused on short term goals; and

2. You’re trying to change a behaviour.

But you’re not doomed to giving up. You can fight this threat to your fitness goals by changing the way you structure your goals from goals about changing, to goals about acquiring. What does that mean?

Instead of saying “I won’t eat cookies this week,” try and work towards self-talk where you can say “I have been 80% compliant for X weeks in a row.” In this way you’re acquiring healthy weeks rather than depriving yourself for so many days in a row.

Tell me how you stay focused on your fitness goals?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: , , ,

Category: ,

Posted by