Flexible dieters are more successful dieters: weight regain and the tendency to think in black and white terms

Maintenance of a healthy body weight is challenging for many people. Diet success rates are generally low and it has been shown that 50% of the weight loss is usually regained after one year. 

A factor that has been associated with overeating and weight regain is thinking in black and white terms; a personality trait that is called dichotomous thinking. People often hold divided beliefs about food (healthy or unhealthy), their diets (on track or out of track), but also about their weight (acceptable or unacceptable) and these beliefs may lead them to overeating when they have the feeling that they have violated their diet.  

Katerina Palascha

For her Master thesis project, Katerina Palascha conducted a survey among 241 adults. She wrote a paper about the study and recently this paper was published  in Journal of Health Psychology. Quite an achievement!

The study revealed that the greater the self-initiated attempt to control food intake (dietary restraint) the higher the weight regain. However, it was the dichotomous thinking rather than dietary restraint that really predicted weight regain. This implies that when the attempt to control intake is accompanied by a rigid ‘black and white thinking’ style, people’s ability to control their food intake may be inhibited, thus leading to weight regain. In line with this finding, a study of Sairanen and colleagues showed that adopting a more flexible self-restrictive eating behaviour (as opposed to rigid self-restriction) could lead to a better weight loss maintenance and well-being.

Katerina's study again showed the importance of avoiding the 'what the hell' effect. Do not think: 'I have already ruined my diet for today, why not even indulge more..!'. Flexible dieters are more successful dieters.

My Top 3 of free apps that support you in sticking to your goals

We all know that it is very hard to stick to your goals. Here you find my Top 3 of free apps that help you stick to your New Year's resolutions.

1) The Eatery: Build on the honest real-time feedback of friends and strangers

My favorite one! Self-monitoring improves self-awareness of behaviour ('Am I really eating that much chocolate?'), but writing down everything you eat can also be quite boring and time-consuming. The Eatery promotes its free app with the slogan 'stop counting calories, start eating better'.

The idea is that you take a picture of everything that you plan to eat. Then you invite your friends to comment on the meals you are about to eat or just finished. Within a few minutes you will then receive a rating on a scale of 1 (very unhealthy) till 100 (extremely healthy). As you can see, my homemade oliebollen (Dutch treat) were not considered to be very healthy. I did not connect to Facebook, but still I received about 20 ratings per snapped food. So, by using crowdsourcing, other people evaluate the healthiness of your eating habits. 

This app is addictive and fun to do! However, I do not always agree with the crowd's healthiness ratings. I noticed that the crowd is also susceptible to biases such as health halos and the negative calorie illusion. Just put a salad next to your burger or state that it is fat-free, and the ratings go up substantially. And although you can indicate the portion size consumed, I have the impression that you do not include that information in your ratings of other people's food. But the idea is great and offers opportunities for interesting consumer studies.

2) Stickk: Make yourself accountable; pay when you do not reach your goals

Stickk is not an app, but a site that claims that your chances of success are higher when you put actual money on your goal. It is not obligatory, but you have the option to commit money to your goal and if you do not achieve it, Stickk will send the money to the person, charity or organisation that you indicated. The site is founded by Yale economists and based on two key principles of behavioural economics: (1) people do not always follow up what they intend to do and (2) incentives motivate people to do things. I did not commit money to my goal, so I guess that is the reason that it was not that motivating. I think I am going to commit myself again, but then with serious money....

3) My Weight App and MyNetDairy: track your weight loss progress
A recent study of Barbara Cunningham showed that people do not lose more weight when they track their diet using smart phones compared to the traditional pen and paper method. But still, if you have a smartphone, it is convenient to try an app.

These apps help you to track you weight day by day (My Weight App) and calories/exercise (MyNetDiary). I used the free versions, and they are easy to use. The progress bar of the My Weight app gives a view on how far you progressed with your weight loss.

My Top 5 of most illustrative Diet Blogs

It is time for New Year's resolutions and new diet and exercise plans for a slim body. Luckily, you are not alone in your painful efforts to lose weight. Many people around the globe are sharing their ups and downs with you. You can learn a lot of the psychology behind people's efforts to lose weight by reading diet blogs. After reading dozens of blogs, I can see some key issues coming back all the time. Therefore, here my Top 5 of the most illustrative diet blogs:

Number 5) The Diet Blogger who reports everything she is eating

Reporting what you eat gives insights in how much and when you eat and just the reporting itself makes you think twice before putting food in your mouth. Although it takes a lot of time, effort and commitment, a food diary can even double weight loss. Useful to make a good start, but I am wondering who is really interested in all your blog posts and tweets what you eat?

Number 4) The Diet Blogger who follows a different diet weekly
This is an interesting 'working experiment' of a woman who wants to share her experiences on a wide variety of diets, from the Cabbage Soup diet (that week must be long...) till the Subway diet and many more. Research has shown that more variety in the diet leads to more consumption, so this blogger is making her life much harder. On the other hand, she is one of the rare bloggers who keeps on blogging and losing weight. Apparently, she is having fun.

Number 3) The Diet Blogger who tries to motivate himself by being sponsored for charity

Jochem tries to lose 40 kilograms while supporting the Dutch Heart Association at the same time. This creates accountability and reporting your progress to an internet audience can have enormous motivating value, particularly when you are successful. But when the days and weeks come when you do not feel like eating right and exercising, it is hard to keep on being honest. After one or two blog posts with frustrations and disappointing results, most diet bloggers quit blogging.

Number 2) The Diet Blogger who knows that just expressing a good intention is satisfying

I guess that is the reason that someone started this twitter blog and left it by that action alone. Making the decision to do something good already gives a boost to your self-esteem. One study even found that increased fitness intentions are used as a direct defense against concerns about death. So, start a diet blog; a simple way to feel better instantly!

Number 1) The Diet Blogger who succeeds for about four weeks

I am afraid this is the most illustrative diet blog. John had very ambitious intentions and it seems that he failed to fulfill them. And that is what happens with most diet blogs: after a few weeks dieters stop blogging simply because they quit dieting. The motivation to keep on dieting typically falls after about four weeks. Two well-known experts in the field of diet psychology, Janet Polivy and Peter Herman, call this the 'False Hope Syndrome' which is characterized by unrealistic expectations about the likely speed, amount, and ease of losing weight, which lead to disappointment and failure.

So, watch out for unrealistic expectations, but remember: without hope and good intentions, it is never possible to lose weight. And maybe a diet blog helps you in achieving your goals.