"Have you ever sat down to work on a crossword puzzle only to find that afterwards you haven't the energy to exercise? Or have you come home from a rough day at the office with no energy to go for a run?Poor fatsos, can't muster the willpower to stop eating after having an upset.
A new study, published in Psychology and Health, reveals that if you use your willpower to do one task, it depletes you of the willpower to do an entirely different task.
'Cognitive tasks, as well as emotional tasks such as regulating your emotions, can deplete your self-regulatory capacity to exercise,' says Kathleen Martin Ginis, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, and lead author of the study."
Well, the rest of us don't have the willpower to ante up the resources to rescue the fat since we are all spent after taking care of ourselves and performing the emotional task of having self-esteem or the work of caring about the well-being of our children by not nutritionally abusing them.
The important part of this study is the clear statement that weight control is a matter of willpower, plain and simple.
"Still, she doesn't see that as an excuse to let people loaf on the sofa.Got that?
'There are strategies to help people rejuvenate after their self-regulation is depleted,' she says. 'Listening to music can help; and we also found that if you make specific plans to exercise - in other words, making a commitment to go for a walk at 7 p.m. every evening - then that had a high rate of success.'
She says that by constantly challenging yourself to resist a piece of chocolate cake, or to force yourself to study an extra half-hour each night, then you can actually increase your self-regulatory capacity.
'Willpower is like a muscle: it needs to be challenged to build itself,' she says."
Need a plan? Go here and get started.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment