I had a revelation last week while watching The Newlywed Game. Yes, I know, who hasn’t.
It was The Newlywed Game that is currently on the Game Show Network with Carnie Wilson as host, and it was “Celebrity” Week. The definition of “celebrity” on the Game Show Network is stretched farther than the waistband on Carnie Wilson’s yoga-pants. The celebrities in two of the episodes I saw included four former contestants from The Biggest Loser. They all looked… fine, certainly better than they did before they started The Biggest Loser, but it was clear that they had gained back some of the weight. In some cases, a lot of the weight. And then I looked at Carnie Wilson, who got her stomach stapled years ago and is now pretty damn big again. And I was reminded of Oprah (who you may recall I wrote a letter to about a year ago) and her declaration that she was going to give up her weight-loss battle. Oprah, of all people, who has every resource imaginable (including someone to cook healthy food for her!) can’t figure out a way to work this shit out. And the Biggest Loser people who have access to amazing personal trainers and learn everything there is to know about diet and nutrition and have the added pressure/incentive of walking down the street and everyone saying, “oh, there’s the guy who used to be fat.” They don’t seem to be able to keep it together. If these people who have been given all the tools for success can’t lose weight, or can’t keep it off, what chance do you have? What can you bring to the table that Oprah can’t? Nothing! Oprah can buy and sell you 1000 times over. Her favorite things are cashmere sheets and gourmet macaroons. Let’s be honest, your favorite things are double-ply toilet paper and Cheesy Gordita Crunches at Taco Bell. Oprah bests us in every category but one. And this one category is the only thing necessary to lose weight: self-discipline.
Yes, I know it blows that that’s the answer, but it’s just a logical progression. If it’s not about having the right personal trainers, personal chefs, exercise equipment, knowledge, or motivation — what’s left? Just you, and me, and our ability to get ourselves to do things we don’t want to do. Self-discipline.
There are hundreds of thousands of weight loss tips,diets and exercises online and in books, and yet there is almost nothing written about how to gain self-discipline. After my Newlywed Game revelation last week I listened to an audio lecture by a guy named Brian Tracey called The Miracle of Self-Discipline. It didn’t tell you how to gain self-discipline, it just told you what to do once you have it. “Get to work an hour before everyone else and leave an hour after.” Uhm, no thanks. Then I read a book called “Self-Discipline in 10 Days” which was a pretty typical self-help type book, and those tend to make feel sick. And it didn’t say much about how to get self-discipline.
So, that’s the question: how to acquire self-discipline. Well, just like anything, you acquire it by practicing it. This is not a new concept to me. This blog was started on the notion that unnecessarily challenging yourself was beneficial to the process of losing weight. The psychologist William James said, “Do every day or two something for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.” Doing something for no other reason than you’d rather not do it is the basis of practicing self-discipline. In this old post I mentioned some challenges one could take on to work on their self-discipline in regards to weight-loss. Those exercises gave me the idea for a step-by-step course on self-discipline that I will post starting next week.
The idea being this:
- You will practice doing things you don’t want to do.
- You will begin to see yourself as someone who is capable of doing things you don’t want to do.
- The next time you find yourself alone with a pizza, wanting to eat the whole thing, and not wanting to stop after 2 slices you’ll say to yourself, “Yes, I don’t want to stop eating this. But I know I should stop. And I’m capable of making myself do things I don’t want to do, so I’ll stop now.”
- The habit of self-discipline grows. (That’s the theory.)
