Experts say the perceived complexity of the regime and outside factors matter too

Jan 13, 2010 19:31 GMT  ·  By

For some reason or another, many of us have come to believe that it’s enough to want something really bad for that thing to happen. Dieting, like other lifestyle changes, is often presented to wannabe slimmers as something dependant solely on willpower, in the sense that failure derives directly from a lack of it. Not quite so, experts say in a new study cited by Eureka Alert.

The idea that willpower is enough for a diet to be successful, at least as far as its completion is concerned, is one of the biggest misconceptions to date. In fact, health experts say a person can toss a certain dietary regime to the garbage bin even if they perceive it as too complex. That is to say, the more the things the slimmer is supposed to do as part of the new diet, the bigger the chances they’ll not get to see it through until the last day, experts explain.

“Many people think the success of dieting, seemingly a national obsession following the excesses and resolutions of the holiday season, depends mostly on how hard one tries – on willpower and dedication. While this does matter, new research has found that a much more subtle aspect of the diets themselves can also have a big influence on the pounds shed – namely, the perceived complexity of a diet plan's rules and requirements. Cognitive scientists from Indiana University and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin compared the dieting behavior of women following two radically different diet plans and found that the more complicated people thought their diet plan was, the sooner they were likely to drop it,” the aforementioned publication says of the new study.

So, based on the study, if we want to start a new diet and we are serious about seeing it through, the first step is to look for one that is not too complicated. For instance, diet plans that have us counting calories and weighing each morsel are more likely to make of us quitters, experts say. Secondly, all outside temptations must be eliminated: hide the snacks and find hobbies that can compensate for the time we’d spend eating mindlessly. Thirdly, when choosing a diet, we should pay attention to the rules it includes; if there are too many of those, perhaps it would be best if we chose something simpler.

“Even if you believe you can succeed, thinking that the diet is cognitively complex can undermine your efforts. […] If they decide to go with a more complex diet, which could be more attractive for instance if it allows more flexibility, they should evaluate how difficult they find doing the calculations and monitoring their consumption. If they find it very difficult, the likelihood that they will prematurely give up the diet is higher and they should try to find a different plan,” Jutta Mata, professor of psychology at Stanford University, says in relation to choosing the right diet plan, one that doesn’t undermine itself from the very start by its sheer complexity.