In my experience, successful dieting is not a matter of willpower. You do what you want to do. If you believe that the benefits of losing weight, even time-discounted, will be greater than the benefits of having food now, you will lose weight.
So the two things you can do to lose weight are:
Examine your beliefs about why you want to lose weight; and figure out exactly how much you want it.
What do you mean by this, and what tasks can I perform to achieve that result? Can you give me an example? It looks like a black box labeled ‘woot!’ to me right now.
I don’t know how to calibrate your time-discounting. But if you could change it, that would have an effect.
We’ve previously had discussion over whether it makes sense to want to change your time-discounting. It’s similar to saying “I want to like wine” if you don’t like wine.
The trick comes when you have a metabolism that means the benefits of having food now are very, very high—I’ve met a number of people who deal with all sorts of dizziness, clouded thinking, migraines, etc. if they lose weight more than very, very slowly. For most of them, there are dietary adjustments that can be made to lose weight faster, without suffering through that—thus far it’s generally been allergies or low blood sugar levels causing issues. (In the latter case, eating small meals regularly tends to help a lot; a lot of people diet by eating less frequently instead of smaller portions)
(In the latter case, eating small meals regularly tends to help a lot; a lot of people diet by eating less frequently instead of smaller portions).
I’m supposed to do this anyway: it helps with irritable bowel syndrome, which is supposedly what I have since I don’t have celiac apparently. If I go for more than 3-4 hours without eating (unless I just had a massive meal, in which case it takes that long to digest), then I get crabby, I get stomachaches, and eventually I’ll start getting dizzy and weak. I had a 5-hour straight shift of teaching lessons at the pool one semester and it was a nightmare...by the end I would be ready to pass out climbing out of the pool.
Would you claim that drug addicts who proclaim they do not wish to die young / lose their jobs / lose their spouses (etc.) are wrong about what they want? Would you like to taboo “want”, because there would seem to be nothing signified by “want” that is not better captured by “do” (as in what someone does, despite what they say)?
If the OP doesn’t currently want to lose weight, as you suggest (because “You do what you want to do”, therefore she does what she wants, and she hasn’t lost weight yet, so she must not want it), how do you frame her motivation for taking your advice (to examine her beliefs and calibrate better), if not that she takes your advice because—she wants to lose weight-- (which would contradict your claim)?
They’re not wrong about what they want unless they say that they want to keep their jobs more than they want to take drugs.
“Want” is useful because often people can’t do what they want, or haven’t yet done what they want; and we need to be able to talk about want as a causative factor for doing.
The drug addict who says she wants to keep her job is just like the voter who says he wants lower taxes. It’s true, but irrelevant.
You use “want” this way here, but then seem to deny this very usage to addicts (or to anyone who does not have organizational and motivational capacity to get what they “want”).
It’s true, but irrelevant.
Okay. A claim of irrelevancy is very different from a claim about truth, and truth is what you seemed to imply in the original comment:
You do what you want to do. (jmed: This entails Swimmer is wrong if she claims she wants to lose weight and doesn’t/hasn’t, a truth claim, not a relevancy claim.)
That said, I disagree that it is irrelevant, and you do, too, or else you wouldn’t give her tips on how to make her second-order wants into first-order wants.
In my experience, successful dieting is not a matter of willpower. You do what you want to do. If you believe that the benefits of losing weight, even time-discounted, will be greater than the benefits of having food now, you will lose weight.
So the two things you can do to lose weight are:
Examine your beliefs about why you want to lose weight; and figure out exactly how much you want it.
Calibrate your time-discounting.
What do you mean by this, and what tasks can I perform to achieve that result? Can you give me an example? It looks like a black box labeled ‘woot!’ to me right now.
I don’t know how to calibrate your time-discounting. But if you could change it, that would have an effect.
We’ve previously had discussion over whether it makes sense to want to change your time-discounting. It’s similar to saying “I want to like wine” if you don’t like wine.
The trick comes when you have a metabolism that means the benefits of having food now are very, very high—I’ve met a number of people who deal with all sorts of dizziness, clouded thinking, migraines, etc. if they lose weight more than very, very slowly. For most of them, there are dietary adjustments that can be made to lose weight faster, without suffering through that—thus far it’s generally been allergies or low blood sugar levels causing issues. (In the latter case, eating small meals regularly tends to help a lot; a lot of people diet by eating less frequently instead of smaller portions)
I’m supposed to do this anyway: it helps with irritable bowel syndrome, which is supposedly what I have since I don’t have celiac apparently. If I go for more than 3-4 hours without eating (unless I just had a massive meal, in which case it takes that long to digest), then I get crabby, I get stomachaches, and eventually I’ll start getting dizzy and weak. I had a 5-hour straight shift of teaching lessons at the pool one semester and it was a nightmare...by the end I would be ready to pass out climbing out of the pool.
Would you claim that drug addicts who proclaim they do not wish to die young / lose their jobs / lose their spouses (etc.) are wrong about what they want? Would you like to taboo “want”, because there would seem to be nothing signified by “want” that is not better captured by “do” (as in what someone does, despite what they say)?
If the OP doesn’t currently want to lose weight, as you suggest (because “You do what you want to do”, therefore she does what she wants, and she hasn’t lost weight yet, so she must not want it), how do you frame her motivation for taking your advice (to examine her beliefs and calibrate better), if not that she takes your advice because—she wants to lose weight-- (which would contradict your claim)?
They’re not wrong about what they want unless they say that they want to keep their jobs more than they want to take drugs.
“Want” is useful because often people can’t do what they want, or haven’t yet done what they want; and we need to be able to talk about want as a causative factor for doing.
The drug addict who says she wants to keep her job is just like the voter who says he wants lower taxes. It’s true, but irrelevant.
You use “want” this way here, but then seem to deny this very usage to addicts (or to anyone who does not have organizational and motivational capacity to get what they “want”).
Okay. A claim of irrelevancy is very different from a claim about truth, and truth is what you seemed to imply in the original comment:
That said, I disagree that it is irrelevant, and you do, too, or else you wouldn’t give her tips on how to make her second-order wants into first-order wants.