There it is. That last piece of your husband’s birthday cake. You already indulged the night before, but this one last piece has haunted you all day at work. In fact, it even hovered above you while you slept last night like some terribly delicious phantom. You can almost hear it calling your name as you walk through the front door, exhausted from a long, stressful day. It’s almost impossible to resist. Almost. You can and you will fight the temptation. You know that you’ve set bigger and better goals for yourself and that one more piece of cake is, at best, a fleeting pleasure and, at worst, a way to begin sabotaging a lot of the hard work you’ve been recently putting in with me at the ZGym.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

The battle between self-control and instant gratification can feel as epic as David vs. Goliath or Frodo vs. Sauron. It can be daunting, to the say the least, especially when it comes to fitness and wellbeing. Do not, I repeat, do not, consider a sudden, compulsive need for instant gratification in the form of donuts, cheeseburgers, cake, or pizza to be a character flaw, a lack of willpower or something genuinely lacking inside of you. Instead, consider it a form of mismanaging stress, priorities and the goals you’ve set for yourself. That’s it. In other words, don’t make it a personal issue or the fault of God or the Cosmos. That kind of thinking often leads to a downward spiral that creates a negative self-image. In turn, a negative self-image leads to – you guessed it – a craving for instant gratification.

Stress

Perhaps the greatest trigger in our lives that leads us to impulsively leap over restaurant counters and devour a tray of donuts is chronic stress. When stress is a constant in our lives our mind and bodies begin to short circuit. If you’ve ever had a day, week or month where it felt like your head might explode into confetti then you’ve experienced allostatic load. Allostatic load is the result of chronic stress. According to Dr. Billi Gordon, a neuroscientist at UCLA, allostatic load is one of the main culprits that trigger damaging, compulsive behavior such as binge eating.

Marshmallows?

The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is one of the first studies done on self-control and instant gratification and is still relevant today. Performed in the 1970’s by psychologist Walter Mischel, the studied aimed to show the value of self-control and delayed gratification in children. Long story short, kids were offered either an immediate reward in the form of a marshmallow or a greater, more valuable reward if they chose to wait for the latter. The study demonstrated that the kids who chose to wait tended to achieve greater success later in life in the form of higher test scores, overall health and so on.

In terms of fitness and wellbeing, what studies like the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment tell us is that self-control and patience – even if it involves a bit of a battle within ourselves – is worth it. Why? Because you are worth it.

Tell me about your recent victories with self-control. I’d love to hear them!

There it is. That last piece of your husband’s birthday cake. You already indulged the night before, but this one last piece has haunted you all day at work. In fact, it even hovered above you while you slept last night like some terribly delicious phantom. You can almost hear it calling your name as you walk through the front door, exhausted from a long, stressful day. It’s almost impossible to resist. Almost. You can and you will fight the temptation. You know that you’ve set bigger and better goals for yourself and that one more piece of cake is, at best, a fleeting pleasure and, at worst, a way to begin sabotaging a lot of the hard work you’ve been recently putting in with me at the ZGym.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

The battle between self-control and instant gratification can feel as epic as David vs. Goliath or Frodo vs. Sauron. It can be daunting, to the say the least, especially when it comes to fitness and wellbeing. Do not, I repeat, do not, consider a sudden, compulsive need for instant gratification in the form of donuts, cheeseburgers, cake, or pizza to be a character flaw, a lack of willpower or something genuinely lacking inside of you. Instead, consider it a form of mismanaging stress, priorities and the goals you’ve set for yourself. That’s it. In other words, don’t make it a personal issue or the fault of God or the Cosmos. That kind of thinking often leads to a downward spiral that creates a negative self-image. In turn, a negative self-image leads to – you guessed it – a craving for instant gratification.

Stress

Perhaps the greatest trigger in our lives that leads us to impulsively leap over restaurant counters and devour a tray of donuts is chronic stress. When stress is a constant in our lives our mind and bodies begin to short circuit. If you’ve ever had a day, week or month where it felt like your head might explode into confetti then you’ve experienced allostatic load. Allostatic load is the result of chronic stress. According to Dr. Billi Gordon, a neuroscientist at UCLA, allostatic load is one of the main culprits that trigger damaging, compulsive behavior such as binge eating.

Marshmallows?

The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is one of the first studies done on self-control and instant gratification and is still relevant today. Performed in the 1970’s by psychologist Walter Mischel, the studied aimed to show the value of self-control and delayed gratification in children. Long story short, kids were offered either an immediate reward in the form of a marshmallow or a greater, more valuable reward if they chose to wait for the latter. The study demonstrated that the kids who chose to wait tended to achieve greater success later in life in the form of higher test scores, overall health and so on.

In terms of fitness and wellbeing, what studies like the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment tell us is that self-control and patience – even if it involves a bit of a battle within ourselves – is worth it. Why? Because you are worth it.

Tell me about your recent victories with self-control. I’d love to hear them!