The Willpower Instinct (2011) was written by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., who is a health psychologist at Stanford School of Medicine where she teaches a course called “The Science of Willpower”.

This book combines insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine to explain exactly what willpower is, how it works, and why it matters. The book has 10 chapters which reflect the author’s 10-week course, and is written in an interesting and easy style, without academic pompousness:

1. Effective willpower - just noticing what's happening is key.

2. The willpower instinct - anything that puts a stress on your mind or body can sabotage self-control but too much willpower is stressful.

3. Self-control is like a muscle - it gets tired from use but regular exercise makes it stronger.

4. Why being good encourages bad behavior - we use past good behavior to justify indulgences.

5. Why we mistake wanting for happiness - even false promises of reward make us feel alert and captivated, so we chase satisfaction from things that don't deliver.

6. How feeling bad leads to giving in - self-compassion is a far better strategy than beating ourselves up.

7. We discount both future rewards and future costs - we consistently act against our own long-term interests and we illogically believe our future selves will (magically) have more willpower.

8. Why willpower is contagious - humans are hardwired to connect and we mimic and mirror both willpower failures and willpower successes of our social network.

9. Inner acceptance improves outer control - attempts to fight instincts and desires ironically make them worse.

10. Final thoughts - the aha moment.

If one wants to change a Habit or understand why one has failed at doing this in the past, "The Willpower Instinct" is worth reading. Kelly McGonigal presents neuroscience and psychology in a way that a reader can understand, and provides concepts that one can use to improve the quality of daily life. She encourages experimentation and self-inquiry, while presenting practical, tried and true methods to help to kick bad habits and to create new ones.

This book could be a valuable resource for those who are struggling with a Diet, or dealing with an “Eatin...

                                      
 
Late 2011, or early 2012 I purchased and read Brain over Binge (2011) by Karen Heidebrech, and decided that it deserves the attention of a review here on DietHobby.

Brain over Binge gives an informative scientific perspective on binge eating as well as an interesting personal account. Instead of viewing bingeing as a symptom of complex psychological problems, Heidebrech explains why traditional eating disorder therapy often fails. She explains how she came to understand her bingeing was a function of her brain, and how she used the power of her brain to recover.

Brain Over Binge gives an alternative method of “eating disorder” recovery. The author uses principles of contemporary neuroscience to explain the traps of disordered eating, and how she herself has found recovery from her own binge behavior.

Traditional eating disorder recovery focuses on labeling one’s eating behavior as dysfunctional, then identifying underlying reasons or triggers for that eating behavior, and then having the person attempt to control, correct, or respond differently to their own flaws or environmental stressors. This is an impossible task, because one can never control all of life's stressors and personal vulnerabilities, and believing that this is the only way to recover is often a set-up for failure.

Instead of focusing on emotions, stress, self-esteem and many of the other common explanations offered in conventional treatment, Brain Over Binge provides that binge eating is the result of allowing the urges that spring from one's "animal" brain to override the wisdom of one's "highest human" brain. By surrendering all the power to the animal brain, the binge eater ends up feeling as if she/he has no choice but to give in to the urge to binge, no matter how irrational or self-destructive it is to do so.

Brain over Binge presents a 5-step process for taking back your power over the urges. Heidebrech backs up the simplicity of the cure with an explanation of the research that supports the credibility of her approach. She also relates her own experience to show that one can recover from binge eating without having to be perfect or live a stress-free life.

Bingeing doesn’t always result from external situations. Bingeing itself creates more and more cues to binge in response to everyday life situations. The more situations one responds to by bingeing, t...

A Craving is a feeling that we’ve attached an action to.  The video at the bottom of this article is of former addict, Lucy Bainbridge, and therapist, Elaine Hilides, sharing a 3 Principles perspective on Addiction and Cravings.

For those people who are interested in learning more about Elaine Hilides, … as part of my Diet Hobby, I purchased and read Elaine Hilides book, Mindfullness The No-Diet Diet Book (2013), quite some time ago, before becoming interested in the 3 Principles concept. At the time of my first reading, I judged the book to be okay, but rather ordinary and unimpressive.

Because I was impressed by the video interview below - which I discovered during my current study of the 3 Principles as related to my struggle with dieting and weight control. Because the interview impressed me, I re-read Elaine Hilides book to see if had overlooked something that might be personally helpful.

Upon my second reading, I found that the book starts with an interesting 3 Principles approach to weight-control before it jumps into a presentation of the author’s own dietary personal beliefs - which are presented as factual truths. The author’s beliefs include specific techniques and guidelines involving intuitive eating, behavior modification, and eating primarily “real” non-processed food.

A common 3 Principles saying is that “we feel our thinking”, and of course, my own thinking is often about weight issues. Therefore, I was interested in the following ideas.

You have a story, and idea, about yourself, your weight and your eating and you believe that your story is real, although this is an illusion because YOU created the story.

We all fall into the illusion that the feelings we experience about our weight and food problems are real. But we all experience reality through our own filters and perceptions, and we create our reality moment by moment by whatever we are thinking at that moment.

Yes, the chair you’re sitting in is real, but your experience of the chair might be different to someone else’s experience of that chair. You might think the chair is comfortable but ano...