Hi All,
What a wonderful week! Congratulations to everyone and thank you for checking-in. I thought you may want to take a breather from the MWL informational stream to consolidate what you have learned so far. So I’ll tell a story instead.
I am reading a book, by
Johann Hari, called
Lost Connections about the author’s struggle with depression/anxiety and his quest to speak with many experts in the field to gain a better understanding of himself, and thus others who struggle similarly. He is quite engaging and I am thoroughly enjoying his writing which explores depression through a lens of lost social connections, much as he explored addiction through that lens in his first book. (As an aside, one memorable quote of Hari’s, from his
TED talk,
the opposite of addiction is not sobriety: the opposite of addiction is connection particularly resonates with me.)
But what got me thinking this morning was a vignette near the beginning of this book describing the nature of the Placebo Effect by telling the story of Dr. John Haygarth and Perkin’s wands.
John Haygarth (JH) was a doctor in the English city of Bath, in the late 1700s. He had begun to hear stories of miraculous recoveries from patients previously incapacitated with long-term pain from a variety of causes. He learned that the people experiencing such relief had turned to a company run by a Dr. Elisha Perkins, which provided a specialized service using what they called a
tractor wand to draw the pain out of people’s bodies. The
tractor was a proprietary metal rod that could be used only by specially trained individuals. Dr. JH felt this was some sort of deception, but it wasn’t coming from the patients he spoke with; They seemed genuinely relieved of pain and debilitation (for a period of time, at least). So Dr. JH and some colleagues decided to conduct an experiment in which they used a
fake Perkin’s Wand (created by themselves of wood and metal) on 5 patients. To their surprise, 4 of the 5 patients believed themselves to be free of pain after the fact. Dr. JH had other colleagues try this experiment on many more patients to similar effect. After considering and discarding the notion that there was some unknown property attributable to the wand at play, Haygarth realized two things were happening when providing medical treatment to patients. He was providing a drug or procedure that affects the body in some way AND he was providing a
story about how the treatment affects the patient.
He found that the story told to patients is often enough, in and of itself, for some of them to experience recovery from their malady. This has become known as the Placebo Effect. (Also check out Irving Kirsch’s book
The Emperor’s New Drugs for more on this effect with relation to antidepressants backed by much research).
Now, to try and explain why I think this story is so important for weight loss. What Haygarth and Irving (whose story I didn’t tell) realized was that this Placebo Effect was
providing patients with a belief that they are being looked after and offered a solution, revealing just how important
the power of belief can be in certain circumstances.
This had me considering what I, personally, think keeps me
believing and working towards weight loss here in this particular space (because, evidently, the accompanying health benefits and the desire to be
skinny aren’t enough motivation), even in the face of poor odds of long-term success and much struggling. It IS that combination of being looked after (emotional guidance/support) and being offered a solution (evidence-based guidelines). This can be reframed as being offered connection in the form of guidance/support and the alleviation of decision-making responsibility in a time of stress when one feels less able to evaluate available options (think decision fatigue after trying 20 diet plans that just didn’t work).
In my mind, belonging to a support group for
inspiration is an example of self-selected
serial-renewal of the placebo effect.
It took me a long time to want to pick a team, so to speak, but once I did the benefit became quite evident through weight loss/maintenance of the loss. This may explain why I now love those inspiration stories so much, or why I re-listen to Dr. McDougall’s webinars over and over again, or why I enjoy belonging to so many groups that discuss this way of eating. It really has helped.
To recap: by (1) periodically renewing our belief in what is possible through inspiration, (2) finding competent and caring people to guide us through our particular issue (I’m referring to the McDougall staff here), (3) making the effort to belong to a group to whatever degree we are comfortable with, and (4) making the effort to reach out to that group for help or offer help up when we have some to give, we have a better chance of making it to our own individual finish line with extra energy to continue running the race with those that started after us. This will enable long-term connections to form which will satisfy innate needs which will increase the probability of this pattern of eating truly becoming a part of your life for the long-term.
So, with that thought dangling, I will dangle one more: I’ll re-post my
inspirational-story and pictures for the February Weigh-In next Friday. Some of you may not have seen it yet and it will give you a face to connect with my posts. (Please remember, I am a work in progress and look much the same as last year, but I have held my ground relatively-well, and am still in the ring ready for the next match... it seems I can even make inspiration uninspiring...oh man...LOL)
Amy XO.
PS. A review that I read on Hari’s book, indicated his ideas sound a bit like the
Human Givens Model of psychotherapy. I am not familiar with it, quite honestly, but from a quick glance at their website and Wikipedia, a number of the
nine emotional needs that they identify can absolutely be explained through an evolutionary psychology lens and thus with a language re-vamp may pass the Doug Lisle sniff-test... though they may not... LOL. Maybe I’ll ask him what he thinks
when I go to the 3-day program in March.
PPS. Yikes, that was long. Best wishes this week everyone! I hope to see you in the February thread.
Here are the results for the fourth week in January:Next Weigh-In is on Friday, February 1st, 2019Total group loss reported in 2019: 140.53 pounds
January 2019 Weight Loss Group :: Monthly Weigh-In Results
Total group loss in January 2019: 140.53 poundsWeek ending 01/25/2019: 23 participants reported a total loss of 32.6 pounds
---------------------------------------
ANelson108 - 3.4
Amandamechele - 0.2
Alishana - 3.0
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Total gains: 6.6
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Michele613 - 3.4
Anne57 - 0.8
Linda Dorrill - 3.0
Harnette63 - 0.0
Moonlight - 1.0
Artista - 1.6
LauraG - 1.0
ColoradoHiker - 0.9
Humberto - 6.6
Rosey - 3.3
Fiftysix - 0.0
Ellen N - 1.0
Kerrilyn2 - 0.0
Dark Blonde - 0.5
Lorna1954a - 4.5
Frymom - 2.8
Dpascar - 3.0
AnneG - 1.8
Newbie2019 - 4.0
Belana - 0.0
---------------------------------------------
Total losses: 39.2
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Total group loss in January 2019: 140.53 pounds
Week ending 01/25/2019: 23 participants reported a total loss of 32.6 pounds
Week ending 01/18/2019: 27 participants reported a total loss of 21.8 pounds
Week ending 01/11/2019: 28 participants reported a total loss of 61.93 pounds
Week ending 01/04/2019: 34 participants reported a total loss of 24.2 pounds
by anelson108 » Fri Jan 25, 2019 5:14 pm 
LOL. Great loss this week, it’s a small positive coming out of an otherwise difficult week for you. I hope you continue to feel better this week.
