Plotting Temptation

had a few opportunities to take some willpower measurements today, and I learned a lot. One opportunity arose when I went to the Atlanta Bread Company counter to retrieve my "bowl" of vegetable soup and realized that it had been encapsulated in a loaf of bread. I ate the soup, careful not to scrape up all the bready insides and then sat and stared at the loaf. I love French bread. I resisted for a while, then the brain started saying "you can have a small piece, you are ahead today". Seconds later the thoughts changed to "even if you kept eating it, you could just make that your dinner". Something brought me to my senses and I quickly made my way to the trash bin and threw the temptation down the black hole of the garbage can.

My second opportunity for data collection concerned a home made brownie that was in my lunch bag that had been given to me. Now let me explain that this was no ordinary brownie. This was a whopper of a decadent brownie that I estimate contained at least an entire stick of butter unto itself in it's 2x2 dense formation. We're talking about a brownie that would make you feel like you cheat more than Tiger Woods. And all day it sat in my bag and I barely thought about it until the end of the day... It started to call. I am proud to say that it too met it's demise and I was not involved. (Kudos to my Executive Assistant who really understands!)

So here it is, the moment when I reveal to you how much of a geek I am. If you are mathematically challenged, skip over the next part of this entry and just hit the "I liked it" button without tormenting yourself with the plot and its analysis.



Above I have plotted my perceived ability to resist a food with respect to the amount of time I am exposed to it. It is definitely dependent upon type of food.

The X-axis annotated at the bottom represents the amount of time a temptation sits before me. The Y axis annotated on the left side, represents the willpower I am able to exert. At Y= 0.5 I have about a 50/50 chance of resisting the temptation. I have drawn my weight loss line at 0.8 or 80%. I figure I need to resist 80% of the temptations to lose weight. That is represented by the gray dotted line.

If you look at the blue line, you see that I cannot resist savory carbs for very long. There are a few minutes where my willpower is there, but it will fall quickly. Next note the red line. I am able to resist a sweet temptation for a much longer period of time. This period seems to be long enough to exit any restaurant without ordering dessert regardless of how slow the waitstaff is to bring the check. Next, note the green line. Do not put cheese in front of me. I have virtually no resistance to this. If you put a piece of cheese in a box in front of me, there is about a 100% probability that it will be gone when you open the box to check. And it won't be Schrodenger's cat who ate it!

Understanding these things about myself is going to help me with strategy. I suggest you think a little bit about what affects your willpower, how long it lasts, and what you can do to avoid difficult situations.

It worked for me today!