Why Your Motivation for New Diets Doesn’t Last
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Imagine this scenario: You just stepped on the scale and were disappointed by what you saw. You decide that, “OK, that’s it, today’s the day I am going to change.” You decide which plan or program you are going to follow. Maybe you re-install one of those food tracking apps. You schedule new workouts into your calendar. And you are ALL IN…for a while. But after a period of time—a day, a week, a few months—that motivation begins to fade. You are sick of the eating plan. You dread your workouts. And eventually, all of those new behaviors you were once so excited about slip away.
Sound familiar? I can tell you this is an incredibly common story, so if you are nodding your head yes I promise you are not the only one.
So why does this happen?! (Keep reading, I’m going to tell you!)
This can feel extraordinarily frustrating. Like, “why can’t I just stick with it?” And, leads to lots of unhelpful self-talk, like, “I’m just not disciplined enough,” or, “I’m too lazy,” or, “I must be addicted to food.” But, it’s not really about discipline or laziness at all.
Let’s talk about motivation.
When I asked Google to define motivation, here’s what it said:
The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
The general desire or willingness of someone to do something.
There are many reasons that might encourage us to act. Those reasons come from different places and are at the root of different types of motivation. All this to say, motivation isn’t as black-and-white as we might think.
Self-Determination Theory is a theory of motivation, which describes different types of motivation and the factors that influence those different types of motivation. This is important, because the type of motivation that is driving our behavior impacts how sustainable that behavior is likely to be.
Types of motivation.
We can think about these types of motivation on a continuum, with externally-directed motivation at one end and internally-directed at the other. There are several sub-types of motivation along this continuum.
External: this exists all the way that the externally-directed end of the continuum and is when we are acting out of a desire for external reward or fear of punishment.
For example, we begin to follow a new eating plan because our doctor told us we should. We want to avoid reprimand when we return, so we attempt to comply with their recommendations.
Or, dieting to be able to fit into a certain size or an article of clothing in our closet that is too tight.
Introjected: still toward the externally-directed end of the continuum, this is driven by the internal reward of self-esteem for success, acceptance and approval seeking, and avoidance of anxiety, guilt, or shame for failure.
For example, setting a goal weight and positioning the achievement of that goal weight as a win, wherein how you feel about yourself as a person is deeply connected to your body size.
Or, restricting certain foods to avoid feeling guilty for having eaten them.
Identified: this moves us into the internally-directed end of the continuum. Wherein the value of an action or behavior is recognized AND it’s in alignment with a person’s core interests and values.
For example, choosing to mostly abstain from many dairy products even though you like them because the GI side effects you experience when you eat them are so unpleasant.
Or, choosing to participate in a strength training class to maintain muscle strength and support bone health even though you don’t love strength training as an activity in and of itself.
Intrinsic: this is all the way at the internally-directed end of the continuum. It is engaging in a behavior or activity for the sake of inherent interest or enjoyment.
Examples include, eating fruits and vegetables at each meal because you love fruits and vegetables; going for a walk every day because you enjoy walking; making meals from scratch for dinner most nights because you are interested in cooking and enjoy trying new recipes.
The Importance of Internally Directed Motivation (and how diets interfere).
We are more likely to continue to engage in behaviors or activities that are more internally directed. Again, those are activities or behaviors for which we see inherent value and align with our personal values, as well as activities in which we partake for their own sake or because of personal interest, enjoyment, or curiosity.
These activities and behaviors are highly volitional. Meaning, we don’t feel pressure to act in a certain way. Our desire and willingness to act is self-determined.
For behaviors to be internally-directed we need a couple of things:
We need to feel competent, that we have the knowledge, skills, and ability to engage with the behavior. And,
We need to feel autonomous, that we are in charge of our own decisions and behaviors without external pressure or coercion.
Diets and prescriptive eating plans are, by nature, externally-directed in that they are coming from an external source. And, they are in direct opposition of both of the needs described above for internally-directed behavior. Diet-culture quite literally tells us, “you can’t trust yourself to make your own decisions about food, so you need my plans and programs to make those decisions for you.” That is the opposite of fostering competence. And, another person, plan, or program dictating our food decisions is the opposite of autonomous decision making. We are not in charge of ourselves, we are beholden to someone else’s rules.
Interest Fades as Novelty Wears Off.
Additionally, like many things in life, our interest in something often fades as the novelty of that thing wears off. To illustrate this, think of a child receiving a gift that they really wanted, that they talked about incessantly leading up to the holiday, that they just had to have. When they first open the gift they are thrilled. They can’t wait to tear into the box, to set it up, to start to use it. Then, a few days, weeks, months later, what often happens with that toy or gift? It probably joins the pile of other toys and gifts they were also excited about at one time but now have less interest in. Because the newness and the novelty of that thing has worn off, and it’s just not as exciting as it previously was.
This also happens with new food and exercise plans. We are excited at first, but as the newness wears off, but the time, energy, and cost of maintaining these behaviors stays the same, we are less interested in and committed to continuing to follow-through. (See scenario described in paragraph 1.) This is especially true if the “rewards” we experienced at first (e.g., weight loss) start to slow, as is typical with intentional weight loss efforts, but we are needing to work just as harder of even harder to maintain our “progress.” Instead of hope and excitement, we may begin to feel dread and resentment, until this plan ends up in the same discard pile as the rest of the plans before. This is normal and to be expected.
The Habituation Effect.
However, you might be encouraged to hear that same is true for those foods that feel too challenging to keep around because [you think] you can’t trust yourself around them. Part of what drives the appeal of these foods is their forbiddeness (i.e. their novelty)! So, once you can begin to re-introduce these foods, to normalize and neutralize them, you will likely find they don’t feel quite so irresistible. Figuring out how to do this something that we teach our clients in our programs!
To be clear, that doesn’t mean you stop liking good tasting food. And it doesn’t mean you will never desire, say, ice cream again. What it does mean is that you can begin to decipher when you want a food from when you don’t and eat it in a way that feels for your body. You will no longer experience that urgency around forbidden foods when they are available, feeling like, “I need to eat this now while I have the opportunity,” because you have confidence that you will be able to access this food or other equally satisfying foods again in the future.
How Intuitive Eating Helps.
Intuitive eating is the framework that we use in our practice to support our clients in finding more peace, freedom, and ease around food. Unlike diet plans, there is no opportunity for novelty to wear off because it isn’t a prescriptive program that you follow. Rather, it is a model that guides you in reconnecting with your inner wisdom, putting you in the power position for making decisions about how you nourish and move your body. That includes awareness that eating and movement will look different from day-to-day, which means there is no place of arrival with intuitive eating where you discover a precise way to feed your body day in and day out. Rather, you discover what generally works and feels good and what does not and can use that information to inform your decisions throughout each day, but can accept that variability is a natural part of eating and life.
Additionally, because intuitive eating is quite explicitly about building confidence around making internally-directed food decisions, the principles of intuitive eating foster both competence and autonomy, which we discussed as keys to cultivating the kind of motivation that supports us in making supportive decisions. This can be observed throughout all 10 principles of intuitive eating as they guide us in connecting with our appetite cues, our preferences, our values, and our needs.
The Take-Away…
Your inability to “stick to the plan” isn’t your fault and it never was. Diets, prescriptive eating and exercise plans, food rules: they aren’t designed to be sustainable. And while I know we live in a culture that makes us believe this is the path to health, happiness, and wellbeing, I also know that the evidence does not support them making us healthier or happier. If this resonates with you, I invite you to explore a different approach. One without rules and restriction, one that does not weaponize guilt and shame, one that empowers you to be you won authority on your food decisions.
Curious to learn more?
Join our Masterclass, Nourished with Confidence, on June 27, 2023 at 6:30 PM ET (replay available) where you will learn how diets erode body trust, why letting go of food rules is not incompatible with eating for health, and how taking charge of your own food decisions can improve your wellbeing.
Sources:
Ackerman, CE. Self Determination Theory and How It Explains Motivation. Published online June 21, 2018. https://positivepsychology.com/self-determination-theory
Ryan RM, Deci EL. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary educational psychology. 2020 Apr 1;61:101860.
Ryan RM, Donald JN, Bradshaw EL. Mindfulness and motivation: a process view using self-determination theory. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2021 Aug;30(4):300-6.