I’ve spent the last few weeks keeping Chris company on the start of his fat stripping diet.
It’s been a bit awkward since I didn’t go into it with the same verve and panache that I usually have and trying to fit the cardio routines that work for me when stripping fat don’t easily fit with the routines that work for Chris. In the past I’ve seen the best results from a few long (40 – 50 minute) weighted cardio sessions each week while Chris seems to respond better to plenty of hard NEPA (non-exercise physical activity) and gentle cardio, like a few 30 mile fasted bike rides and a 40 minute daily walk.
So I didn’t do my weighted cardio, instead accompanying Chris on bike rides and some of his walks and reducing my calorie intake. But I wasn’t convinced that it would actually achieve anything.
What is the placebo effect?
The placebo effect occurs when something happens as a result of what someone believes. It is most commonly associated with drug trials where participants are often given either the trial drug or a placebo (identical sugar pill) and don’t know which they are taking. It is well-recorded that those on the placebo will often see some slight improvement of whatever it is that the drug is meant to address. For example, if the drug is meant to reduce blood pressure, those on the placebo may well see some reduction to their blood pressure, although perhaps not as much as those on the trial drug.
The next time you meet a lion, you will die
I was fortunate enough to have an excellent Religious Studies teacher in my first year of secondary school. Mr Spencer was particularly good at providing examples that, aged eleven, we could easily grasp.
Part of the curriculum that Mr Spencer was trying to cover that year was the basics of belief and the strength of belief. He was trying to explain to us that if you believe something strongly enough it will come true. Even now, nearly twenty years later, I can still recall the example he provided us with.
Imagine you live in the wilds of Africa and you visit a witch doctor. You are convinced that their magic works and that anything you are told will be true. The wizened old woman throws some bones, studies them carefully, and then turns to you and croaks, “the next time you meet a lion, you will die.”
Later that month you are out on the veld when you come across a lion. The two of you stand and face each other and then the words of the witch doctor come back to you. You think to yourself, “my time has come.”
What is the likelihood that you will put much, or even any, effort into fighting or escaping from the lion? You are likely to have so little belief that you have a chance of survival that your heart won’t be in it.
Transfer this to the training environment
People often talk about athletes getting into the “zone” before a big lift or a race. You may hear people talk about using techniques like visualisation. Certainly before I go into a big PB squat I will often shut my eyes and imagine what it will feel like to successfully drive out of the hole and complete the lift. I’ve written before about the lack of success I am likely to have if I approach a lift while not believing that I can move it.
At other times, in all walks of life (ranging from athletics through to business deals) you may hear people talking about psyching out the other competitors – an excellent example of this is an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the documentary “Pumping Iron” where he says that if, when he sees Lou Ferrigno, he has any concerns about Lou having a chance of beating him in his last Mr Olympia competition then he will simply psych him out so that when Lou goes up on the platform his heart is no longer in winning.
All of these are examples of using (or abusing) the placebo effect. It is all about whether you really believe you can win when you set out. You need to have a strong level of self-belief and a strong mental edge to your sports performance – something that the Science of Sport guys did an excellent article on a few months ago.
Team GB, the British cycling team who had such great success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, have a team psychologist and will often mention in interviews about their success the fact that the psychological health and development on their team members is as important as their physical health.
No fat loss? But what about the low calories and workouts?
So what happened to me?
Despite all the effort I had put into reducing my calorie intake, my measurements only reduced in the first week by the sort of amount I would usually expect from water loss at the start of a diet. In week two they hardly moved at all. I couldn’t work out what was wrong.
Then, right on cue, Helen Kollias published an article on Precision Nutrition about the placebo effect. I really recommend you read it. It is focussed on studies that evidence the placebo effect helping us to get a better than expected response from exercise and it got me thinking.
It was enough of a reminder to make me think about what I was doing to myself. Was I not getting a good fat stripping result simply because I didn’t believe that what I was doing was enough?
No sceptics welcome here
I had a re-feed day at the weekend to reset my metabolism and I’m starting again. This time I am determined that what I’m doing is more than sufficient to lose weight. There is no reason it shouldn’t succeed. It’s the same approach that I have used to such great effect in the past.
The important thing is to believe that it will work. As with so many other things in life, I believe that the placebo effect is as relevant to successful dieting as it is to a successful outcome in sport.
I’ll let you know if it works.
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Foods to avoid to lose weight // May 12, 2010 at 21:04
[...] If you want to pick holes in this, I’ll accept that the study wasn’t done on humans. The problem with doing diet or exercise studies on humans is that it is difficult for researchers to ensure 100% compliance with the set diet or exercise plan. Unless you allocated one researcher to each test subject and the researcher cooked the meals and spent every waking hour with the test subject, they just can’t just fully control the study. It has also been noted that when you put individuals on a perceived “healthy” diet they tend to adjust other areas of their life, becoming more active and doing other things that are perceived as healthy. You would also need to take into account the placebo effect. [...]