 You missed last night’s “Cookies and Carols,” which is the $6 cover-charge fundraiser for our local school band and chorus. They pass 160 trays of cookies up and down the middle-school auditorium rows until the kids run out of songs to sing. This is also timed to when parents feel like they're getting diabetes. Cookies and Carols is about kids -- and cookies. Normal kids sing and play music. But the cool kids get to take it to the next level. Because they’re too cool for music school, they get to dress like an elf and be a Cookie Monitor Elf. At Cookie and Carol night, the guy behind me was on a diet. I had a certain sense about this. My intuition was based on 30 years of careful investigation, detailed analyses, and because every time a Cookie Monitor Elf passed him a platter of cookies, he said, “I’m on a diet.” Yes, this is the season of weight gain. But this is a horrible month to be on a diet. You ruin the JOY for you and the joy to the world. So, what’s a person to do when cookie trays are a passin’ and Christmas Carols are a pumpin’? We've been running a 4 year study (the Healthy Weight Registry) to discover what perpetually skinny people do to stay perpetually skinny. One thing we've asked them is what they do during the holidays that the rest of us don't do. They do a lot of crazy cool things they need testing, but one that's relevant to us cookie lovers is this: When they were at a holiday party and they tried something they didn't absolutely LOVE, they simply didn’t eat the rest of it. They either didn't take it or they didn't finish it. They left it. • That no-bake brownie-mix brownie? They left it. • That gluten-free Avocado Cupcake? They left it. • That Thumbprint cookie with the real thumbprint? They left it. When we first read this "Leave it if you don't love it" idea, my researchers and I were all trying to finish up our Avocado Cupcakes so we could be the first to say "That's nothing new. That's totally obvious." There's never been a cookie in the world that isn't worth choking down, but there might only be 2 out of 10 that are really worth LOVING. "Leave it if you don't love it." Sorry, Lefty. -------------------- When I got back from Cookies and Carols, I had a message from Marcus Sidhu at N1Fitness telling me a podcast chat with me was just posted earlier that that day (links below). It has some ideas about some other things you might want to consider this season to enjoy the cookies and carols while you forget about your diet.  ----
Podcast URL - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/n1-fitness-podcast/id1303218443?mt=2 Direct Download Episode URL - http://traffic.libsyn.com/n1fitness/Episode_39_-_Mindless_Eating_w__Brian_Wansink.m4a Permalink Episode URL - http://n1fitness.libsyn.com/39-mindless-eating-w-brian-wansink
Last night was Halloween. Taking my daughters and their friends Trick or Treating is pretty amusing. Since one of the couples from my Lab didn’t have plans, I asked if they wanted to join us in the 2-hour Viking-like pillage of the neighborhood. The woman showed up as a pink fluffy unicorn and her husband (a graduate student) showed up . . . as me. This reminded me of grad student days. Even though I didn’t meet much with my advisor, I was really impacted by him. Not so much by how he did research (those days were past), but more by the way he viewed the world and the way he said things to me. Small example: When I was applying for jobs, he asked for a list of schools where I’d like to apply. When I showed up with my Top 30 list, he could have easily said, "Be realistic" or “Are you smoking crack again?” Instead, he said, “Let’s cast the net wider.” A subtle choice of words, but things like this must have made a difference. Here's why I say that. A couple years after I miraculously graduated, one of my buddies visited me in New Hampshire for a long weekend. While visiting, he asked why I had replaced my broken-down grad school car with a different type that was just about as old. I said, “Because I really like the way it looks.” He then said, “Didn’t your advisor have the exact same car in that exact same color of white.” Why yes, he did. Hmmm . . . For Junior Faculty, it’s easy to develop tunnel vision that's only focused on your research. By doing so, we can overlook the legacy or long-term impact we will have on advisees, grad students, and teaching assistants. You can leave these students with a real gift, or you can leave them with a lump of coal. They may not remember the details of your theories, but they may remember how hopeful or excited you were about them or about the field. They might not remember any paper you published, but they may remember how you treated them when you were clearly distracted and stressed about something else. For Grad Students, don't worry about becoming the Mini-Me version of your advisor, but you might be influenced more by them than you realize. Fortunately, you can partly control this. First, you can have some control over who you have as an advisor or mentor. It might take some work to switch away from an abusive or disinterested advisor, but it can be done. Second, you can also choose what it is from those encounters that you want to focus on, repeat to others, and replay over and over in your mind. "Let's cast the new wider" x 100 = Good. "Are you smoking crack again?" x 100 = Bad. Last night was spooky Halloween. Today is saintly All Saints Day. No advisor or mentor is all spooky or all saintly. Fortunately, you can choose what you focus on. Choose carefully. You might end up with the same car they had.
All or nothing. That's the mindset that a lot of people have when it comes to a lot of things. It's either all good or all bad. It's either all wonderful or all horrible. It's either all healthy or it's all junk food. This is also what seems to sabotage a lot of our best intentions toward eating better. We think we're going to start our new health kick and eat only kale and tofu (all), but after our willpower caves in to a chocolate muffin, we throw up our hands and say, "What the Heck," and we fall off the bandwagon (nothing). Tonight is Halloween and this all or nothing thinking is at a peak. Little Twix and Snickers bars, little bags of M&Ms and Skittles. It's easy to say "What the Heck," and eat until they're gone. In one of our studies we analyzed weight gain and showed for Americans it steadily starts rising from about now until January. Here's something you can do tonight. Put a bowl of fruit out on your counter as an antidote to the candy that will be probably be sitting there for the next week. It least the candy will have some competition. It seems to be working for the police.  As a researcher, I am very sorry for any mistakes I have made in my papers. I apologize about how they negatively reflected on my colleagues, my wonderful school, and on social science research in general.
This is a time when it’s important for me to listen and reflect upon how I can make amends. It’s always been my hope that my research make people healthier and happier. I want to find a way to support and further the work of the next generation of scientists. If there are concerns or other ideas you have and if you would want to talk one-to-one, I’d be interested in hearing from you. |
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