How our emotions can make us stupid

And why we need a plan to succeed

They know

There was a time I was almost certain the traffic light at the intersection out of my neighborhood was conspiring against me. The light seemed to turn red as soon as I got there no matter which direction I approached from. It was like it knew I was coming, so it turned red just to spite me. I knew this was ridiculous, but the only way I could let it go was to disprove it to myself.

I started keeping a sticky note on my dash and made a mark for every time the light was green, yellow, and red when I was within a certain distance of the intersection. When I collected enough data, I analyzed it. They showed that the light was operating completely normally.

What was happening was that the emotional charge I got from the red light was making those instances stand out far more than the times I sailed through the intersection on a green light and didn't think about it. It was such a strong effect that it led me—an ostensibly scientific person—to suspect an inanimate object was conspiring against me.

For better or worse, this is how we tend to process information. With emotions.

I remembered my little red light conspiracy when I recently started dealing with a more serious problem. After losing a significant amount of weight about four years ago, I started regaining some of that weight. I finally managed to stop the weight gain, and was determined to get back down to my goal weight, but got stuck in a phase of "Nothing is working for me, argh!" No matter what I did, no matter how hard I dieted, no matter how much I exercised, my weight wasn't budging.

I went to an endocrinologist, certain that I had a thyroid problem.

Nope.

I thought I'd damaged my metabolism from years of dieting.

Not really.

I read through countless forums where hundreds of women like me were complaining about being in a calorie deficit and unable to lose weight.

No answers there.

I finally decided to science the heck out of what I was doing, like I had with that stupid traffic light.

For years, I have recorded everything regarding my lifestyle. Every calorie I eat, every bit of exercise I do, and my weight every single morning. I finally sat down and used a spreadsheet to analyze all of these data. Here's what I discovered.

The weeks where my average calories (the calculated average over seven days) were on target, I lost weight. The weeks where I let things slip, even a little, I didn't lose weight. The weeks where I let things slip a lot, I gained weight.

Specifically, I realized:

• The weeks when I didn't lose weight, I was consistently in a calorie deficit for five or six days and then eating back all of that deficit over one or two "cheat" days

• Even just a little snack here or there can obliterate a calorie deficit

• The difference between losing weight one week and not losing weight another week was as little as 100 calories per day on average

• Eating too much “healthy” food is just as bad for weight loss as eating too much junk food

• The weeks when I got in an average of 8,000 - 10,000 steps daily and stuck to my planned weekly calories, I lost more weight

• Exercise is a force-multiplier, but on its own it can't make up for eating too many calories

• Consistency is the key to everything.

I looked back at all my data from when I was losing weight (again, I record everything), and realized the reason I lost all of that weight before is that I was utterly, ridiculously consistent. I tracked everything, I stuck to my plan, and I never, ever cheated except on major holidays.

Just like the traffic light that was "conspiring against me," my emotions were registering all of the deprivation and hard work for five or six days but not the days I was letting things slip. That's why having a plan and sticking to it ruthlessly is the best way—and for some of us, the only way—to achieve a goal.