Can frozen yogurt lead to weight loss? Why this habit change strategy worked!

Years ago I was trying to lose weight. As a last resort, because I really felt like I had tried everything, I signed up for Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers had weekly support group meetings that they recommend you attend after your weekly weigh-in.

And even though they almost always made me feel less alone and offered good tips, I sometimes hated the thought of going. So, I bribed myself with frozen yogurt.

At the time, I had a huge thing for frozen yogurt, specifically the self-serve places that were new. One had opened on the way to Weight Watchers and had the best flavor options and who could turn down self-serve sprinkles?!

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was practicing two of the number one habit-change strategies I would later use with my health and wellness coaching clients. Here’s what I did, why it worked, and why it might help you too. BTW if you want to do the video version, you can do that here!

Ok, so I’m a college kid trying to lose weight and convince myself to go to these hokey meetings surrounded by no one my age. I weighed in fasted, in next to nothing (as one does) every Saturday morning. To bribe myself into staying for the meetings, I would let myself have frozen yogurt on the way home from a meeting if I had either maintained my weight or lost weight that week. I got a lot of frozen yogurt out of this deal!

Temptation Bundling

This is a strategy called Temptation Bundling. Temptation Bundling is when you pair the new beneficial habit that has delayed rewards with an activity that gives you instant gratification. In this case, attending meetings was a beneficial habit with delayed rewards. Folks who attend meetings are more likely to achieve their weight loss goals. But, weight loss, as we know, doesn’t happen overnight. So you need some instant gratification along the way. In this case, it was frozen yogurt.

You could also temptation bundle a trashy novel or TV show with exercise or folding laundry. In one study, participants that were given an audiobook to pair with exercise increased the likelihood of a weekly workout by 10-14 percent! There are also examples of temptation bundling working with high school students and math. Is really, the sky is the limit.

It works by helping us overcome “present bias”. Humans have a tendency to act on instant gratification instead of larger, later rewards. It’s why we eat the donut even though we say we want to lose weight or eat healthily. The instant reward of the donut is hard to pass up for the later pay-off. Temptation bundling helps us satisfy the need for the instant reward while moving us toward the later, bigger win.

It’s also kind of like Mary Poppins telling us that a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down. The key is that you can only have that instant reward when you are acting on the new habit. So, I could only have frozen yogurt on Saturdays after weigh-ins. You would only get to watch trashy television while running on the treadmill. And so on.

Tiny Habits

Ok, so what about tiny habits?

There are some who would criticize me for rewarding my weight loss weigh-ins with frozen yogurt. And I can see that. But here’s the thing: 1) I accounted for the calories in my plan, 2) It was better than what I was doing, and 3) It got me closer and closer to my longer-term and more important goal.

Overall, the plan worked and I’ve kept the weight off for 19 years. Over time, my taste preferences changed and I don’t even like frozen yogurt anymore. It was a tiny step on a long journey.

This is a tiny habit or strategic habit change. Here’s how it might work:

Say you are currently drinking 5 sodas a day and want to switch to water. Well, it’s hard to do that cold turkey. It’s easier if you replace those sodas with something a little closer to soda and do it one soda at a time. So, you might drink 4 regular sodas and 1 diet soda. Do that for a while until it feels easy. Then go to 3 regular and 2 diets, and then 2 and 3, 1 and 4, then all 5 sodas are diet. Then, you would do 4 diet sodas and 1 sparkling water. Then 3 and 2, 2 and 3, 1 and 4, then all 5.

You only move forward when the step you are currently on starts to feel easy. As soon as you experience significant resistance, you want to shrink the change. When we experience a big change we shut down and go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. This derails our efforts. But, if we make the change less scary, we are more likely to stick with it.

So, what habit do you want to build? What temptation can you bundle with it? And how can you start with a tiny change that feels so easy it’s a no-brainer to take action?

I hope that helps you the way it helps my health & wellness coaching clients.

Ps. If you want some fun protein ice cream ideas that actually taste like the real thing, let me know!