Earlier in the book, you may have noticed that one of my off-the-cuff examples of not having your shit together included being “fat.” As in: “if you’re tired of being broke, fat, and messy.” Please don’t take that as an indictment from me about your pants size. Weight loss just happens to be something that comes up over and over again in relation to not having one’s shit together, so it deserves to be addressed.
While I’m neither a dietician nor a personal trainer, as far as I can tell a diet or a workout regimen is just a strategy (weight loss/fitness goal + plan to achieve it), and sticking to your strategy requires focus (on individual meals and workouts) and commitment (eating the right stuff, moving the right body parts). The best diet book not on the market is only two pages long: EAT LESS. MOVE MORE.
Easy enough, right? You could be unstoppable! Except for one pesky problem: impulse control.
Impulse control should not be confused with distraction, which comes at you from all sides, when you least expect it, and in many forms. It’s hard to fight distraction, because you can’t control all of the scenarios in which it exists. That shit is sneaky. But impulses—to snack, to eat ice cream for breakfast, to stay snuggled in bed rather than sweating it out on the elliptical machine—those are all noted, processed, and acted upon (or not) by a single entity: you.
You haven’t been “distracted” by a piece of cake. You’ve acted on an impulse to slather gooey buttercream frosting on your tongue that, in the moment, was stronger than your desire to weigh less or be more fit. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But if acting on that impulse contributes to your feelings of anger, sadness, or frustration—to falling short of your goals—then you may need to admit you have a problem employee at the impulse control station, get your shit together, and confront him head-on.
If distraction is Arya Stark, then impulse control is more like the Wizard of Oz. This isn’t some badass changeling assassin. Nope, just a man in a silly waistcoat pulling mental levers willy-nilly behind the curtain of your brain, causing trouble. He gets away with a lot when you refuse to look behind that curtain and reprimand him. Once you start paying attention, he’ll have no choice but to fall in line.
Here are a few talking points to get you started:
Hey, Wizard, cut that shit out!
I want to fit into the suit I bought for Greg’s wedding, not eat that bag of peanut M&M’s and then cry myself to sleep.
I’m excited about the tennis arms I’m currently developing, and I’ll thank you not to impede my progress to the gym this morning.
How about you pull the lever for “Feelin’ good about myself today” instead of the one for “Fuck, I did it again.”
I’m on to you, buddy.
The Wizard of Impulse Control is nothing but a fraud in a silly waistcoat. You’re in charge here, and you tell him what to do, not the other way around. And seriously, a fraud in a silly waistcoat? Is that really what’s stopping you from going to the gym?
I thought not.
The hardest time to control your impulses is when you’re intoxicated. Believe me, I’ve been there. I was wearing a traffic cone on my head and the Wizard just stood around taking pictures. What a dick.
This is why I’ve started making “the sober decision”—which curbs not only my drinking but also the side effects, such as inhaling large quantities of food two hours after I ate a perfectly good dinner. (I don’t like to diet, but I also don’t like having to buy new pants three times a year just because I can’t, you know, control my impulses.)
Making the sober decision essentially means giving the Wizard the night off. There will be no in-the-moment, tequila-fueled impulses to control, because I already controlled them before I left the house. For example, I decide—out loud and preferably in front of someone else who can remind me of it later—that I’ll “only have three drinks” so I “don’t order and consume an entire pizza after midnight.” Then I’m forced to revisit my pledge when the bartender (or my friend Phil) tries to tempt me with round four.
This strategy is not 100 percent effective, for obvious reasons, but it has helped me avoid a LOT of unpleasantness. It turns out that not only do I eat better when I’m neither shit-faced nor battling a hangover, there’s also a strong correlation between having made the sober decision and not having thrown up, blacked out, or woken in a cold sweat concerned about emails the Wizard of Impulse Control may or may not have sent last night.