Would you believe that even people with excellent self-control have a hard time consistently managing their weight? They are able to use their willpower to succeed in many areas of education, career, relationships, inner emotional activities, etc., but they are not much more successful than others in terms of staying slim. This can be explained in terms of basic biology. When you use willpower to organize your inbox, write a report, or jog, your body doesn’t react instinctively. Your body is not threatened when you decide to pay the bills instead of watching TV. Your body doesn’t care if you’re writing a report or surfing the web. When you exercise too hard, your body may send out pain signals, but it doesn’t feel like its survival is being threatened. Dieting is different. Your body will diet with you once or twice, but after that it will fight you. In the lab, the first time fat rats were put on a controlled diet, they would lose weight. But once they were allowed to eat and drink freely again, they would gradually gain weight, and if they were put on a controlled diet again, it would take longer to get them to lose weight this time. Then, again, they are allowed to eat and drink freely, they will bounce back faster than last time. After losing and gaining weight three or four times, the diet will no longer work; even if they eat less, they are still fat. Evolution likes the kind of person who can survive a famine, so the body will try to save all the fat once it has had the experience of not having enough to eat. When you go on a diet, your body thinks it’s experiencing a famine and does everything it can to keep every fat cell. The ability to diet quickly should be considered a precious one-time ability to be preserved. Later, when your health or survival depends on your ability to lose weight, you may use this ability. So people who are dieting need to keep in mind: 1. Never diet. 2. Never swear off chocolate or any other food. 3. Never equate being overweight with weak willpower, whether you are judging yourself or judging others.