A number of people asked for elucidation about the Law of Inconsistency and I definitely did a poor job of summarizing in a thumbnail fashion. A little story will bring this law to clarity and then tomorrow we’ll look at the scientific research behind this crucial and predictable behavior.
…It was Christmas time.
…I was 13 and my Mom was “in” Weight Watchers, as a guest of her friend. She had a postage stamp scale on which she weighed out food that she would eat… in ounces. She was about 80 pounds or so overweight, and she wanted to get rid of the excess. She had been going to Weight Watchers since the day after Thanksgiving and would continue to do so until the following summer.
She got home late with Mrs. Jedd.
“How’d ya’ do Ma’?”
“Lost two pounds.”
“Good job, Ma’.”
She and Mrs. Jedd were filled with glee. They had both achieved their goal for the week. I think that meant they didn’t gain any weight. It was fairly ambiguous, as I recall.
They did good, but then they got crazy just like you and I do sometimes.
She got on the phone and ordered Quonset Pizza! Sausage and Pepperoni. I remember sitting there dumbfounded. It would be ready for pick up in 45 minutes.
Kevin Hogan on the Law of Inconsistency The Chicago area was and is well-known for great pizza. You grew up living that. Quonset was the best Pizza in Waukegan…and I bet they are still thriving there 30 years later!
But they were desperately trying to lose weight. My step-dad had just died three months before. She needed to lose weight as she was going to return to the “dating scene.”
This was a family requirement. She was waaaay overweight and wasn’t going to find Joe Winner looking like she did. The stress of six years of hospitalizations had taken it’s toll on her.
Food…She weighed every single item of every single meal…every day…all month. It was the craziest thing I’d ever seen.
Yet, she’d lost about 5 pounds that month (or so I was told) and now she was going to eat a pound of pizza.
Pizza was a real luxury in those days. It took over two hours of my Mom’s income to buy a pizza. We’d get to have Quonset about 6 times per year. Birthdays, usually.
Now, they ordered an extra large pizza. (She and Mrs. Jedd were both very big women.) I always wondered how people as impoverished as we were in the neighborhood…could get so big. I didn’t know that food that was good for you cost just as much or more than food that was going to make you fat.
They had a goal and it was an important one.
And then they “celebrated” by doing the exact opposite of what would get them their goal.
Three steps forward…two back…and it might have been three, I don’t know for sure…it wasn’t good.
It made no sense. All week they weighed their food with a postage stamp meter…
Of course, if you were the ad guy for Quonset Pizza, and you knew that this might be your demographic…you’d probably write an ad that says, “You’ve had a hard week…now treat yourself to Quonset.”
Maybe you would get more aggressive and run something like, “You sacrificed all week…now it’s Quonset time.”
And you’d be hitting the right buttons…and sell a lot of pizza.
Understanding this helped me develop and research the 11th Law. Tomorrow…that research and applications that may not seem instantly obvious from the story!
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