Don’t let the “what-the-hell” effect blow up your day

Most of us don’t expect ourselves to never run late for an appointment, mistype a word over text message, or make numerous other low-stakes mistakes; we’re human, after all, and humans mess up sometimes. Yet somehow, we tend not to accept anything short of absolute perfection when it comes to what we eat — especially if we’re trying to lose weight. 

Say you go out to dinner with friends and plan ahead to just order the grilled salmon with veggies…but then end up getting a supersize margarita too. If your internal monologue is — well, I already messed up, so I might as well order a slice of pie for dessert — that’s known as the “what-the-hell effect.” When it kicks in, we figure since we already went off the plan, we might as well continue to let loose, rather than just get back on track. But it doesn’t serve us, and it doesn’t have to be that way. 

Here’s why even a minor slip-up can so often push us to these extremes, plus how we can overcome this type of all-or-nothing thinking, be kinder to ourselves, and get back on track sooner.

Key Takeaways

• The what-the-hell effect refers to how people tend to keep indulging after they eat something they hadn’t planned on.  

• Oftentimes, the overeating that follows a lapse like this is far more intense and long-lasting than the initial off-track moment that spurred it.

• If these deviations happen frequently, it could be a sign that your goals are too rigid or unrealistic, and/or that you’re undereating. 

• Research shows that people who use self-compassion as a tool when experiencing setbacks are more likely to get back on track. 

The what-the-hell effect is a much more catchy term for what’s technically known as the “abstinence-violation” or “disinhibition effect.” The term was first applied to eating behavior in the 1970s by Janet Polivy, Ph.D., and C. Peter Herman, Ph.D., then psychology professors and researchers at Northwestern University. 

Even if you haven’t heard of the what-the-hell effect before, you’ve probably experienced it. Maybe you decided cake was off-limits on your weight-loss plan — but then a coworker brought in your favorite red velvet cake for their birthday and you ate a piece. You might think: I’ve already blown my diet, so…what the hell, I might as well have another piece. That second piece could easily become a third…maybe even with scoops of ice cream for good measure.

Getting off-track, even just for a moment, can make you feel like you’ve undone all of your hard work — and it may feel harder than ever to get started again. 

Overly rigid rules, emotional eating, black-and-white thinking, restriction backfires …there are a lot of reasons why one minor slip-up on your weight-loss plan can feel like such a failure.

“Everybody wants fast results, so they can go to extremes with the all-or-nothing approach and unrealistic changes that are not sustainable,” says Erika Kawamura, Psy.D., DipACLM, a licensed psychologist board-certified in lifestyle medicine, and director of strategic initiatives at Equilibria Psychological and Consultation Services. “People might say ‘I'm only going to have a salad. I'm never going to eat junk food. I’m gonna work out seven days a week’…and then life happens.” Missing our goals — even if those goals were too lofty in the first place — is when feelings of shame, guilt, failure, and negative self-talk can kick in, making us feel so discouraged that we throw in the towel altogether.

“We’ve been raised and conditioned on a pass-or-fail system,” says Briana Reamer, RDN, a licensed dietitian-nutritionist based in Chicago. “We continue to rate ourselves harshly by those standards.” Because of the avalanche of negative self-talk that hits many of us following a perceived diet “fail,” we feel like we flunked a test, and quit the program completely. But that’s like quitting school forever because of one poor grade: We forget that nobody scores 100% all the time, and there’s no reason to abandon your progress because of one less-than-perfect performance.

Ditch “good” and “bad” foods 

The habit of starkly categorizing foods as “good” or “bad” is understandable — many of us were raised on it. But labeling foods as either/or often transfers to thinking of ourselves in the same binary. 

This type of thinking can also inadvertently extract all pleasure from the experience of food. After all, it’s not “bad” to eat something because it tastes good! If you decide to celebrate a milestone on your weight-loss journey by indulging in what you call a “bad” treat, you might be surprised how it actually hits. 

“The irony is when we ‘allow’ ourselves to eat it, we might not even enjoy it because of feeling guilty the whole time,” Kawamura says, “so we can't even enjoy the foods that we're supposedly trying to reward ourselves with.” Try and catch yourself when you’re labeling foods this way, and practice assigning a more neutral term — like “fun food.”  

Practice self-compassion, not shame

In a review of 28 medical studies, researchers examined findings related to self-compassion — defined as treating oneself as a loved friend might — in relation to body image and eating behaviors. The findings consistently linked self-compassion to lower levels of unhealthy, disordered thoughts and behaviors concerning food, weight, and body shape. Self-compassion was even found to be “a protective factor against poor body image.”

Additional studies have shown that self-compassion following a diet slip-up is not only beneficial for mood, but also for goal achievement. Participants with higher self-compassion levels reported better control over weight-management behaviors in the hours after the lapse, and practicing self-compassion helped boost weight-loss perseverance in the long run.

The next time you get off-track, try trading that post-lapse guilt or self-criticism for the same compassion you’d offer a friend if they told you they did the same thing. Treating yourself this way can help you accept what happened and simply move past it. 

Get back on track at your next meal — not next week

When you do have the inevitable off-plan meal, try to leave it in that moment, and resist the urge to let it snowball and derail your progress for another day, week, or longer. 

Put things in perspective, says Reamer: “It's just one serving. One meal. One day.” Remind yourself that you’re aiming for progress — not perfection. “The sooner you can re-establish those healthier habits, the easier it will be to maintain them.”

Look at the big picture 

Don’t let one perceived slip-up make you feel like a failure. Instead, Kawamura suggests zooming out and giving yourself credit for your recent wins (be they cooking lots of nutritious meals at home over the week, working a lot of veggies into your diet, or being a meal prep star and making a batch of workday lunches). Doing this shifts your perspective. So, if you ate a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner all week long, but then overindulged while out on Saturday night, that’s not a mistake — that’s a 95% success rate. 

Reclassify slip-ups as learning moments

Believe it or not, going off-script for a meal or two can actually be helpful. How? Because it provides an opportunity to think about what led to the break in the first place, and that information can help you adjust. If you notice that most of your diet deviations happen when you’re having a specific craving, a particularly stressful or emotional day, or are desperately famished, you can adjust your plan to address those patterns going forward. 

Maybe that means keeping individual portions of your favorite salty or chocolatey treat at the ready for when those cravings hit so you don’t turn to a whole bag of chips or carton of ice cream. Or, you avoid emotional eating binges by taking a 10-minute walk when you start to feel stress or anxiety bubble over. If you’re constantly hangry, you may be under-eating, or not eating frequently enough. Any time you make a decision that’s not what you intended, you can use it as a moment to understand why it happened to better set yourself up for success. 

Trade rigid rules for flexible structure

When dieting rules are unrealistic, inflexible, and overly strict, they’re bound to get broken. That’s because they’re not sustainable, not because there’s something wrong with your willpower. You can avoid the wild swings of yo-yo dieting by swapping out rigidity for a framework that’s actually sustainable. 

While many weight-loss plans tell you to cut out foods completely, Weight Watchers has no off-limits foods. That can help you move away from the idea that foods are either good or bad, and practice more flexibility when it comes to what you eat. 

This Weight Watchers Points ® system takes into consideration the nutritional impact of every food, and based on your own body and goals, you get a personalized weekly points budget to spend however you want. And, if you want additional support, you can always check into a Weight Watchers virtual Workshop for motivation from Coaches or other members, or book an appointment with a Weight Watchers Registered Dietitian for one-on-one guidance. 

When you get to eat what you love while losing weight, the what-the-hell effect loses its power, helping you stay on track. 91% of Weight Watchers members say they can enjoy the food they love while losing weight on the program.* 

The what-the-hell effect refers to the instinct to give up after slipping up on a weight-loss plan. There are lots of tools to avoid this unhelpful pattern and get back to your healthy habits sooner. Practicing self-compassion, focusing on big-picture progress, and resisting the urge to label foods as good or bad are all important ways to help you get back on track. Weight Watchers can help you put all of these ideas into practice with a liveable weight-loss plan that’s designed to nourish your body — not deprive it.