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I killed my clone today
What the caption means
The caption is meant literally. Suplee, who appeared in Remember the Titans and American History X, had to kill who he was, because there was no way to make long-term changes without becoming a new person.
Keeping weight off
A systematic review of people who lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for about three years found some expected commonalities: cognitive restraint, self-monitoring, and exercise. One finding was close to universal. They had to develop a new identity. People recovering from alcoholism describe a similar break, with new friends and new places, because their whole life had been built around the habit.
The harder life
Suplee has described the old life as the harder one. Constructing a life in which he could simply live at over 500 pounds took far more work than going to the gym for a couple of hours a day and restricting calories.
Why do old habits cling to places and people?
Habits are tied to context. In a 2002 study, Wendy Wood and colleagues at Texas A&M and Duke found that people performed about 43 percent of their daily actions habitually, usually in the same location. The setting itself becomes a cue that triggers the behavior without a decision. When the setting changes, the cue disappears, which is why a move or a new routine breaks habits more easily than willpower alone.
How does seeing yourself a certain way change behavior?
Psychologists call this identity-based motivation. In a 2011 study by Christopher Bryan and colleagues, published in PNAS, people asked whether they wanted to be a voter turned out at higher rates than people asked whether they wanted to vote. The noun framed voting as a statement about who they were rather than a task. Actions that match a person's self-image tend to feel like consistency, and actions that clash with it tend to feel like effort.
Who studies people who keep weight off for years?
The National Weight Control Registry was founded in 1994 by Rena Wing and James Hill. It follows thousands of adults who lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least a year. Members complete detailed questionnaires about their eating, exercise, and weighing habits. It is the largest ongoing study of long-term weight loss maintenance.
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