Avoiding the What-the-Hell Health Effect
How to eat, drink and be merry during the holidays without going overboard.
By Stacey Colino, Contributor |Nov. 15, 2017, at 4:28 p.m.
It’s that time of year when an overindulgent meal can easily turn into a daylong or weeklong stretch of overdoing it. Dubbed the what-the-hell-effect (or, counterregulatory behavior) by dieting researchers Janet Polivy and C. Peter Herman, the phenomenon describes a cycle of indulgence, regret or shame, more indulgence, more regret or shame, and so on. Say, you have a piece of pizza or a slice of cake even though you promised yourself that you wouldn’t: You might say to yourself, "Well, I’ve blown my diet, so I might as well have another piece," – and then keep eating. Before you know it, you’ve eaten half the pizza or cake and all kinds of other not-so-healthy food.
https://health.usnews.com/wellness/mind/articles/2017-11-15/avoiding-the-what-the-hell-health-effect
