Lose weight by weighing less
So said The Atlantic in a side-swipe at Gary Hamel, the management professor. They meant to damn him They meant to say he was being tautological – or in plain language – saying black is black. Unknowingly, they were being profound! What they don’t realize is that management theory has moved on. Like modern psychology, it has expanded its horizons. The mathematical models we use have changed and to say we lose weight by weighing less is sound modelling.
Cause-and-effect was our first question
One hundred years ago, we were captivated by questions of cause-and-effect. What causes overweight, we might ask. And we came up with models that said the more food went in the more fat on our body. Food is is food. Fat is fat. They are different and one causes the other.
And so it went on. We said intelligence led to success in later life. We said that eating well led to intelligence. On and on.
Actually few of these factors are independent of each other. Fat is transformed from food. And intelligence is a make-believable variable that exists only because it is associated with success.
Now we ask how a phenomenon changes over time
That said, we aren’t that interested in these models any more or the general question of what causes what.
These days we are more interested in recursive models. Lose weight by weighing less is exactly what interests me. Today I might way 60 kg. Tomorrow I may weigh 59.9 kg or 60.1 kg. What is the natural fluctuation in my weight and what leads to the weight getting greater (or less) and then reversing direction.
We know weight is caused by what goes in and what goes out. And both of those are dependent on each other. I will eat more more I have skipped meals and I will exercise less when I’ve had too much or too little to eat. We are interested in all the relevant factors change in time and how they interact with each other in a highly fluctuating yet essentially self-correcting and stable system.
What doesn’t change may well be sick
Illness comes from lack of fluctuation. We should worry about utterly static weight and a completely constant appetite.
How do we shift systems?
Anyone who has tried to shift their typical weight, for vanity or to please their doctor, knows that it is quite hard to do. There seems to be homeostatic levels which remain fairly constant given any set of circumstances. Complexity theorists know that systems are self-replicating. They also know the “shape” of the system matters. We expect a system to fluctuate a lot but like our weight, in a general range. When we get no fluctuation, or when our weight rockets or plummets, then we are ill!
Shifting entire systems requires a different form of thinking. More on that another day.
For now, yes – we can lose weight by weighing less. It is a weak system of change to look at the scales each day. But it will work. Just weigh less every day and you will lose weight. Perfect mathematical model. Perfect science.
Sorry The Atlantic. Misguided taunt. Another one of these areas where the world has changed a lot in the last five years. Now we do recursive models not cause-and-effect models.
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