Can Masturbating Help You Lose Weight?

Sometimes the process of losing weight can be downright miserable.  Trying to keep yourself on track can leave you fighting to keep a grip on both your willpower and your sanity. But what if we told you that masturbating can help you achieve your weight loss goals? Trust us, it is not as crazy as it sounds!
Ramani Durvasula, PhD, a psychologist and author of the brand-new book, You Are WHY You Eat, believes that masturbation can be a powerful tool when it comes to your fitness efforts. When Durvasula's marriage ended, she saw an opportunity to change her life and created for herself a brand-new diet and fitness plan. This plan included a non-food reward system. This system of rewards, which included masturbation, helped her lose 80 pounds!
Durvasula says, "I took one thing I loved, food, and replaced it with another, orgasm. When I got tired of the endless salads and fruits and vegetables, I decided, why not stick in something that is pleasurable and healthy?  That was a short list—reading, writing, orgasm. So, when I had to replace a pleasurable food, I used masturbation."
This is some pretty basic psychology. If our behavior is rewarded, we are more likely to repeat that behavior. But it can't just be any reward, it has to be something worthwhile. Durvasula explains, "I put the cookie down, I masturbate, I have an orgasm—and I associate putting down a cookie with an orgasm. Basically, the reward has to be rewarding."
Obviously, as Durvasula says, you can't just be a "one trick pony" and use orgasm as your only reward. For the majority of us, it wouldn't make sense logistically. This particular reward isn't exactly appropriate for the office, for example. Your rewards could be anything that bring you pleasure. "At times I couldn’t get the job done, I would try my other pleasures, or make a date with myself for later. I’m also a big fan of writing a “pleasure” list that has more than one pleasure on it," explains Durvasula. "Beyond orgasm, mine includes reading, hiking, watching my favorite TV shows or drinking a cup of tea in my backyard."
If you don't reward yourself for doing the little things, it can be hard to keep going. Willpower isn't always enough to get you through. "Think of willpower as a resource that can be depleted in lots of ways: by not eating enough, stress, lack of resources, illness. The more of these “depletors” you experience, the less willpower you have—and the more likely you are to eat badly, drink too much, use drugs, shop or do anything else that derives pleasure," says Durvasula.
Makes sense. If you are going to remove something pleasurable from your life, in this case junk food, you need to replace it with something healthy that you enjoy. Life is all about balance and what fun is life without a little bit of pleasure every day?