Continuous Weight Loss

In shocking weight loss facts, we discussed what wasn’t working in terms of weight loss. In summary, the diets we’re on aren’t to blame. Almost all of them will help you lose weight and keep it off for years to come. That means us, the dieters, are to blame. As you’ll soon find out, you’re not at fault nearly as much as a lot of people would have you think. After you’re done reading this page, you’ll understand what willpower is and how to get the willpower to lose weight.

What is Willpower?

Willpower is a kind of energy. Stay with me here. I’m not talking about some sort of mystical sense or power. I’m saying that if you exert enough willpower, you will get tired and lose focus just like if you use any other kind of energy. For the physics nerds out there, willpower counters Newton’s first law of motion. Newton’s first law: objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Since willpower counters this, you use willpower every time you do something you don’t want to do, or every time you stop yourself from doing something you do want to do.

How Most People Waste Their Willpower

The thing about willpower is you only get a little bit of it each day. Since humans are such creatures of habit, we can only resist change so much before it becomes overwhelming. There are a couple obvious ways in which you use it, such as resisting a tempting food, or pushing yourself to go to the gym.

But there are lots of other ways people use willpower throughout the day without even realizing it. If there is anything that is incomplete or unresolved in your mind, you spend willpower thinking about it or trying not to think about it. Holding back an emotion uses willpower. Maybe someone tripped and fell in a comical way, and you want to let out a little laugh, but you don’t because it would be inappropriate. That takes willpower.

Since willpower is rare, and you use a lot of it on little things throughout the day, that leaves only a little to change that one big thing in your life: losing weight. Let’s just look at the eating healthy aspect of losing weight. Chances to not eat healthy come up all the time, day in and day out.

You walk by a vending machine. The streets are littered with fast food joints. The grocery store is filled with tempting goodies. There are commercials on tv showing a juicy steak with fries and a shake. If you just use your willpower to resist this onslaught of temptation, you’re going to run out, and you’re going to run out fast.

How To Get The Willpower To Lose Weight: Using Willpower Effectively for HUGE Results

There are plenty of ways to use your willpower to lose weight more effectively than simply resisting temptation as it comes up. The one I’m about to show you is the most effective in my opinion. I’ll discuss even more in my next post. The idea is the same for all of them. Instead of using your willpower to resist your current environment (that promotes weight gain), use it to build an environment where you can’t help but lose weight.

One excellent way to do this is to take a day and clean out your cupboards of anything unhealthy. Throw everything unhealthy in the trash, and take the trash outside. Then, eat a meal until you’re full, make a grocery list, and go stock up on healthy food at the store. (If you’ve heard of this one before, AND you’ve actually done it, then skip on to my next post where I discuss other ways to effectively use your willpower.)

This works great for several reasons. First, cleaning out your cupboards might take a lot of willpower, but you only have to do it once. After that, every time a craving sets in, it’s really inconvenient to go out and satisfy it. Since cravings only last about 15 to 20 minutes, it will probably be gone before you can drive somewhere to satisfy it.

Second, studies have shown that people who shop on a full stomach and have a grocery list are much less likely to make impulse purchases. You only have to use your willpower at the store once to resist buying, say, a box of twinkies. That saves you from having to resist that same box a hundred times at home. I can’t tell you how many bags of chips I haven’t eaten because I heartily refuse to buy them at the store.

This is an example of building fences, only one of dozens of techniques that encourage chaging to a more healthy lifestyle without dubiously relying on unsustainable willpower to lose weight. In my next post, Lifestyle Changes to Lose Weight: the Six Sources of Influence, I’m going to cover why changing yourself into a person who lives a healthy life is such a difficult thing to do, and why doesn’t have to be (hint: it involves using the techniques I mentioned above).

Next, Lifestyle Changes to Lose Weight: the Six Sources of Influence >>

Comments are closed.