What Is Will-Power?
Have you ever started a diet and after a few days or maybe even a couple of weeks it seemed like you were “barely hanging on?”
- All you think about is what you would like to eat.
- You just want to feel normal.
These are two sure signs you are using willpower to lose weight instead of building a new way to eat and live that leads to weight that NEVER COMES BACK.
- You argue with yourself about how hard your diet is when temptations and cravings begin.
- You think one day you’ll be able to eat normally again.
How to make doable and lasting changes to what you eat:
For example, when I weighed 250lbs., I was NOT ready to give up everything I loved eating to lose weight. That’s what I did when I set myself up to rely on willpower.
I would pick a diet that cut everything I loved out and think about how unfair it was that I couldn’t eat normally. Girl, I probably failed 50 diets doing it that way.
Eventually, I would just want some relief from “how hard the diet was” and then blow it eating everything I decided was “bad.” After eating my face off, I’d feel like something was wrong with me. The only thing that was wrong was I was repeating a broken process and expecting it to somehow become “easy.”
- You lose weight figuring out what normal is for you.
- Don’t do shit that feels too hard.
- When I started my last diet I decided to go about it RADICALLY different.
- I was not going to do anything I wasn’t willing to do for the rest of my life.
That one rule stopped willpower in its tracks. Anything I did I felt like I was choosing it and that I was choosing it because I felt pretty sure it was something totally doable.
Stop Using Will-Power:
When I had cravings and temptations, it was easier to say no because my whole diet wasn’t set up on deprivation. I had enough time with food that I could look forward to that when cravings hit I knew I could wait.
And, because I was eating things I loved and learning to like new things, I knew this was a new lifestyle forming.
It’s important that you stop using willpower:
- Willpower is exhausting.
- It causes you to THINK about food all the time and wears you down.
Make sure you watch this coaching session so you never set yourself up to rely on willpower to lose weight again.
Figuring Out How To Lose Weight
A lot of people are trying to lose weight by using willpower instead of figuring out how to lose weight from a sustainable, lifelong approach.
I was obese my entire life. I was really good at starting and stopping diets. I was using willpower to get through the diets, instead of figuring out how to lose weight for good.
Willpower is about resistance and fighting for your weight loss:
- Willpower is useless.
- You only get so much willpower.
- You need to learn how to lose weight in a way that doesn’t require willpower.
- There is intensity and negative energy behind it.
If you spend all your time losing weight feeling tense and making yourself do stuff, you’re going to run out of steam. You will struggle to stick with your plan on a day where the world is throwing curveballs at you.
If you keep eating off of your plan and overeating, it’s probably because you created your plan using willpower.
- Willpower comes from you being able to use your conscious brain all of the time.
- Willpower is about your capacity to control your impulses to eat.
- “I have to make myself be good. I have to knuckle down and get serious.”
“I lack willpower.” We all lack willpower! You’re supposed to lose weight because you’re making decisions for yourself from love, from the idea that you want better things for yourself.
- When you say “I lack willpower” it’s basically saying “I lack personal beatdowns.
- I need to shame myself more often.
- I would stick to my plan if I called myself an asshole more often.
- “I need to be harder on myself.”
It’s the equivalent of saying “my kids lack whippings and me taking all things away from them.” When your kids get home from school you don’t tell them that they need to argue with themselves about homework and then whoop them because you can’t get homework done unless you’re super terrible to yourself.
This is the same way people look at dieting. “I can’t lose weight unless I’m terrible to myself.” People equate overeating as being good to themselves. They see it as comforting themself. Overeating is when you’re escaping and telling yourself that you deserve more. Overeating is a result of you not doing enough self-love.
How to stop using willpower:
- You know you’re using willpower when you argue with yourself. Let’s say you plan a healthy sandwich for lunch, but then start wanting a burger. If you argue with yourself, you’re trying to use willpower. Instead, make the next best decision.
- Know when you’re using willpower so that you can go through your week and look at why you’re setting yourself up to lose weight this way. Notice when you’re having argumentative thoughts and realize that you must not know why you’re wanting to lose weight this way.
- The most important thing that you need to realize is that you keep failing diets because you keep setting yourself up in a way that requires you to be an asshole to yourself. That you set yourself up to do things that you don’t intend to do for the rest of your life.
- You have to learn how to figure out how to lose weight the way you plan to live it.
- You have to learn to like yourself through the process.
- You have to learn to do the things you don’t want to do because you want to do better for yourself.
I do not teach you to lose weight using willpower:
- I will teach you to lose weight in a way that you can follow for life.
- I will teach you how to talk to yourself when you catch yourself fighting with yourself.
- I will teach you the little things you can change this week.
- I will teach you how to not be an asshole to yourself.
Facebook Live: Why you keep losing willpower to lose weight
Go to www.pnp411.com to take the free course!
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