So, research in the recent literature has proven that willpower is like a muscle. You probably know this instinctively if you’ve ever dieted before. Its something that you apply: willpower to not eat this food and stay away from that food. But eventually that muscle gives. It weakens and you give in to the willpower. Yes, it’s true. The harder you try, it’s like making a muscle stronger, you can actually hold out and not eat those foods for a little bit longer.
Here’s a problem, no muscle can contract forever. At some point it fatigues, just like no willpower will last forever, at some point it will fatigue. What happens when it fatigues is that you will go back and binge on those foods that you spent so much time depriving yourself of.
Now I suggest a much better approach to dieting. You want to look at the food that you are told you typically can’t eat, and change your relationship with the food. It’s not bad food. Sure it’s less healthy. You might be eating that food for other reasons, not just for nourishment. Maybe it’s for stress reduction, to reduce anxiety. These comfort foods actually release happy hormones in your brain when you eat them because of the high sugar content.
Now how do you change your relationship with that food? Well, it’s all in your mind. The next time you look at your piece of cake that you love, your favorite comfort food – maybe it’s a hot dog, a hamburger, nachos, pizza, all the unhealthy foods we should not eat too frequently, I want you to do this.
I want you to look at that food, and I want you to close your eyes and picture a time where you are having great difficulty, great sadness, great stress, and great anxiety, and know that this food it literally contributing to that.
When you are trying to lose weight, your image, and how you feel and your health directly contribute to how happy you feel. While that food may give you happiness for the moment, you know long term, that food is not giving you long-term happiness.
So I want you to embody that, and think about that. Don’t go for the immediate gratification and how you feel at that moment. before you eat it, think about what that food means for you life-long. Look at that in your mind, picture it: the feeling that you have, the colors that you see.
The pictures of you seeing yourself not losing weight and being stressed, and the feelings associated with not being able to lose weight. All of that is embodied in that food at that moment. When you do this, it will change your relationship with the food. You will no longer try to crave it for immediate gratification. You will now make better choices about that food for long term.
I want you to repeat this. I want you to put your favorite food in front of you and try to elicit those feelings about how it feels in the future. The stress and the negative feelings down to the very colors, the sounds, the picture of your body, I want you to repeat that process. Every time that you do, you are changing your relationship with your food, and that is much better than willpower.
It is like using willpower to stay in a bad marriage and using the bad communication that you have. Don’t do that. Change the relationship. Work with the spouse, in this case you work with the food. I hope this tip helps you, and any questions, comment below, enter your information and I will be able to help you directly, and have you achieve your weight loss and the body that you deserve.
To learn another way to lose weight by using effortless habits instead of will power click here to get a special offer just for moms only.
As the director of Body Solutions where we use a Holistic approach to… well everything from healing to, transformations, to weight loss, and to empowering you. It our passion to help a Billion people by 2020 be successful and happy in life.
While that goal may seem BIG, it’s not when you work hard and work together with some amazing leaders from around the world like Richard Branson. That him holding the mic as we brainstorm and plan how we will help empower a BILLION people by 2020.
You can start that journey and create the life, the body, and the joy you want by working with me and my team by clicking here.