The Importance of Willpower for Weight Loss
Aaron_K123
Posts: 7,122 Member
On these forums you tend to see a focus on things like CICO (Calories in, Calories Out), nutrition, macro split, how much exercise to do, how much water to drink etc. All of these things are relevant of course but given those topics have been covered a ton I thought I'd post on what I consider to be the most important factor for successful weight loss that doesn't get brought up much: paying attention to willpower and making sure you don’t overspend it. The transition I personally made between being unsuccessful and being successful at weight loss actually had little to do with my understanding of what caused weight loss or what I needed to do for weight loss and much more to do with how I approached it in terms of thinking about it as an expenditure of willpower and making some intentional hard choices about where that willpower was going to come from.
So what do I mean by willpower? The way I am using the word I just mean the energy you have available to you to either do things you don’t really want to do or to enact changes in your typical daily routine. Things that are part of your routine can cost willpower if they are not something you would naturally do if given free choice. For most people that is what work is, they go to work because they need money not because they particularly want to go to work. That costs willpower to do. Any sort of change to your daily routine costs willpower as well simply to break the inertia of your normal activity. If you typically do X but you decided instead you are going to start doing Y then getting yourself to do Y costs willpower. How much willpower it costs has a lot to do with how much you enjoy doing Y and how much you enjoy doing X. For example if you love X and hate Y the willpower cost will be very high while if X and Y are equivalent for you but you are just used to doing X then the willpower cost will be relatively low to change. As an example for me getting a gym membership and going to the gym would be very high willpower cost while going for a walk would be low willpower cost (i happen to like going for walks).
The key idea here is no one has an unlimited supply of willpower, it is a finite resource. Once you are out of willpower in a given day you will struggle mightily to do anything outside of your normal routine. If you want to lose weight (or enact any change in your life), then that is going to cost willpower. The key to success is to limit the amount of willpower it will cost you so it comes as cheap as possible and in addition account for where that willpower is going to come from so you don't go into "debt". I think the number one reason people fail when they attempt to lose weight is they try to make too many changes in their routines all at once spending a ton of extra willpower they don’t really have while not changing anything in their lives that would free up the willpower they need to enact those things. As a result they stick with the changes when they are in the adrenaline of the moment of deciding to make a change but they quickly burn out and end up quitting.
When I was successful with weight loss it was because I did the following. I minimized the cost of willpower necessary to enact what I needed to do to lose weight and I made changes in my life that would free up some willpower. It had much less to do with what method I chose to lose weight and much more to do with thinking about how much it would "cost" me.
To decide what I needed to do differently that would cost willpower I made a list of everything I’d want to do to improve my health. Lose weight, get into better shape, be able to run a 10k in under an hour, drink more water, drink less coffee, put on an extra 5 pounds of muscle etc etc. Then I took a very hard look at my list and eliminated anything I thought wasn’t the highest priority and put everything else aside no matter how "easy" it seemed. So basically I just picked one narrow goal and chose to just “lose weight” as I figured that would be the highest impact thing I could do. I then made another list of ways I could possibly lose weight along with how much willpower I felt it would cost (just low, medium, high). I picked two things I could do to lose weight from that list that had low willpower, one that would change my calorie intake and one that would increase my activity level. The things I picked were minimal changes to my routine that required the least effort.
To decrease calories while maintaining satiation I chose to keep my meals the same but increase the amount of protein and decrease the amount of carbs. This wasn’t really changing what I ate so much as changing up the recipes, switch from rice to lentils or beans for example or just double the amount of meat then lowering portion size. Keeping meals essentially the same as they were in terms of taste. In cases of low nutrition high calorie foods like ice cream I just chose to limit my intake only as much as needed to hit calorie goal, so I still ate them just less frequently or smaller portions. I like meat and I like the foods I was already eating so this was low cost to me. I counted calories for a bit just to make sure it was on track and then kept that routine on autopilot to limit the willpower cost it took. For exercise I decided the simplest thing to do would be wake up 30 min earlier and use that extra time to change my commute from a bus ride to a 6 mile walk. So every day I walked 12 miles. My route was automatic (get to work) so it took no thought and in general I like walking anyways. That was it. I’d meal prep on the weekend (did that anyways), portion it out and then my workouts were basically my commute. If I went out to a restaurant I didn’t worry about it other than to just be mindful of my portion size and how full I was feeling. I did not add a complicated exercise routine, I did not change how much water I drank, I did not mess with my coffee intake, I didn’t attempt to put on muscle, I didn’t get a gym membership or sign-up for classes. I kept it as painfully simple as possible with minimal changes to my routine.
Still, even then I recognized this was going to cost willpower to pay more attention to meal planning, calorie intake and waking up earlier and getting myself to walk even if it was raining or I didn’t want to that morning. So I made another list. A list of things that were currently taking up my willpower including my job, aspects of my family life, meetup group, social outings etc. I then thought about what I could cut back on to make room. I ended up deciding that I had been pushing hard in my career lately doing 50 hour weeks and I should probably cut back on that a bit in favor of my health. So I made a conscious decision leave work 30 minutes earlier than I otherwise would have during the time I was planning to lose weight. That would give me an extra 2.5 hours a week of a high-willpower activity which would probably give me more if it cost less will to do.
Finally I just satisfied myself that this was a good plan and then committed to it wholly. I followed the plan to increase protein for satiation while decreasing carbs. I followed my plan to walk daily as my commute. I viewed each as spending willpower but recognized I had made up for that by leaving work earlier so it was taken care of in terms of my stress. I trusted in the system I established. My routine barely changed at all, I stuck with it for about 6 months and lost about 25 pounds of fat while retaining my lean mass (didn’t lose muscle).
Previous times I was unsuccessful I realized what I had done. Everything above was there, but on top of that I had tried to cut back on coffee, increase the amount of water I was drinking, add in a full weight lifting routine, nitpick my food choices to death, read up on whether I should be lifting heavy with low rep or light with high rep and added cardio and with all of that I did absolutely nothing to cut back on my normal routine load of willpower requiring activities and at some level I realized I was just pilling on myself in terms of stress. I started out enthused and strong and stuck with it for a couple weeks but eventually it would just fall apart. Couldn’t point to what caused it to fail, it just would after that initial excitement wore off.
So yeah, my best advice to anyone trying to lose weight. Increase activity a bit, decrease calorie intake a bit and intentionally don’t change your routine otherwise. Recognize that as harmless as it sounds deciding to intentionally drink 16 cups of water a day or cutting out soda completely actually does have a cost to it in terms of willpower and that that resource is limited. Ask yourself the hard questions about whether or not this change to your routine is absolutely necessary to achieve your goal and if it isn’t then don’t make that change right now. Keep it as simple as possible, realize it takes effort and try to source effort by reducing some other aspect of your workload throughout your daily routine to compensate. Don’t try to superman it. If there are other things you want to change in your life ask if they are higher priority than weight loss and if they are not then put them aside for now, you can come back to them once you’ve achieved your goal weight.
So what do I mean by willpower? The way I am using the word I just mean the energy you have available to you to either do things you don’t really want to do or to enact changes in your typical daily routine. Things that are part of your routine can cost willpower if they are not something you would naturally do if given free choice. For most people that is what work is, they go to work because they need money not because they particularly want to go to work. That costs willpower to do. Any sort of change to your daily routine costs willpower as well simply to break the inertia of your normal activity. If you typically do X but you decided instead you are going to start doing Y then getting yourself to do Y costs willpower. How much willpower it costs has a lot to do with how much you enjoy doing Y and how much you enjoy doing X. For example if you love X and hate Y the willpower cost will be very high while if X and Y are equivalent for you but you are just used to doing X then the willpower cost will be relatively low to change. As an example for me getting a gym membership and going to the gym would be very high willpower cost while going for a walk would be low willpower cost (i happen to like going for walks).
The key idea here is no one has an unlimited supply of willpower, it is a finite resource. Once you are out of willpower in a given day you will struggle mightily to do anything outside of your normal routine. If you want to lose weight (or enact any change in your life), then that is going to cost willpower. The key to success is to limit the amount of willpower it will cost you so it comes as cheap as possible and in addition account for where that willpower is going to come from so you don't go into "debt". I think the number one reason people fail when they attempt to lose weight is they try to make too many changes in their routines all at once spending a ton of extra willpower they don’t really have while not changing anything in their lives that would free up the willpower they need to enact those things. As a result they stick with the changes when they are in the adrenaline of the moment of deciding to make a change but they quickly burn out and end up quitting.
When I was successful with weight loss it was because I did the following. I minimized the cost of willpower necessary to enact what I needed to do to lose weight and I made changes in my life that would free up some willpower. It had much less to do with what method I chose to lose weight and much more to do with thinking about how much it would "cost" me.
To decide what I needed to do differently that would cost willpower I made a list of everything I’d want to do to improve my health. Lose weight, get into better shape, be able to run a 10k in under an hour, drink more water, drink less coffee, put on an extra 5 pounds of muscle etc etc. Then I took a very hard look at my list and eliminated anything I thought wasn’t the highest priority and put everything else aside no matter how "easy" it seemed. So basically I just picked one narrow goal and chose to just “lose weight” as I figured that would be the highest impact thing I could do. I then made another list of ways I could possibly lose weight along with how much willpower I felt it would cost (just low, medium, high). I picked two things I could do to lose weight from that list that had low willpower, one that would change my calorie intake and one that would increase my activity level. The things I picked were minimal changes to my routine that required the least effort.
To decrease calories while maintaining satiation I chose to keep my meals the same but increase the amount of protein and decrease the amount of carbs. This wasn’t really changing what I ate so much as changing up the recipes, switch from rice to lentils or beans for example or just double the amount of meat then lowering portion size. Keeping meals essentially the same as they were in terms of taste. In cases of low nutrition high calorie foods like ice cream I just chose to limit my intake only as much as needed to hit calorie goal, so I still ate them just less frequently or smaller portions. I like meat and I like the foods I was already eating so this was low cost to me. I counted calories for a bit just to make sure it was on track and then kept that routine on autopilot to limit the willpower cost it took. For exercise I decided the simplest thing to do would be wake up 30 min earlier and use that extra time to change my commute from a bus ride to a 6 mile walk. So every day I walked 12 miles. My route was automatic (get to work) so it took no thought and in general I like walking anyways. That was it. I’d meal prep on the weekend (did that anyways), portion it out and then my workouts were basically my commute. If I went out to a restaurant I didn’t worry about it other than to just be mindful of my portion size and how full I was feeling. I did not add a complicated exercise routine, I did not change how much water I drank, I did not mess with my coffee intake, I didn’t attempt to put on muscle, I didn’t get a gym membership or sign-up for classes. I kept it as painfully simple as possible with minimal changes to my routine.
Still, even then I recognized this was going to cost willpower to pay more attention to meal planning, calorie intake and waking up earlier and getting myself to walk even if it was raining or I didn’t want to that morning. So I made another list. A list of things that were currently taking up my willpower including my job, aspects of my family life, meetup group, social outings etc. I then thought about what I could cut back on to make room. I ended up deciding that I had been pushing hard in my career lately doing 50 hour weeks and I should probably cut back on that a bit in favor of my health. So I made a conscious decision leave work 30 minutes earlier than I otherwise would have during the time I was planning to lose weight. That would give me an extra 2.5 hours a week of a high-willpower activity which would probably give me more if it cost less will to do.
Finally I just satisfied myself that this was a good plan and then committed to it wholly. I followed the plan to increase protein for satiation while decreasing carbs. I followed my plan to walk daily as my commute. I viewed each as spending willpower but recognized I had made up for that by leaving work earlier so it was taken care of in terms of my stress. I trusted in the system I established. My routine barely changed at all, I stuck with it for about 6 months and lost about 25 pounds of fat while retaining my lean mass (didn’t lose muscle).
Previous times I was unsuccessful I realized what I had done. Everything above was there, but on top of that I had tried to cut back on coffee, increase the amount of water I was drinking, add in a full weight lifting routine, nitpick my food choices to death, read up on whether I should be lifting heavy with low rep or light with high rep and added cardio and with all of that I did absolutely nothing to cut back on my normal routine load of willpower requiring activities and at some level I realized I was just pilling on myself in terms of stress. I started out enthused and strong and stuck with it for a couple weeks but eventually it would just fall apart. Couldn’t point to what caused it to fail, it just would after that initial excitement wore off.
So yeah, my best advice to anyone trying to lose weight. Increase activity a bit, decrease calorie intake a bit and intentionally don’t change your routine otherwise. Recognize that as harmless as it sounds deciding to intentionally drink 16 cups of water a day or cutting out soda completely actually does have a cost to it in terms of willpower and that that resource is limited. Ask yourself the hard questions about whether or not this change to your routine is absolutely necessary to achieve your goal and if it isn’t then don’t make that change right now. Keep it as simple as possible, realize it takes effort and try to source effort by reducing some other aspect of your workload throughout your daily routine to compensate. Don’t try to superman it. If there are other things you want to change in your life ask if they are higher priority than weight loss and if they are not then put them aside for now, you can come back to them once you’ve achieved your goal weight.
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You have no idea how much I needed this today. Thank you.24
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I understand your post and to some degree it does make sense. Your example of going to work belies your point. I work because I have no choice. I need money. How much willpower it takes me to get up every day is a lot, some days more than other but I know I have to do it. I agree that most of losing weight and keeping it off is having the right mindset. I was 500 lbs 2 1/2 years ago. I really did not have the luxury of eating the same foods and expecting to lose weight. I do not know if willpower got me through or not but I knew it was what I had to do.
I get up an hour to an hour and a half 5 days a week to exercise. Does that take willpower? yup, but it something that I have to do and know I will do as long as I am able.
I am at a comfortable weight for myself and I am okay if I do not lose another pound, but I still eat like I ate when I was losing weight. I allow myself a little more leeway with what I eat, but I know that if I allow myself to eat any and every thing then I probably will do so.
For me willpower means I want this and I am going to do what it takes to get it and keep it.22 -
I understand your post and to some degree it does make sense. Your example of going to work belies your point. I work because I have no choice. I need money. How much willpower it takes me to get up every day is a lot, some days more than other but I know I have to do it. I agree that most of losing weight and keeping it off is having the right mindset. I was 500 lbs 2 1/2 years ago. I really did not have the luxury of eating the same foods and expecting to lose weight. I do not know if willpower got me through or not but I knew it was what I had to do.
I get up an hour to an hour and a half 5 days a week to exercise. Does that take willpower? yup, but it something that I have to do and know I will do as long as I am able.
I am at a comfortable weight for myself and I am okay if I do not lose another pound, but I still eat like I ate when I was losing weight. I allow myself a little more leeway with what I eat, but I know that if I allow myself to eat any and every thing then I probably will do so.
For me willpower means I want this and I am going to do what it takes to get it and keep it.
Please don't misunderstand me to be suggesting that everyone should do exactly what I did. That wasn't the point I was trying to make and wouldn't make sense to try to claim. What I was trying to emphasis was that willpower, ones ability to convince oneself to do something one would not naturally do without effort, is a limited resource. That if you want to achieve something you wouldn't achieve without applying effort then you need to derive that willpower from somewhere and be conscience that you don't "waste" it on things you don't need to be doing. My message was directed towards those who attempted a plan for weight loss but quickly derailed or have repeatedly failed to stick with a plan. If you got into a routine that you were able to stick with, even if it was more difficult than the one I described, then you were able to summon enough willpower to do that and it worked for you. I certainly am not trying to talk you out of that or suggest that you somehow "did it wrong". Often (not always) people seem to launch into weight loss by trying to do as much as they can conceive of all at once rather than I think the more likely to succeed approach is, which is thinking hard about what the least you can do is while still making progress and then do that long term.
Some people are going to have more willpower than others. Some are going to be using up 100% of their willpower in their daily routines, others might only be using 80% of it and naturally have some to spare. Teenagers probably have less overall willpower than adults but more free time to exercise it in. I think willpower is like muscle in that if you exercise it and push it you will develop more of it and I think those that are pushing their comfort zone naturally have more willpower to work with than those who seek to minimize discomfort or conflict. That said I didn't want to over-complicate it with all the possibilities of different amounts of available willpower for different people so I chose the most likely for most adults which is that their current routine is taking up all of their willpower no matter how much total they have, they are already pushing themselves as hard as they can push to make headway in their career and provide for their family and that if they want to make a positive change in themselves on top of all of that then they need for something to give to make room for that and they need to not over-commit to a bunch of things that aren't necessary for them to attain their goal. That intentionally giving themselves a break somewhere else in their life to make space for a push to better health might be a good thing to do or at least increase ones chances of success long term.
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On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense to me, and I readily see some ways to implement it. But it concerns me as well. Does this mean it's hopeless for those whose daily life pretty much uses up all of their willpower (I'm thinking work & family issues they cannot change, health problems, depression, etc.) to be successful at weight loss or achieving fitness?
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I really needed this.
Thank you3 -
On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense to me, and I readily see some ways to implement it. But it concerns me as well. Does this mean it's hopeless for those whose daily life pretty much uses up all of their willpower (I'm thinking work & family issues they cannot change, health problems, depression, etc.) to be successful at weight loss or achieving fitness?
I don't believe it's impossible, but rather it just may be hard at first (and harder at different times throughout the process), and they need to be gentle and understanding with themselves about it.
One thing I've learned through my struggles with depression is that willpower is a muscle: it gets stronger if you exercise it! But OP is right too. Trying to exercise it in too many places at once will overwork it, the equivalent of a stress injury from trying to do too much too fast. The quote I chose for my profile is "how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time" and that's how I try to approach my daily life. I focus on a few things until they don't take as much of my willpower any more, and then I add.21 -
On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense to me, and I readily see some ways to implement it. But it concerns me as well. Does this mean it's hopeless for those whose daily life pretty much uses up all of their willpower (I'm thinking work & family issues they cannot change, health problems, depression, etc.) to be successful at weight loss or achieving fitness?
I believe weight loss (or fitness) is just another thing to potentially prioritize in your life. You have responsibilities to career and to family and to current health issues etc etc and you only have so much energy to put into them. Ultimately it is your choice where you put your time and no one can force you to prioritize something you don't want to prioritize. If you prioritize those things above weight loss and use up all of your energy there then yes I think you would struggle to make any progress towards weight loss. I think if your weight loss plan is something like planning and cooking your daily meals to control your intake then you need to set aside both the time and the willpower in order to do that and if your current schedule/will is 100% filled then yes you will have to change something to free up that needed energy otherwise you aren't going to do it. You can view that as being negative but you can also view it as the realism needed to take effective action.
I do think life changes like this take some sacrifice and potentially some outside help. You might have to drop things you are doing for others in order to take some time for yourself knowing that that investment will pay dividends in the future when you are healthier and as a result have more energy to spend. Prioritizing you for a while can end up making the hours you have left to dedicate to others that much richer and more efficient. If you are truly overwhelmed by your responsibilities and cannot fathom dropping any of them perhaps you could delegate some to a family member or close friend who could help take on some of your responsibilities to give you that extra hour a day to commit to doing something about weight loss. Don't be afraid to ask for help and understand that help can have nothing to do with the actual weight loss, it could just be taking some other task off of you to free up your time. I just think its important to be honest about it. I don't think its realistic to think you can just summon time and energy out of thin air or to believe that weight loss does not somehow require an investment of time/energy/will (whatever you choose to call it).
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YepItsKriss wrote: »Great post. Fits in good with mine over in introduce me about making sure you have a good plan and choose choices based on you and not by changing everything based on success from others or because someone told you that this way is more successful then any other way and find themselves struggling to change their lifestyle to that one.
I don't know if read it but I would like to link to your post in it to go with the other link to the must read stickies. Is that Okay?
Yeah I mean you can link to anything you want on here, my post is no exception. Go for it.1 -
TwinMamaTrish wrote: »I really needed this.
Thank you
Thanks, that is nice to hear.1 -
nickssweetheart wrote: »One thing I've learned through my struggles with depression is that willpower is a muscle: it gets stronger if you exercise it! But OP is right too. Trying to exercise it in too many places at once will overwork it, the equivalent of a stress injury from trying to do too much too fast. The quote I chose for my profile is "how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time" and that's how I try to approach my daily life. I focus on a few things until they don't take as much of my willpower any more, and then I add.
My brother and I had this discussion not long ago, and he made the same argument you are making: that willpower can be grown through persistent usage.
I can agree - to a point. Consistently using willpower to force yourself to do something you dislike can, in many cases, become easier over time as it becomes routine. But I think that there is still a limited supply of Willpower, and you can only grow it so far, and it really depends on what you are using that willpower for - as the OP said. Anything new is hard and takes a lot of willpower and determination to start; but things that you either enjoy or can come to tolerate, will take less willpower to continue as time goes on. But I think that if its something you hate doing, and continue to hate doing, over time, it will take MORE willpower to keep going.
If willpower is indeed like a muscle that can get stronger overtime, I think that just like a muscle, there is a limit to the maximum efficiency you can get out of it - even the strongest man in the world hits a limit in what he can do that no amount of training will get him past; call it human physical limitation. No man is going to be able to lift a 10 story building, no matter how much training he does; its not humanly physically possible. I think that willpower, even if you can strengthen it, still has a limit to the capacity and like a muscle, once its stretched to its limit, it has to be rested to recover.
So I think that there is a limit to what a person can use sheer willpower to accomplish, and it really does come down to the effort it requires that person to maintain it - and we're talking mental effort here, now. In some things, practicing that will power will make the task easier with time, but some things will always require an enormous effort from a person because of their personality and personal preferences, and the question becomes: is the effort and expense of will power worth the result?
For me, it took some willpower to get started counting calories and logging. But as I established a routine, it took less effort for me to continue. But I'm somewhat analytical, so logging, planning, weighing, and strategizing appeals to me. Once I established it as a routine, it's not bothersome to me at all to continue; its become something that I don't think much about, that I can tolerate reasonably well.
On the other hand, a few years ago, I tried joining a local gym, and hated every minute of it. It took a ginormous amount of will power to force myself to go and to force myself to stay through an entire workout. I hated every minute of it. As time went by, it didn't become easier; I didn't come to the point where I was enjoying myself, and it didn't become routine - I still hated it with a passion. So over time, I slowly lost the fight with myself to continue going. After skipping an entire summer, I finally just gave up and quit wasting the money on the membership.
So I think the OP's point is spot on: don't make huge changes all at once, get to know yourself, your likes, your dislikes, and make little adjustments that you can maintain; don't waste willpower on something you absolutely hate doing unless you have no choice!9 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »nickssweetheart wrote: »One thing I've learned through my struggles with depression is that willpower is a muscle: it gets stronger if you exercise it! But OP is right too. Trying to exercise it in too many places at once will overwork it, the equivalent of a stress injury from trying to do too much too fast. The quote I chose for my profile is "how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time" and that's how I try to approach my daily life. I focus on a few things until they don't take as much of my willpower any more, and then I add.
My brother and I had this discussion not long ago, and he made the same argument you are making: that willpower can be grown through persistent usage.
I can agree - to a point. Consistently using willpower to force yourself to do something you dislike can, in many cases, become easier over time as it becomes routine. But I think that there is still a limited supply of Willpower, and you can only grow it so far, and it really depends on what you are using that willpower for - as the OP said. Anything new is hard and takes a lot of willpower and determination to start; but things that you either enjoy or can come to tolerate, will take less willpower to continue as time goes on. But I think that if its something you hate doing, and continue to hate doing, over time, it will take MORE willpower to keep going.
If willpower is indeed like a muscle that can get stronger overtime, I think that just like a muscle, there is a limit to the maximum efficiency you can get out of it - even the strongest man in the world hits a limit in what he can do that no amount of training will get him past; call it human physical limitation. No man is going to be able to lift a 10 story building, no matter how much training he does; its not humanly physically possible. I think that willpower, even if you can strengthen it, still has a limit to the capacity and like a muscle, once its stretched to its limit, it has to be rested to recover.
So I think that there is a limit to what a person can use sheer willpower to accomplish, and it really does come down to the effort it requires that person to maintain it - and we're talking mental effort here, now. In some things, practicing that will power will make the task easier with time, but some things will always require an enormous effort from a person because of their personality and personal preferences, and the question becomes: is the effort and expense of will power worth the result?
For me, it took some willpower to get started counting calories and logging. But as I established a routine, it took less effort for me to continue. But I'm somewhat analytical, so logging, planning, weighing, and strategizing appeals to me. Once I established it as a routine, it's not bothersome to me at all to continue; its become something that I don't think much about, that I can tolerate reasonably well.
On the other hand, a few years ago, I tried joining a local gym, and hated every minute of it. It took a ginormous amount of will power to force myself to go and to force myself to stay through an entire workout. I hated every minute of it. As time went by, it didn't become easier; I didn't come to the point where I was enjoying myself, and it didn't become routine - I still hated it with a passion. So over time, I slowly lost the fight with myself to continue going. After skipping an entire summer, I finally just gave up and quit wasting the money on the membership.
So I think the OP's point is spot on: don't make huge changes all at once, get to know yourself, your likes, your dislikes, and make little adjustments that you can maintain; don't waste willpower on something you absolutely hate doing unless you have no choice!
Well said that was largely the point I was trying to make. Recognize and admit what is difficult for you and don't force yourself to do it just because you think you should (ie gym membership) because you are burning your willpower for probably less gain than you would have gotten distributing that same amount of will over things that you tolerate or even like.
Take time to take stock of what you dislike, what you like and what you tolerate and think hard on which things will cost less willpower that will still have you making progress to your goal. If your goal is just weight loss and if you hate going to a gym but enjoy going for walks it is probably better for you to go for walks for exercise and use that willpower you saved to apply to other aspects of your goal like meal planning for example. Whatever it is you choose to do should have a focus on your goal and not be a sidetrack to it (like people who want to lose weight so they focus on making sure they drink 16 cups of water a day).
I think the amount of total willpower people have does vary person to person and I think you can "exercise" and grow your willpower by doing things you are not 100% comfortable with. I think if you avoid anything you dislike and avoid any and all discomfort then you will likely have a much weaker will than someone who pushes themselves on a daily basis. That said I also thing there is a limit to how much willpower one can have. Using the muscle analogy I also think you build it slowly over time incrementally, you don't try to just lift the heaviest weight in the room you lift what you can lift but that causes you a bit of discomfort on those final reps.
I don't know where I fall on the "willpower" spectrum. I feel like I am a very strong willed person. Even then I am conscious that I have limits and that I operate near those limits so that if I want to make some change in my life that energy or "will" has to come from somewhere else in my life, I can't just manifest it out of thin air and expect that to be sustainable.0 -
I love the OP. Too many times people fall into the trap of perfectionism - and a lot of the messaging in society encourages that idea. It's a false dichotomy of all McDonald's or all homegrown veggies, and there are so many people on this board that struggle with it because it feels like not doing everything "right" means that you are wrong and a failure. Making changes takes energy and figuring out what changes minimize energy utilized to maximize impact is really the way to go.8
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sunfastrose wrote: »I love the OP. Too many times people fall into the trap of perfectionism - and a lot of the messaging in society encourages that idea. It's a false dichotomy of all McDonald's or all homegrown veggies, and there are so many people on this board that struggle with it because it feels like not doing everything "right" means that you are wrong and a failure. Making changes takes energy and figuring out what changes minimize energy utilized to maximize impact is really the way to go.
Thanks and yes I agree, there is an "all or nothing" attitude that seems pervasive. I think it comes from the culture embracing this "you can do whatever you set your mind to!" idea of "as long as you have a positive outlook you can do anything" that honestly is unrealistic. No, you can't do anything you set your mind to...you can only do so much, so think hard about what you want out of life and act accordingly.8 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »sunfastrose wrote: »I love the OP. Too many times people fall into the trap of perfectionism - and a lot of the messaging in society encourages that idea. It's a false dichotomy of all McDonald's or all homegrown veggies, and there are so many people on this board that struggle with it because it feels like not doing everything "right" means that you are wrong and a failure. Making changes takes energy and figuring out what changes minimize energy utilized to maximize impact is really the way to go.
Thanks and yes I agree, there is an "all or nothing" attitude that seems pervasive. I think it comes from the culture embracing this "you can do whatever you set your mind to!" idea of "as long as you have a positive outlook you can do anything" that honestly is unrealistic. No, you can't do anything you set your mind to...you can only do so much, so think hard about what you want out of life and act accordingly.
With weight loss, as long as the goal isn't unreasonable I think it can be that binary. Either you're all in or you're not. You can make a single firm commitment or you can nurture your willpower everyday and accept that some days there just isn't enough to go around. It can easily turn in to a way to give yourself permission to stray from the path without accepting responsibility for it. This doesn't mean that you have to be rigid about never exceeding you calorie goal. You can give yourself permission to make an exception. But treating willpower like there is a finite amount seems like giving yourself permission to fail.3 -
CarvedTones wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »sunfastrose wrote: »I love the OP. Too many times people fall into the trap of perfectionism - and a lot of the messaging in society encourages that idea. It's a false dichotomy of all McDonald's or all homegrown veggies, and there are so many people on this board that struggle with it because it feels like not doing everything "right" means that you are wrong and a failure. Making changes takes energy and figuring out what changes minimize energy utilized to maximize impact is really the way to go.
Thanks and yes I agree, there is an "all or nothing" attitude that seems pervasive. I think it comes from the culture embracing this "you can do whatever you set your mind to!" idea of "as long as you have a positive outlook you can do anything" that honestly is unrealistic. No, you can't do anything you set your mind to...you can only do so much, so think hard about what you want out of life and act accordingly.
With weight loss, as long as the goal isn't unreasonable I think it can be that binary. Either you're all in or you're not. You can make a single firm commitment or you can nurture your willpower everyday and accept that some days there just isn't enough to go around. It can easily turn in to a way to give yourself permission to stray from the path without accepting responsibility for it. This doesn't mean that you have to be rigid about never exceeding you calorie goal. You can give yourself permission to make an exception. But treating willpower like there is a finite amount seems like giving yourself permission to fail.
But....there is a finite amount. Since when is acknowledging reality the same as permission to fail? I don't think realism is the same as pessimism. I did not come to terms with not being able to do everything I'd ever want to do in life because I was depressed and was looking for a reason to quit, I did it because coming to terms with reality was a means of becoming actually effective in my planning. I do not find that depressing I find that empowering.20 -
And only those folks who don't want to expend the willpower in the first place will use it as an excuse. For others, especially melancholic temperament like me, finding a way to compromise with myself helps me avoid setting myself up for failure and extreme anger at myself for failing what was impossible to begin with. It helps me stay grounded and reasonable.8
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sunfastrose wrote: »I love the OP. Too many times people fall into the trap of perfectionism - and a lot of the messaging in society encourages that idea. It's a false dichotomy of all McDonald's or all homegrown veggies, and there are so many people on this board that struggle with it because it feels like not doing everything "right" means that you are wrong and a failure. Making changes takes energy and figuring out what changes minimize energy utilized to maximize impact is really the way to go.
There are a couple of posters here on MFP that are that way. I've heard it insisted that unless you get below 25 BMI and a waist of 35 for women, then you can't possibly be considered healthy at all-one even stated that no woman in a size 16 can possibly consider herself healthy or ok. imagine what that said to me, who started at 30W! I'd love to be in a 16W!
For me, that's a huge undertaking that I most likely will never achieve. Comments like that invalidate all that I have fought to accomplish and do make me feel like a failure. That's the sort of thing that sets me up for failure, unlike recognising that every move downward is a step in the right direction.13 -
On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense to me, and I readily see some ways to implement it. But it concerns me as well. Does this mean it's hopeless for those whose daily life pretty much uses up all of their willpower (I'm thinking work & family issues they cannot change, health problems, depression, etc.) to be successful at weight loss or achieving fitness?
I struggle with depression, and since I know exercise helps me with that, force myself. It takes every ounce of willpower I have. But once I get going, I'm fine. And it seems that exercise renews my supply of will power.
However, once a month I am completely depleted and this strategy doesn't work. At this time I bear in mind Spoon Theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory
https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/5 -
I really need a tl:dr version. I have no motivation to read all these words.
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In my opinion, forget willpower. You can't reply on it. You can't even rely on motivation. Rely on DISCIPLINE which means you do something even if you don't feel it. DISCIPLINE is what will move you forward in the long run. Don't feel like getting up to run when you said to yourself the night before you will? Do it anyway. That will work towards developing the discipline to do it anyway. The problem is if you skip it, it will be much easier to just skip it the next time you're supposed to do it.12
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I continue to follow the interesting discussion on here. BTW, my original post was thrown out there more as a topic of discussion than a personal plea, but my own situation does make me wonder about the limits of willpower. I have lost about 70 lbs in smaller chunks over the course of about 3-4 years despite some challenges and have mostly kept it off. So clearly, I was able to make some willpower available to get that done. I'm still a good ways from my healthy weight range, though, and just haven't been able stay focused the last couple of years to tackle the rest. (I know this is a common problem.) I still have the willpower to log daily, I still do exercise I enjoy (primarily for my mental well-being). But so far, I haven't been able to dig deep and find the willpower to regularly achieve a calorie deficit going forward . The OP seemed to possibly shine a light on that- there are many areas of my life that require extra effort to do things I don't want to be doing- and I think that could well be hindering my ability/willingness to make a sacrifice in yet another area. In my case, I know I still have a bit of wiggle room willpower-wise, at least some of the time. But it made me wonder if a person could genuinely get maxed-out in his or her ability to tackle weight loss, at least at a given time. It's very easy to say a person has a choice to stop spending their energy on other things, but life is not always so cut & dried. If it were primarily a time issue, maybe, but it's my understanding we're talking about the mental effort required here.
At any rate, it was never my intent to argue or be a downer here. I wholeheartedly agree with the principle that we need to limit the unnecessary drains on our physical, mental, & emotional energy to the extent we can in order to focus on more productive things. I also really appreciated the thought that was brought out later about the notion of willpower being strengthened through use.
Here's another question I've been thinking about... are willpower and self-discipline basically the same thing? If so, and willpower is finite, would that mean that self-discipline is finite as well? Discuss 5 -
leonhnchan wrote: »In my opinion, forget willpower. You can't reply on it. You can't even rely on motivation. Rely on DISCIPLINE which means you do something even if you don't feel it. DISCIPLINE is what will move you forward in the long run. Don't feel like getting up to run when you said to yourself the night before you will? Do it anyway. That will work towards developing the discipline to do it anyway. The problem is if you skip it, it will be much easier to just skip it the next time you're supposed to do it.
You posted before I asked my question on this topic, but the definition I'm finding for willpower is "control exerted to do something or restrain impulses". Isn't that basically the same thing as discipline?0 -
leonhnchan wrote: »In my opinion, forget willpower. You can't reply on it. You can't even rely on motivation. Rely on DISCIPLINE which means you do something even if you don't feel it. DISCIPLINE is what will move you forward in the long run. Don't feel like getting up to run when you said to yourself the night before you will? Do it anyway. That will work towards developing the discipline to do it anyway. The problem is if you skip it, it will be much easier to just skip it the next time you're supposed to do it.
You posted before I asked my question on this topic, but the definition I'm finding for willpower is "control exerted to do something or restrain impulses". Isn't that basically the same thing as discipline?
In my simplistic opinion, willpower is something you consciously think about and it tends to be something that is limited, just like the op said. Discipline is something you don't even think about like brushing your teeth every morning without even thinking about it. But my point is, when you don't feel like exercising when you are supposed to, that is when it's especially important that you do it anyway.3 -
I really need a tl:dr version. I have no motivation to read all these words.
TL,DR - don't make it harder than you have to. Works better if you make it easier for yourself ..
Would you agree Aaron that this is your post in a nutshell?
I have said similar on here about logging - don't aim to do it perfectly, aim to do it as as lazily and easily as gets results for you.
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When I hear "discipline" I think that it implies a negative connotation about people who are struggling, as though it's something they are lacking that represents a flaw in them. It feels judgmental to me in a way that willpower doesn't.
I would rather use "habitual" for the definition of "does something without even thinking about it." And I think the optimal use of willpower is using it long enough for something to become habitual. Then you will have that willpower available in other areas. I very much agree with OP, though. Sometimes what someone really needs isn't more discipline or more willpower, what they need is help/reassessment of priorities, etc.
This has been an interesting and useful thread. Thank you, OP.14 -
leonhnchan wrote: »In my opinion, forget willpower. You can't reply on it. You can't even rely on motivation. Rely on DISCIPLINE which means you do something even if you don't feel it. DISCIPLINE is what will move you forward in the long run. Don't feel like getting up to run when you said to yourself the night before you will? Do it anyway. That will work towards developing the discipline to do it anyway. The problem is if you skip it, it will be much easier to just skip it the next time you're supposed to do it.
Honestly this distinction is entirely semantic. Willpower is often defined in exactly the same way you defined discipline. Call it whatever you want. The main point is you shouldn't pretend you have an infinite amount of it and you should be conscience of how you "spend" what amounts to a limited resource.7 -
It's very easy to say a person has a choice to stop spending their energy on other things, but life is not always so cut & dried. If it were primarily a time issue, maybe, but it's my understanding we're talking about the mental effort required here.
I think when people say they don't have the time to do something often they mean they don't have the will/energy to do that thing coupled with the fact that they have prioritized other things in their life. I agree that often we feel the need to prioritize things other than weight loss due to life's circumstances but ultimately it is a choice. It is a choice to have a family, it is a choice to have a career that takes a lot of ones time. Now those might be very important to you, more important than weight loss, but that just means those are higher priorities to you than weight loss...not that you don't have a choice. And that is fine, there are things in life that are in fact more important than weight loss in any given moment. My suggestion is just that people take honest stock of this and decide if they really want to lose weight that at somepoint they will have to prioritize that over something else and they are unlikely to be able to just slap that on top of everything else they are doing in a rather full life most adults lead.
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nickssweetheart wrote: »When I hear "discipline" I think that it implies a negative connotation about people who are struggling, as though it's something they are lacking that represents a flaw in them. It feels judgmental to me in a way that willpower doesn't.
I would rather use "habitual" for the definition of "does something without even thinking about it." And I think the optimal use of willpower is using it long enough for something to become habitual. Then you will have that willpower available in other areas. I very much agree with OP, though. Sometimes what someone really needs isn't more discipline or more willpower, what they need is help/reassessment of priorities, etc.
This has been an interesting and useful thread. Thank you, OP.
This was basically my point. Its all well and good to say people just need "more" willpower or "more" discipline but saying that to someone isn't going to help them conjure up "more" of that out of thin air. I think its much more useful to tell people that it is important to realize it is a limited resource, they only have so much of it and it is important to take stock of ones priorities and think hard about what one needs to do to make room for new goals in ones life (which can include something like weightloss). This post is a counterpoint to the "just believe in yourself" or "just try harder" type of posts. I don't think that sort of advice is actually useful.3
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