Will power and motivation

I stopped thinking that I needed either willpower or motivation.

Having a goal is great, but relying on willpower (denying yourself things you want) and motivation (the energy or drive to do something) is not sustainable long-term. It is miserable to think that you're going to spend the rest of your life denying yourself the things you want, or that you're always going to feel eager and motivated. These are mindsets that accompany a short term diet, but what happens when you reach your goal? You can't stop paying attention to your diet or eating just the way you used to; if you do that, you won't spend very long at your goal weight. Instead, you need to create sustainable routines that don't require to you have either willpower or motivation.

Most of us eat the same few things almost all the time. We have a set of go-to recipes we make. Use that to your advantage. Figure out your go-to recipes and how they fit into your calorie budget. Work with your routine.

Get in the habit of exercising regularly if that's one of your goals. Eventually it becomes something that you just do, rather than something you have to be motivated to do.

Fit the things you like into your routine too. You like chocolate? Budget calories for a piece of chocolate, have a chocolate protein shake or bar, drink chocolate milk, whatever works for you. You aren't going to be a healthier or happier person if you can never have the things you want.

If you aren't able to stick to your routine for a few days, that's okay. You know your routine and you can get right back to it.

Willpower is short term. Routines are long term.

Routine! Motivation is hard to count on, but routine wI'll save you every time. Every time you mess up or make a bad choice, do What athletes do: review the tapes. Look at what led up to it, what happened and the consequences afterwards. Also, look at successful times and do the same. That's how you'll figure out stuff like: you do better on work days with a larger am meal and lighter lunch, you do better if you eat every x hours, having sugary drinks at 3pm leads to problems at 5pm, nuts/protein bars in the car are a lifesaver or whatever works for you. I think we get so afraid of failure that we steamroll over the data of what that failure is trying to tell you. (Eg. If you always eat a 4th meal when you stay up till midnight, go to bed at 11 or plan your 4th meal and leave calories available for it instead of wondering why this keeps happening and trying to use motivation to avoid eating. It's not a mystery! You ate dinner at 6:30. Its been 4.5 hours.)