Strengthen Willpower to Eat Less

You've heard of exercising your muscles to lose weight. But how about exercising your willpower?

Picture it. You're slim. You didn't use to be slim. But you learned how to exercise your willpower. Now, you eat less. You can pass up the gooey chocolate dessert. You can eat a few crispy steak fries, then decide to quit. You have self control around food. And, you're slim.

Research by Roy Baumeister at the University of Florida reveals that self control is like a muscle. This actually makes sense--we all know that self control can suffer from fatigue, like a muscle. Think of how hard it is to keep your patience, go to the gym, or resist comfort foods at the end of a long day. When you're tired, self control is weaker.

But did you also know that self control can be developed and strengthened, just like a muscle? Challenge it a little, let it rest, and then challenge it again. Just as your quads grow stronger when you drop into a set of squats every day, your self control grows stronger with every little challenge.

Sounds great, but how exactly do you exercise and challenge your willpower? You can't exactly pop your willpower onto the treadmill. Start by turning one distant, long-term weight-loss goal into many smaller, short-term eating goals, which are easier to achieve. For instance, if you're faced with a snack attack, your short-term eating goal would be to eat some fresh fruit and try to hold out against the chips and cookies for, say, 15 minutes. When you make it through those 15 minutes eating only fruit, you've succeeded. You've also exercised and strengthened your willpower.

Willpower can also be boosted when it's depleted: a short nap or rest, a small snack that includes some fresh fruit or whole grain carbohydrates, something that makes you laugh, or any other kind of "pick me up" that works for you.
Each food encounter we have during the day is an opportunity to strengthen willpower, just like a trip to the gym for your quads. If you need extra motivation to meet those individual food challenges with success, get some support. Over time your willpower will grow stronger, you'll have more self control around food, and you'll be slim--just like you pictured.

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