Most people will say the same thing when they see someone who is dedicated to their fitness goals “Wow, they must have some serious willpower!”
The truth is willpower actually has nothing to do with it. What you’re really doing when you decide to dedicate yourself to your health goals, is changing a behaviour. It’s not about willpower, and it’s not about restriction or control. It’s about changing whatever negative association you might have with food and fitness to allow you to make a change in behaviour.
Think about Pavlov and classical conditioning – his research is based entirely around teaching an association (whether it be positive or negative) to elicit a response. Not familiar with his work? Here’s a really weird video to give you some background
If you approach a goal without being ready to make the lifestyle changes to support it you may find yourself coming up short. Fitness goals, in particular, don’t only require an increase in physical activity – they also entail changing eating habits, sleeping habits, controlling stress levels, increasing water intake, the list goes on.
Here at Sandbox Fitness we like to encourage people to make lifestyle changes that they know they can execute for the rest of their lives. In fact, before I set a goal with a client I actually ask “is this something you would be happy to do for the rest of your life?”. We ask this, not to be drama queens, but to encourage realistic goals that promote changes in behaviour. Because we know that in order for an actual change to occur, there first needs to be a change in behaviour (the habit).
Naturally, people are led to believe that succeeding in their fitness goals has everything to do with willpower.
“If I have enough self control to stay away from sugar and breads I’m sure to lose weight”
“If I just make myself go to the gym everyday I’ll look better”
I think this is because people with strong willpower often succeed in every other facet of life – and research actually proves that people with willpower are more successful in school, business, and overall life. BUT research also shows that willpower is much less successful in achieving a permanent fitness goal.
Why?
Believe it or not, research has shown willpower to be dependant on our blood sugar levels. The same way muscles can be depleted when exercised, so can willpower if it’s used too much. Every time we use willpower to make us do, or not do something, we are quite literally using sugar from our blood.
One of the reasons I’m so against diets is because they are incredibly restricting. Think about this – every time you restrict your eating you are calling on your willpower. But that’s not the only place you use willpower in your day – you might need to get up earlier than normal on a certain day, or stay late at work, or to turn off the TV to finish your homework. We use willpower everyday in ways that we don’t even recognize. So if we’re depleting our willpower in all of these other ways throughout the day – then no wonder why it can’t always be called on when it comes to making good food choices or choosing to go to the gym.
So let’s put this into perspective. We know that hunger is a sign of low blood sugar levels, and we also know that dieting is pretty much equivalent to being hungry all of the time. So essentially, by dieting we create a state of hunger which contributes to depleting willpower. To make matters worse – we’ve been led to believe that the equation to lose weight is easy; calories in vs. calories out. So we push ourselves to burn more calories than we eat, use up all of our blood sugar stores (depleting willpower) and then we make terrible food choices because we’re exhausted.
Let’s compare changing our outlook on health to choosing a new pizza place. If we try something new, it was cheap, and we really enjoyed it – it’s very likely that we will return to that pizza place. The same thing goes for making a behaviour change – you have to make a change, and then you have to not only see the value, but also enjoy the value. Once you get to that point, then you can add another change. That’s exactly why every goal that we put into place with our clients is implemented in small, realistic stages.
Everyone knows that the gyms flood in January – hundreds of people purchase gym memberships with the best of intentions. But unfortunately come February most of those people have given up. We want to dedicate ourselves to teaching you how to make permanent behaviour changes.
Let’s kick willpowers butt!
PS – stay tuned for tips on building the perfect resolution!
References: “Foodist” Darya Pino Rose, Ph.D.
