‘How I finally kicked my bad eating habits to the curb – and you can too’

Willpower: Control exerted to do something or restrain impulses

In motoring terms, to reach your dream car size and shape you need to find the switch that turns on your willpower.

You might like to think of willpower as your windscreen wipers helping to push obstacles in your path to one side, making the road ahead a lot clearer and smoother. Or you might prefer to view willpower as your shock absorbers helping to buffer any rocky patches you might hit along the way.

Resisting temptation isn’t just putting it off until no one is watching because the only person you’re cheating is yourself.

“Willpower is not genetic; it requires the WILL to resist and the POWER of a resolved mind” – Anon

Baby steps

How many times have you started a weight loss regime and gone all out changing everything so dramatically that you get into a tailspin and before you know it you’ve reverted back to your old eating habits, consuming all the foods you know and love again?

Changing too many eating behaviours at once can often be too much so it’s better to take things slowly and adjust along the way. You’ll be amazed how many small changes add up over time.

Making healthy choices and simple lifestyle changes will see you achieve far more long term results and success than starving yourself of your favourite foods and making yourself miserable in the process.

Eating healthy does take some effort. It can be more time consuming to prepare, it requires planning and is often more expensive than takeaway or pre-packaged meals.

Keep a log book

Keeping a log book and tracking all the food and drinks you consume is a great way to view your food fuel mix and makes it easier to recognise the unhealthy parts and help you make small changes to every meal.

If you don’t want to write down everything long-hand then there are some great online apps like MyFitnessPal or FatSecrets that will help you keep track of what calories, fats, carbs and protein you’re consuming.

Persistence and determination

Focussing on the end result is a good way to fortify your willpower.  Set achievable goals and work towards them.

It was Vincent C Lombardi who said; ‘The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge but rather a lack of will.

Fail to plan, plan to fail

Even when we have the best of intentions, it’s easy to lose our resolve when we’re hungry.

Planning your meals ahead of time will help you stay on the straight and narrow and avoid the pitfalls.

If you find yourself scouring the fridge or pantry looking for a quick food fix, be sure you only stock healthy snacks and not sweets, or biscuits or chocolate to eliminate the temptation.

Never go shopping on an empty stomach either, it makes it very hard to maintain any willpower and we tend to make poor food choices as a result.

If you fail, don’t give up

You’re not always going to travel smoothly along life’s yellow brick road,’ there will sometimes be obstacles that get in your way that may take you off-course.

The ‘old you’ might find it easier to stay off-course and go back to your old ways, but the ‘new you’ needs to recognise these downfalls and reassess your approach and get straight back on track.

Seek help if you can’t moderate

I’m an ‘all or nothing’ girl, my closest friend describes me as having ‘a flair for excess’ and one of the hardest words in the English language for me to master is ‘moderation’.

In addition to using food to satisfy my hunger, I’ve also used it in copious quantities to comfort my emotions and calm my stress. I have sought a great deal of help and support over the years to help curtail it.

In order to really change my relationship with food, I had to reframe my thinking and view it as food fuel for my dream car.

Would you knowingly put substandard fuel in the car your drive? Would you put fuel in your car that you knew would damage the engine and make it break down or not perform at its best?

Of course the answer is a big NO.

You need to view your body as your dream car and think the same way about the food fuel you put into your body. Are you getting the right amount of vitamins and minerals from your current food sources or are you damaging your chassis by consuming far too much sugar, fats, and calories?

If you can think about eating as fuelling your body rather than comforting you, then you’ll start making different and better choices in the foods you devour.

If you’re having difficulty controlling your eating or drinking there could be an underlying problem that might be worth chatting to a professional about. I always suggest starting with your GP.

“It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not,” – James Gordon

Now it’s time to take off the handbrake and see what you can do.