Self Discipline vs. Will Power to Achieve Wellness and Weight Loss

After spending most of my life yo-yo dieting and relying on willpower to stay within my points, allotted calories, and exercise routines, I realized that willpower alone is not enough. Will-power is a finite resource. Most of us can summon willpower in the short term, but it typically does not last. What does last is self-discipline, but the key to its success is that it must be built over time. Self-discipline is the process that creates habits, much like brushing your teeth or taking out the trash. Neither of those tasks is exciting, but we do them because they are necessary,

During a conversation with my coach, Mary Welch we discussed some of the changes Laith and I have made over time; I realized that we did not lose over 85 pounds between the two of us using willpower. We employed self-discipline to achieve our goals. Did we love giving up the sugar in our coffee? No! Do we love doing yoga 5 days a week, not at first, but we made it a habit and now look forward to it. Do we love fasting? Yes and No. Yes because of how we feel afterward, however sometimes it's hard to get started, especially when habitual hunger cues kick in.

Habits are like muscles that need to be exercised over time. Being a runner, I didn't start out running half marathons. You start out small, running one mile at a time, slowly building over time until you get better at it. The same is true of building a healthy lifestyle. Replacing old unhealthy habits with new healthier ones takes time and realistically should be done slowly for it to stick. What has worked for us is doing things that we could live with by doing it every day or nearly every day.

When Laith and I got started, the first thing we did was cut out sugar. Was it easy? No, but we stuck with it and in a very short time started experiencing results. We didn't start doing 3-day fasts right away, we started with what we felt we could do; 14-16 hours initially was good because neither of us ate breakfast. Once we realized we were already intermittent fasting naturally, we started increasing the time to ultimately be comfortable going longer 17 - 18 hours until we were able to do one meal a day (OMAD).

Here are some of the things that we changed over time, one at a time until they become habits. Each of these things has had a significant impact on our health and wellness:

1. Eliminate sugar!

2. Eliminate snacks (or add/group them with your meals.)

3. Practice intermittent fasting (start with eliminating breakfast, or pushing breakfast out an hour at a time until it's no longer wanted or needed). This narrows you're eating window to 8 or fewer hours a day to reduce insulin spikes and allows the body to utilize stored body fat.

4. Eliminate processed/ultra-processed foods (chips, pastries, sodas, fast food etc.)

5. Eliminate processed inflammatory seed oils (canola, safflower, sunflower, vegetable, soy.)

6. Instead use grass-fed butter, high-quality olive oil, coconut, or avocado oil.

7. Read the labels. If it has ingredients you can't pronounce, or if it has seed oils and/or sugar in the top 3 spots, especially "natural flavors", put it back.

8. Choose organic when possible.

9. Transition to a whole food diet, fresh veggies, grass-fed, pastured protein, full fat (organic) dairy, avocados, olives, nuts, salmon, etc. (Mediterranean style is our favorite.)

10. Add cruciferous veggies, spices, and fermented food to feed your gut microbiome.

11. Add exercise that is enjoyable and doable like yoga and walking.

12. Get a good night's sleep (at night is when your body repairs.)

13. Drink plenty of water and electrolytes.

14. Eat carbs sparingly, especially bread, pasta, and rice.

15. Eat fruits sparingly, while fresh fruit has fiber and nutrients, they contain fructose which can only be processed in the liver. We typically eat berries that are low in the glycemic scale and the occasional tropical fruit for its nutrition.

None of the habits listed above took willpower. They were decisions and choices we made every day and over time. Having a strong "why" and a self-disciplined mindset was the key. While the mainstream lately has been trying to convince the masses that obesity is a disease and is genetic and only treatable with a pill (yes, they really are saying that), we have experienced quite the opposite. Losing weight has everything to do with how often and what we put in our mouths (quantity, quality, and frequency). While all of these tips may not work for everyone, our experience has been successful with a method that doesn't cost anything, except the cost of clean and quality whole natural food.

Sadly, there is no money in being healthy as the big food, big pharma, and sick care industry would rather people continue being their cash cow, treating symptoms instead of finding the root cause of chronic illness. The food is the source. Change the food, change your life.

Cheers to good health!