You’ll have likely heard that weight loss is 20% exercise and 80% nutrition.

Even before that it’s 100% mindset.

Mindset makes it relatively easy or near impossible to eat and move to get great results.

Most people I meet with a weight loss goal know what they need to be doing. They just don’t do what they know.

Here are 3 steps to build your weight loss will power:

1. Get honest.

If you know weight loss is 80:20 and the greater leverage is in nutrition – where are you spending your energy? Is it 80% nutrition?

That’s not my experience. It feels good to exercise. Perhaps not good at the time (yet!) but you feel good about yourself after a session right? Even proud. Perhaps even proud enough to get complacent with the food changes you were going to make.

Maybe you have evidence from your past weight loss experiences, when you embarked on a substantial exercise routine without dialing in your nutrition. Have you fallen into the habit of doing what you’ve always done? Is it effective? Is it sustainable?

Or maybe my savings analogy (below) resonates?

Regardless, it’s time to get your head out of the sand, this is an ostrich free zone!

Savings Analogy:

It sounds simple, yet if you’re putting all your focus on moving more and not tracking your nutrition you can’t expect to see awesome results.

Imagine you start to earn a lot more money. You’re not tracking your income and expenses yet you’re earning ‘a lot’ more so the amount in your bank account must be growing right? 

A lot more money is like a lot more exercise… It’s great, however you’ve got to track your expenditure if you want to see savings.

Expenditure is like nutrition. You could be spending more – or eating more, to equal or even exceed the increase in income or exercise. 

=> the old “I did this (earned this) so that means I can have” an extra cappacino… every day… and let’s make it a large one… and perhaps a little pick me up power ball to boot… every day…

How can you know without tracking it – at least initially?

2. Remove the resistance.

Resistance is what ever makes it harder to make the right choices and take the right actions. Building will power is more about effectively managing instead of constantly testing your will power.

The people you know who appear to have masses of will power actually just set themselves up to win the will power game. It’s time to put the planning time in before you find yourself in a will power challenge.

=> by clearing the trigger foods you know you shouldn’t be consuming out of the house.

It’s exhausting always thinking “I can’t have this”.  It makes you feel deprived and more likely to rebel.

=> by stocking the house with the options you feel good about eating.

=> by having ready2go meal options that are as easy to throw together after a long day as heavy stodgy takeaways are to grab.

=> by cooking meals on mass and preparing extra whenever you can so you’ve always got a head start on the next meal.

=> by managing your eating so you never get to that crazy-outta-control-hungry place where you have the least chance of a will power win.

I believe we all have a daily discipline quota. I cover it here: Setting Yourself Up To Dominate The Fat Loss Discipline Game:

3. Add accountability.

It’s amazing how much easier it is to let ourselves down.

Once you make your goal known to the people closest to you you’ll be incentivized to stick to it.

I think a component of will power is having skin in the game. Make your goal public and things get serious. You won’t commit to a fluffy wishy washy goal and you need to commit.

Yes it’s daunting to make something personal and challenging public. Perhaps it’s something you’ve failed at in the past. However that’s just fear holding you back. Fear that it won’t work this time. The thing is it only doesn’t work when you give up.

Doesn’t it make sense that the bigger and more challenging a goal the more support you should accept?