The fallacy of willpower

Weight: 262 (a little low, I was sick yesterday and lost some water weight)
Calories: Unkown

Today was just a disastrous day for the diet. Leftover birthday cake that not nearly enough of my coworkers ate, beer, pizza appetizers...not a good first day. Failures are a discouraging part of dieting. And yet, I'm still quite excited about this venture.

I think one of the really great tragedies of failure in dieting is people feeling like they've failed out of personal weakness. Every mistake is a failure of will power. Strong people have strong will. But that actually misses a huge point about the nature of people. Nearly anyone when faced with true temptation often enough over a long enough period will give in. That's why diets so often don't stick.

If control over the moment - the only time in our lives we can control - requires will power, that does not mean will power gives you control over the moment. Preparation gives you control over the moment. In the Art of War, one of Sun Tzu's principle tenets is that the battle is really won before it is fought. It is the same here.

My will power over the birthday cake is exponentially increased if I:
- Know how many calories I can eat and meet my goals
- Know how many calories I have eaten today, and how many I have left
- Plan what I am going to eat throughout the day ahead of time
- Buy my groceries ahead of time to reduce impulse buying and reduce bad foods to tempt me
- Throw away tempting foods that are uneaten beyond their original intent. In other words, throw away the birthday cake on your birthday. Yes, it's wasteful to throw away 3/4 of a perfectly good birthday cake. We're not in starving Africa. I can't get that leftover cake to them. It's not like it's doing any good in my stomach either. Nor is most of our food particularly expensive. Throw...it...away.

Thus brings me to three of my guiding principles, of which I will write down and prioritize. I'll talk a little more about them later, but tracking my calories, planning my meals, and reducing temptation by removing bad foods are my first three guidelines.

By doing these things, I magically gain will power over the chocolate cake. I still have to make the decision, and I still have to make myself do the little things to prepare, but the success is really in those little things. Let's see if I can hold to it.