Let's talk about willpower. willpower been their absolute theme that all diets rely on. If you're going to have any chance of being successful, you have to have willpower to avoid the cake in the office. You need to have willpower to avoid the cake at the party. your willpower is what allows the diet to work. So let me tell you a story about willpower.

There was a scientist named Roy Baumeister, he conducted a study where he had a room full of people come in the room smelt like freshly baked cookies. The room smelled incredible. Half the people were allowed to eat the cookies. The other half we're only allowed to eat radishes. You can imagine that that required have fair amount of willpower by the people who were only allowed relishes. The second part of his study involved all of those people and completing a rather challenging geometric puzzle.

Now, the people who had only been allowed to eat radishes, they finished around to that eight to nine minute mark, not finished, but they gave up. After the H nine minute mark, it was actually a puzzle that couldn't be solved. The people however, who had been allowed to eat the cookies, managed to stay on task for significantly longer time. They gave up around the 18 to 19 minute mark. Now what Roy took from that is that willpower is only it was only ever meant to be a limited resource. It's not something that we have unlimited supplies of Roy likens willpower to a muscle So if you are holding a weight and you are using a muscle, eventually that muscle will tire, he'll get fatigue, you will need to rest.

So what he was trying to show through his study was that the people who didn't need to use any willpower, they had lots of brain space to complete the geometric puzzle. What he was showing was that the people who had had to use willpower, who had drained this muscle, so to speak, they had less brain space when it came time to cope with the challenging puzzle. Now, there are people that say that Roy's study is you know, not really worth the paper that was written on. There are other people that say, you know, he's quite spot on with what he's saying. willpower is really a limited resource. I read his studies And I really, you know, I relate to it.

Because anytime you're on a diet, and you have to avoid certain foods, I don't know about you. But I spent a lot of that time thinking about that food thinking about not wanting to think about that food. And they call that the white bear syndrome. So if I say to you now, don't think of a white bear. What do you think of you thinking of a white bear, and the idea that we have to withhold certain things, and for long periods of time, in order to have success on diets, you know, it doesn't really doesn't really make sense that it's gonna work for you. So that's part of why I am now so for allowing yourself to have what you really want.

Rather than fixating on something or not allowing yourself to have something, just have a bit of it. You know, you're Much better off having a slice of cake. And even if you only want to have a few mouthfuls, but have some cake, get it out of your mind. You don't want to be two days later thinking I'm really craving really craving some brownies scotch, I don't know why I just can't get them out of my mind. Well, had you had the brownie a couple of days before you wouldn't be in that position. So think about willpower.

Don't use it against food. And for those of you that are thinking, I have to have willpower or I'm gonna, you know, I'm constantly going to be eating oily chips or whatever it is that your go to food the can't be trusted around is the reality is quite different. You won't end up doing that. And I am not eating salty crinkle cut chips all the time. That was my feed on Actually, you know I've rediscovered food now that I'm not dieting, and I'm sure that you will have the same experience. So remember, anything that requires long term willpower like diet will eventually stop working for you.

So another really great reason for why we no longer diet