Willpower vs. Skillpower

We’ve heard it time and time again: “I’m doing everything possible to lose weight, but it just isn’t coming off!”

This statement implies that your body weight is a function of your willpower. In fact, decades of research have shown that this simply isn’t true – much like your body height, your weight is mostly regulated by your genetics and your environment. No matter how hard you try, it is pretty hard to get taller! Similarly, while the willpower method can often help you shed some pounds in the short term, over the long haul, for most people, it simply isn’t enough to overcome your environment or your biology.

Instead of using willpower to try and eat less and exercise more, why not instead learn skills to overcome your obstacles that don’t rely on willpower? Let’s call this skillpower.

Examples of skills that don’t require willpower:

1. Embrace a healthy sleep routine: turn off all screens 30 minutes before bedtime. Go to bed at the same time each night. Wake up at the same time each morning. Get the right amount of sleep for your body so you can feel energized and restored every day.
2. Eliminate some of the stress from your life: some stressors are unavoidable, but some aren’t. Pick an avoidable stressor and get rid of it!
3. Schedule time for yourself every day: you are more important than your job, and just as important as your family members. If you are sacrificing your health for your work or your loved ones, then your priorities are out of alignment. Find at least one hour of “me” time every day.
4. During your work week, replace two meals a day with fixed calorie meal replacements: it takes a lot of willpower to try and only eat half of your sandwich, and then you end up eating the other half anyways. It takes no willpower to have a CNC meal replacement drink.
5. Optimize your medical management: work with CNC providers to optimize your medical situation – when possible, substitute weight-friendly medications for conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and depression, and when needed, use medications to control the increase in appetite that happens as a direct response to weight loss.
6. Have regular appointments for your health: this can be with a CNC RDN, a yoga studio, a personal trainer, a piano teacher, your primary care provider for a wellness exam, a spin class, or whatever you’d like. Commit to some form of a wellness visit every week!

In our long experience at CNC, patients that have the most success find routines that do not require willpower. Regular office visits with our professional staff are a great way to harness the energy of skillpower. If you haven’t been on a regular schedule with us, consider a bi-weekly or monthly program so you can achieve your goals without resorting to the “try harder” methods of the past.