“If ignorance is bliss, there should be more happy people.” Victor Cousin

Our ignorance about health and diseases is not bliss.

Why we suffer from any disease?

One is our ignorance and the second is our low willpower.

Ignorance about our own body, how it functions, how the food we eat influence working of our body, how our lifestyle and inactivity impacts our health. We have no clue. What we know is only our health insurance cover will take care if anything goes wrong.

The low willpower is demonstrated when we snooze our alarm button in the morning and finally keep snoozing till it’s too late.

The low willpower is on the display when we are tempted to eat what we should not, at least about the time and the quantity.

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More than any diet or exercise posts and knowledge, what most of us need is adequate willpower to take action on what we know. Willpower is the function of our desire to get things.

Therefore, after knowing about the fundamental of our body, disease, and diet, what stops us from doing the right thing is our willpower deficit.

Juliet Burgh, Nutrition Director calls it decision fatigue.  Decision fatigue is a depletion of the ability to fully express one’s willpower in making choices after making many decisions throughout the day. When your willpower is depleted, you are more likely to make decisions that have negative outcomes for yourselves or others.

Dr. Nicole Lipkin recently appeared on the show the Insatiable Podcast, in an episode called “The Role of Discipline and Weight Loss”, told that “no matter how powerful you are, or how successful you are, we all begin the day with a tank of willpower and by the end of that day, our willpower is depleted.”

We all know many things about our bad food and lifestyle choices, but yet we don’t see a change in the behaviour which demonstrates our healthy choices.

Obesity to diabetes and osteoporosis to a backache, all are the results of our careless living. It is less about our ignorance, but more of our low willpower.

Handpicked related post: Everything you need to know about Diabetes. 

Forming the right habit is the best way to overcome low willpower. As we have bad habits which we find difficult to give up, develop good and healthy habits which also we find difficult to give up.

Juliet Burgh, in her article How To Hack Your Willpower recommends following techniques to boost your willpower and make good choices rather than bad choices;

1. Creating and maintaining positive habits that don’t require psychic energy.
2. Preparing meals in advance or utilizing a meal delivery service rather than considering infinite food choices and running the risk of making a compromised decision.
3. Letting go of feelings of entitlement to pleasurable, but unhealthy behaviors, i.e., “I deserve that cake and wine because I’ve had a long day”.
4. Reducing external clutter, which reduces confusion and internal clutter.
5. Not overwhelming ourselves with too many commitments and over packing our schedules.

I think more than health and fitness education, it is the habit and willpower that need to be worked upon. There is no dearth of information in the time of Google, what we lack is matching willpower to use the knowledge we have.

Weak will power is the root cause of all our health problem. 

Remember this quote from the great Mohammed Ali;

‘I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’

Work on your willpower and see the magic of its power.

“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.” Pietro Aretino.

Are you ruling yourself or your weak willpower rules you?  Who is the king?

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