If you are familiar with some of the common literature on self-help and motivation you know that willpower is a lot like a muscle.

 

Studies have shown that people who have to use their willpower a lot seem to run out of it. For example, smokers who go without a cigarette for an entire day are more likely to overeat on candy or drinkers who resist the temptation of their favorite drink become physically weaker on a test of endurance.

 

Once your willpower muscle is exhausted, it seems you are left defenseless against temptation. This can be a problem especially for beginners because changing your diet for the better requires effort and will somewhat deplete your willpower.

 

So what do you do to not lose all of it within a few weeks of dieting?

 

You have to bypass willpower as the essential driver for your results. Let’s me give you a very drastic example.

 

If a family member was going to get killed if you didn’t lose weight, you would probably get started right away and definitely reach our goals, right?

 

There is simply too much at stake. Fortunately, such a situation is not going to occur, but you can use the same logic to bypass your reliance on willpower.

 

A good way is to make a public commitment to your goals to set up some sort of consequence mechanism.

 

There is more and more evidence showing that people who make a public commitment (e.g. telling their family and friends) are a lot more likely to reach their goals.

 

The encouragement from your peers is a great help but so too is the humiliation of failing in front of them. Start telling people about your fat loss efforts and post Facebook or Twitter statuses sharing your goals. If this is too much for your than simply tell your spouse to remind you of your goals every week or so.

 

Another great idea is to arrange a bet with yourself or another person. You pay some money into a virtual account and only get to keep it if you successfully lost and maintained a certain weight.

 

This will definitely up the pressure and even though it might be too extreme for some people, it’s exactly what other people need to reach their goals.