Dieting: Will and Won’t Power

“I’m going to give up sweets, quit smoking, stop overeating, cut down on alcohol. No, I’m not, because I have no will power!” If you lack the willpower to keep your New Year’s resolutions, maybe it’s because the resolutions you’ve made really call for “won’t power.”

Won’t power doesn’t work very well — in fact, it usually doesn’t work at all. That’s why 19 out of 20 people who try to lose weight usually gain it all back.

When people use the word willpower, they usually mean its negative underside — won’t power — expressed in terms of what they’ll be giving up: favorite foods and comfortable habits.

Won’t power is a negative tool that attempts to achieve an aim by default, by virtue of not doing something. To see just how ineffectual

won’t power is, consider the old game of trying not to think of an elephant. The elephant image insinuates itself in your brain no matter how hard you try to blank it out. Trying not to think of chocolate doughnuts or cigarettes has the same result.

In weight-loss efforts, won’t power puts the emphasis on doing without: on resisting old favorites, cutting down on quantities, doing hand combat with the chocolate devil when faced with a plate of brownies.

Fasting — doing without food altogether — is the ultimate expression

of won’t power. The implied message of a fast: “I’m so helpless when faced with food that I can’t deal with it at all.” Won’t power, taken to its extreme — not eating at all — is obviously not a permanent solution to a weight problem. How can you learn

how to eat by not eating! Well then, just what is real will power? The word gives itself away by the part of speech it puts first: “will,”

not the muscle-flexing noun but the well-intentioned verb. The will in

willpower is an action word that talks about something you’re going to do:

Today, tonight for dinner, for the rest of your life. As in: “I will learn to eat and enjoy healthy non-fattening foods.” It’s usually verbalized more colloquially and less formally: “I’m going to learn how to become a low calorie cook,” “I’m signing up for cross country ski lessons.”

The shift in emphasis is significant. The statement, “We’re not going to

stop for take-out fried chicken any more,” focuses on doing without fried chicken.

Here’s the flip side, willpower at work: “Tonight, I’m going to make oven-fried chicken the low-calorie way, with all our favorite seasonings. And a great big salad with lots of colorful veggies.”

There’s nothing dreary or self-denying about real willpower. Deciding

to be good to yourself by eating healthy foods, hiking in the woods,

joining the smoke-free majority are all positive, pleasurable, life-affirming actions that energize you to do good things for yourself, things that make you happy and feel good.

Willpower decisions can’t have any negative words in them like “won’t”

or “not.” “I will eat fresh fruit,” is a will-power decision. Even though it

contains the word “will,” “I will not eat candy” is a “won’t power” statement.

It’s just another way of saying what I won’t do instead of what I will

do. Try to catch yourself trying to use won’t power instead of willpower. Then think of its more powerful opposite.

For example:

• Won’t power is sitting grimly transfixed by another person’s chocolate mousse, then caving in when they offer to share it. Willpower is ordering fresh raspberries for dessert — who cares what they cost!

• Won’t power is squeezing into clothes that don’t fit, a kind of self flagellation and public humiliation you foist on yourself as punishment for gaining weight. Willpower is looking good right now with clothes that fit and flatter (you can always take them in).

• Won’t power is skipping breakfast (to save calories), then succumbing to the pastry cart at coffee break. Will power is stocking your freezer with a year-round supply of berries to go with your high-fiber breakfast cereal.

• Won’t power is going to the pizza place with your friends and watching them eat (then stopping off at the Ice Cream parlor by yourself).

• Willpower is making your own pizza: with whole wheat crust, crunchy veggie toppings, fresh herbs and lean mozzarella.

The difference between will power and won’t power is all in your head.

To a casual observer, two people assembling a salad may seem to be doing essentially the same thing. But one salad maker is doing it with enthusiasm and imagination, while the other is doing it grudgingly, heart and mind still focused on the fried onion rings s/he didn’t order.