[12wbt] Willpower muscle is weak

Week 2 of the 12wbt has come to a close and unfortunately, my willpower muscle is not as strong as it used to be. Or perhaps, it has never been that strong and I need to exercise it just that little but more. So it would seem fitting that Michelle Bridge's weekly email on the 12wbt program is titled "Power Up That Willpower Muscle!"

Here's what happened over the weekend that left me feeling defeated: it started on Friday. We headed out to the cinemas for a movie and I consumed a packed of chips, I told myself it would be ok because it would be my treat meal and besides, I had a 7km run on Saturday. 

Saturday rolled around, I ran I had breakkie and lunch and all was going well. Then hubby and I sat down to play Fallout 3 (yes, I'm that sort of girl!) and I end up eating some of his left over pods and a packet of chilli peas, totalling about 1000 calories. When it was time for dinner, I ended up just having some Pitango tomato soup which is all I really felt like. After dinner, we end up playing games until midnight. 

While we slept in a little more, I woke up Sunday morning feeling tired and regretful for having stayed up so late. After two pieces of toast with some peanut butter and a nashi pear for breakfast, I couldn't shake the feeling of hunger. I have an extra slice of toast with peanut butter. Lunch was pretty good - a 12wbt recipe - open steak sanga with caramelised onions. Delish. Things are looking better and then it's Pizza Hut for dinner. I won't go into detail as to what I ate but as you can imagine it wasn't good.

There is definitely a feeling for regret and anger for not having more will power. The whole weekend made me recall an article I read on self control: What Can Self-Control Do For You? 10 New Studies Provide Surprising Answers. The most important point here being #1 - Can it make you happier?. This point summarises information from a scientific journal article, "Yes, But Are They Happy? Effects of Trait Self-Control on Affective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction". Basically, their research showed that people with high self-control are happier because it helps them deal better with goal conflict. These people with high self-control didn't spend time or waste emotional energy agonising over what they are eating or doing. For me, this would have been saying no to foods that opposed to the goal I wanted to achieve and to turning off the PS3 at 10pm so get a good nights rest. 

Something to remember for week #3. Will power and self-control.