Keep pounds off with Automatic Awareness We're looking at automatic awareness of food choices today as the second deep dive into our 7 principles of healthy eating that guided us in designing Willpwr+EE. We are talking about a special kind of awareness, one that works effortlessly, not compulsively.
Defeating negative habits Why "Going on a Diet" is a Mindset for Failure Goals reflect how you think about problems and how you think about yourself. If your goal is something along the lines of "I'll diet so that I can be thin", the implication of that goal implies that you start dieting, reach your goal, and then you stop dieting. We all know what happens after that.
apps to combat negative habits The 7 Skills Willpwr+EE Will Help You Master for Lasting Change We believe the only way to keep weight off, no matter how you lose it, is to develop healthier habits in spite of how tempting our food world has become.
cravings Tiredness and Overeating Without putting yourself down or anything like that, just watch yourself for a few days to see when you are most likely to overeat or snack on fattening foods. Many folks discover a connection between feeling tired and reaching for munchies.
Willpwr apps Emotions and Addictions A person with high emotional reactivity and low emotional regulation is in for a rough ride when it comes to dealing with behavioral or chemical addictions.
Negative habits Urges, Triggers, and Relapses Your brain won’t ever forget an old habit entirely, but it can build a new one, eventually a very strong one, in place of the old one, and the old habit can become weaker.
Willpwr+ EE We Live in a Dangerous Food World Not bringing awareness to our current food environment is like walking unawares in tall grass in Texas without wearing boots.
emotional eating When Eating is Out of Control Next to breathing and drinking water, the most important thing we do to stay alive is to eat. It’s no wonder, then, that our bodies and our brain are fine-tuned to help us use food as efficiently as possible. Hunger, satiety, feeling energetic, feeling tired, are all parts of
Willpwr+ How not to be a Harasser We think sexual harassment needs to be addressed as an additional way our Willpwr+ se app can help you. Sexual harrassment is not the same thing as sexual excess, but it’s a close cousin. If you have a sexual excess problem, you are probably over-investing your time and attention
Sex Addict Or Scumbag? Every week or two, it seems, there is a new scandal dealing with sexual misconduct. From allegations about the president, admissions by sports giants, billionaire businessmen, politicians, or heroes of stage and screen, we’re confronted by sexual conduct that is both abhorrent and frequently, but not always, signals the
Negative habits Drag Queens and Confidence Ever heard the phrase “Fake it till you make it”? That’s a 12-step concept, and we think it is a good one. Let’s look closely at that advice and see how it applies to anybody who has been battling a negative habit or addiction. Two important overlapping conditions
Ray Baumeister Controversies Regarding Willpower and Sexual Addiction Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky are two of my scientist heroes. Together, they created the field of behavioral economics, because their subject matter was about how people make decisions, sometimes against their own best interests, and frequently irrationally, but predictably. Their work, for which Kahneman won the Nobel Prize (Tversky
12-step programs A Note to 12-Step Members About WIllpwr Apps We want to clarify that our apps do not follow 12-step traditions, but also in no way contradict them. To the contrary, we see our apps as ancillary to the excellent work and effectiveness of 12-step programs. We encourage users of our apps to seek out group membership in 12-step
sexual addiction Betrayal and Recovery The aftermath of having a sexual excess issue, a so-called "sexual addiction" of some form (serial affairs, visiting prostitutes, and sometimes repeated and dependent porn viewing are examples) affects your partner at least as much as you. This post assumes you still have a partner, that s/he
Love Addiction What's Love Got to Do With It? Have you heard Tina Turner belting out “Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?” That’s just one of thousands upon thousands of songs, poems, novels, movies or narratives coming from just about every society in the world, past and present, that addresses both the mystifying experience
addictions Inventions and Addictions I had a professor many years ago who claimed that the invention of distilled spirits kicked off an epidemic of alcoholism the world had never seen before. He said that almost all cultures centuries before that time had fermented drinks, especially low alcohol-content beer and wine. Drinking to excess was
self-control Can Self-control Become Effortless? If you are reading this blog, we can make two predictions. First, you’re probably interested in changing something about yourself. You want to be thinner or stop smoking, or eliminate using porn, end gambling or compulsive shopping, get control of your drinking… Secondly, while you haven’t given up
Willpwr apps Hanging in There Nobody said it was easy. Even with all the modern technology, professional guidance, medications, and help groups out there, ending a negative habit or addiction is hard, hard work. Most find that it gets tougher before it gets easier. We start missing our addiction. It starts screaming at us for
emotional eating Beyond the Mood-Food Connection It doesn’t take much convincing these days to underscore the importance of dealing with emotional eating if you are motivated to lose weight and to keep it lost. Freud recognized the connection over 100 years ago and thought it was an attempt to deal with unconscious needs. It wasn’
willpower Yoda, Luke, The Force, and Willpower Pretty catchy title for this piece, eh? Sometimes I get a little silly. Luke employing the Force in Starwars, and those of us using willpower here on earth, do not at first glance have much in common. The Force seems magical. It’s science fiction, after all. It affects other
Is It Your Genes? Genes play a role in every aspect of our existence as biological creatures, so it is no wonder that studies are identifying genetic connections to negative habits. We’ve known for a long time from identical twin, family, and adoption studies, that the more closely related you are to an
Is Willpower All You Need? What does it really take to defeat a negative habit? Toughing it out? Having a support group? Admitting helplessness? Trading in your personality? Well, let’s keep it simple and look just at the “toughing it out” component of ending negative habits in this piece. Let’s listen in to
Teachable moments Teachable Moments. Our apps are designed to intervene exactly when a user is tempted to act out. He or she is essentially in an “altered state” at that time. We all know what that feels like. We stop thinking about consequences or we minimize the cost of acting out. We rationalize, we
support groups Willpwr and Support Groups Research shows that social support is one of the most essential components of recovering from a negative habit or an addiction. It was a no-brainer to incorporate some kind of social user’s group into our apps, except, as we’ve already discussed in a previous blog entry, we wanted
science The New Science of Willpower The idea of helping people self-regulate their behavior has been a major focus of society for thousands of years. Think of how cultural norms, religious guidance, medical advice and legal prohibitions all encourage us to demonstrate self-control. There’s just no question that urges and desires are part of the
