SUPERHEALTH WITH KYLE DREW
Time to Meet Mr. Will Power
by Kyle Drew

“The Fast and Easy Way To Lose Weight!”

“Shed Pounds While You Sleep!”

“Eat Whatever You Want and Still Lose Fat!”

How many of these kinds of ads have you noticed this time of year? A better question may be, How many of these kinds of ads have worked on you?

January and February are the red-hot months for weight loss marketers. After February, it’ll be all about “getting ready for swimsuit weather.” Afterwards, they hit you with comfort food and holiday goodies. And the cycle repeats itself over and over again, year after year. Eating big during the last third of the year, and promising to help you “quickly and easily” take off the pounds the other two-thirds of the year.

One of the reason marketers are successful at this is because Americans have lost all sense of good, old-fashioned willpower. Do you even remember that term? It used to be what helped our parents and grandparents wake up in the morning, work all day, fight a few wars (and win), and generally do what had to be done.

Today, the concept of willpower is all but lost. I don’t know if it slowly crept out beginning in the era of remote controls or microwave ovens, but somehow, hunkering down and saying no to immediate gratification isn’t promoted anymore. Unscrupulous marketers love this about you because they know you’ll probably respond to words like, “Quick!,” “Easy!,” “Effortless,” “Miracle!,” “Overnight!” and others. Your brain just stops working, and your hopes become piqued beyond control.

To be totally transparent with you, my natural inclination is to want the hype to be true. In junior high, I fell for every ad that promised me I could be Charles Atlas in only a matter of weeks. I bought every supplement that showed pictures of “rock hard abs” on the label. I tried a lot of different things with the money I earned from mowing lawns, not realizing that the act of mowing lawns all day did me more good, physically, than all of those whiz-bang supplements combined.

As I got older I did the classic experiment where I’d eat whatever I wanted, and then tried to “out-supplement” my bad habits. I’ve discovered that everyone tries doing this. I had lunch with a guy just last week who, at age 45, still tries to justify his molten lava chocolate cake by showing me the sack of supplements he takes to “counteract the effects,” (and smirks all the while, knowing it’s just wishful thinking).

The fact is, we all want to try to have our chocolate molten lava cake, and eat it, too.

It’s time that someone comes out and just tells you the truth: You cannot eat poorly and expect to reverse your illness or fit into your high school prom dress, regardless what anyone tells you.

Before you get angry or depressed, just wait. If you’ve believed the lies up until now, chances are you’ve remained sick and overweight despite the hyped up gadgets you’ve used. Doesn’t that make you even more angry and depressed? Would you rather keep throwing your money away, or listen to someone who has tried it all, studied what works and what doesn’t, and is here to lead you to some real results?

What you need is willpower. Uncomfortable, relentless, early-to-bed, early-to-rise, come-what-may willpower. Willpower isn’t pretty. It isn’t Madison Avenue glitzy. Instead, it’s grimy. It’s sweaty. It has a square jaw and broad shoulders and says, “Follow me.”

For all those who follow Will Power, you’re in for an uphill climb. He awakens you when you’re cozy. He forces you to walk past the Danishes to the produce isle for your breakfast. He makes you brown-bag your lunch. He introduces you to steamers and blenders and juicers and dehydrators.

For weeks after meeting him, you’re sore. Still, he gets you up, makes you lace up your shoes and move. And even though you take it slow at first, your muscles still ache, you still cough, and you sometimes keep perspiring long after your shower is over. Will Power keeps encouraging you to move forward, in spite of a few weeks of discomfort, telling you that the pain is just toxicity leaving your body.

When a birthday or other celebration comes, and all your overweight friends go on and on about the dessert “you just have to try,” Will Power blocks their advances. You hear your stomach moan as you swallow the extra saliva that builds up in your mouth when you catch a whiff of the baked goods. No matter. Will Power isn’t falling for their prisons disguised as sweets.

After a couple of months of being subjected to Will Power’s reign, you resign yourself to getting up early on your own. You stop even looking at the Extra Value Menus. The commercials for the new pan pizza doesn’t hold the allure it once did. Instead, you have an extra helping of your favorite Phase One dish, savoring every bite. The habits that once imprisoned you are slowly dying, and you find that you’re impelled to keep pressing on.

Finally, one day you step on the scale and you’re at the weight you’ve wanted all along. You get a checkup at the doctor’s office, and for the first time in years, your blood sugar is normal. Without realizing it, the back pain has gone away. The headaches just aren’t there anymore. Plus, you’re sleeping like a baby.

Now, Will Power is just a normal part of your life. Now, you can easily indulge every now and then, and stop with just one piece of your birthday cake, or one piece of chocolate. Now, when you have any more than a tiny piece, it’s almost miserable. It takes more effort to keep eating the junk than it does to just put it aside. You smile as you take a single bite of the dessert, knowing that you want no more than that. You feel a little sorry for your friends who are still hooked on sugary sodas and who try to convince you they’re “doing everything” they can to lose weight, “but nothing is working.”

Once you’ve achieved this, you realize that it all happened without the glitter of full-page magazine ads or the allure of late night infomercials. It came through Will Power’s grit. It was neither “quick” nor “easy” nor “effortless,” and once you’ve experienced the simplicity of just doing the right thing every single day, it certainly doesn’t seem “miraculous.” Instead, it seems obvious.

We’re all suckers for marketing hype every now and then. But deep down inside, we know that depending on those sorts of strategies is merely a way of postponing the day when we look at ourselves in the mirror, drop every excuse, and simply grind it out.

You don’t need a “how-to” article from me this month. What you need is a “go-do” article. Go meet Will Power again, and this time, really do what it takes to achieve your best health ever

Trained in both chemistry and public relations, Kyle Drew has spent his entire professional life either in the conventional or alternative health industries. Drew resigned from the pharmaceutical sales industry after witnessing how medical decisions are made. He has worked with Doug Kaufmann since 2005 and offers nutritional counseling through the Health Food Center in Oklahoma City where he hosts the radio show, SuperHealth.

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