Look Who Ran Away with Your Fr>ee-Will and Will-Power...

Fr>ee-will is important to us all. We've fought for it and we'd fight for it again if we realised someone tried to take it from us. But have you considered that your fr>ee- will is being eroded in such a subtle way that, before you know it, you've lost it. Our will-power is best considered when looking at what we eat. Eating well is vital to our wellbeing - you don't have to be Einstein to know that. Yet many of us have given little more consideration to what we put in our mouths, other than to think about the explosion of flavour. I'm going to go on here and talk about food, but you could just as easily substitute what I say about food to what happens with your TV set, your cigarette smoking, drinking, newspapers and the negative stories and the business of life and do-do-doing. For around the first twenty-two years of my life I ate what my mother cooked for me. Beyond that I ate what my wife cooked for me, plus what the advertisers told me was good for me. By the time I reached the age of twenty-five I was eighty pounds overweight. By the time I reached thirty, I'd ballooned by another seventy pounds. Looking at the statistics of obesity, I'd say my experience is quite typical. It all happens because we fail to take responsibility for what goes into our mouths and because advertisers know how to get us in a buying trance where we ignore everything else except the feeling of their product in our stomach. This failure to take responsibility is what determines that live our lives according to someone elses will. Is it any different in other areas of life: sitting mesmerised, channel hopping, nothings on but you can't turn it off; you know smoking is bad for you, but it makes you feel a little happier with life; the news is disheartening, but you read it any way, with a morbid hope that by somehow reading it, everything will get better. And what can you do when TV advertisers make pizza look mouth-watering, chocolate look sexy, they tell us milk has calcium that's good for our bones and that wine is good for the heart. And we believe what they tell us... usually without question. Why? Over a year we're bombarded with this image or that. They come via our TV, on billboards, in magazines, via the internet. It is little wonder that if we don't have a strong will and line drawn in the sand, that we will eventually succumb to the power of the advertiser. When we think of their product we remember how delicious it looked, when we taste it we know it will taste fantastic - because the advertiser told us it would - when we smell it we remember it for next time. And we then get bombarded with more adverts telling us this or that is for us. Our will weakens and once again we succumb to the advertiser. It's little wonder the nation is gaining weight, under stress, fed up and feeling like identity with our selves has been lost. It's like we're in a trance drifting along a pavement, remembering the tasty images we've seen on TV; remembering the feeling in our mouth; remembering the experience of eating; remembering the smelling the bread or the coffee as the waft of crispy chicken wings drifts along the high street as a call to you, to stop in, fill up and feel good. It's like we can't help but smoke, or drink, or work because we know we'll get sacked if we don't. But do the processed foods that look good on TV and taste sensational in our mouths sustain us? Do our habits or addictions or our lifestyle make us feel good day-to-day. Are we functioning at maximum output or left with the sense that there must be more to life. Reclaim your fr>ee-will. Don't just eat things because you have always eaten them or because the TV says you should - don't trust anyone who has a vested interest in the product. If they are advertising the product, they're making money on it and might not have given your overall health much thought. And why should they? A food manufacturing company makes food. It's your responsibility to choose if you want to eat it or not. If you want to feel great and look good then choose the food that goes with that. If you want to feel sluggish and enjoy having rolls of fat hanging over your belt then buy the food that goes with that. It's your right to have bad breath and have smelly clothes as much as your right to have perfect health, it's your right to do what your told at work as it is to have respect for your personal life. How do you make these informed choices? Remember every decision you make is like putting fuel inside you. It ignites your passion or douses the fire. You wouldn't put diesel in your unleaded fuel tank would you? Don't risk putting fuel in your engine that might cause you to lose power. Reclaiming your will power put the right fuel in your tank, every time.