Willpower vs Habits on Keto: Why "I Need More Discipline" Usually Means "I Need a System"

2019-03-20

A 26-minute Facebook Live from March 2019. The day before, I'd asked my group what holds them back: how to do keto, cravings, boredom, social eating, or discipline. Discipline won by a mile. This is my answer, and it's mostly an argument against willpower.

In this recording

[0:02] The results of my question post: almost nobody picked "how to do keto"; most picked discipline.
[0:59] Two roads: track for yourself, or get someone to track with you (a coach, a spouse, a friend, the group). You can't improve what you don't measure; I compared it to judging teachers without any metric.
[1:55] From my marketing-consultant past: key performance indicators. Tracking doesn't have to mean macros. If macros are a non-starter, track something.
[2:40] A calendar you like looking at, rating each day 1 to 5 or by colour, like a "year in pixels" page. I said I don't recommend scale tracking; I'd rather see inches, resting heart rate, or lean mass if you can measure it.
[3:31] If you've been doing keto a while and it isn't working, how you're doing it now isn't the interesting part.
[4:21] Willpower is the drill sergeant. [5:10] But the military also makes you make your bed. That's not toughness, it's routine: something done well at the start of the day, waiting for you at the end of it.
[6:44] Do you have systems? A calendar, regular string measurements? Results come after the work. My analogy: a house starts as a cleared lot and a hole for the foundation, not a chandelier.
[8:10] Foundation habits: eat consciously, drink water, reduce carbs, choose nutrient-dense foods, even before you're in ketosis.
[8:52] Willpower is for short bursts, like a rocket burn to correct course, not for the whole trip.
[10:23] Build recipes you enjoy. [11:47] Are you a good cook? You should be able to make a chicken breast delicious. I mentioned I was working in a kitchen at the time and grew up partly around a restaurant.
[12:30] Prioritise. If weight loss is in your top three, use some willpower. If it's fourth or fifth behind family and work, build a few habits around it, like one on-plan meal a week everyone likes.
[14:34] Gritting your teeth every day fails, not because you're weak but because that's not how success gets built. Planning is.
[15:53] A scorecard: two bad meals out of 21 is 19 out of 21, not "I suck."
[17:27] Even in a week you don't lose, could you get better at two keto meals? You are what you repeatedly do.
[18:19] Log food before you eat it, so you can decide before, not regret after. My short "how to do keto" answer: keep protein high, keep fiber high, and when in doubt, if you're in fat adaptation, bring fats way down. Bored with food? Fewer, better meals; intermittent fasting can help with that.
[19:59] Not tracking is like a pilot landing while texting.
[20:50] Tracking can just be "today I didn't self-sabotage." Sleep and stress count.
[21:33] Willpower fails when life hits: a death, a breakup, a layoff. Turn it into habit while it's working.
[22:17] Me: I'd gained some weight back over the winter, weight loss hadn't been a main focus, and I was back in MMA training.
[24:26] The free version of accountability: give a relative or co-worker a list of questions to ask you once a week.
[25:07] Make it fun: join a team, cook with family, meal prep with a friend and trade meals.

Watching this in 2026

What holds up is the reframe. "I lack discipline" sounds like a character problem. Most of the time it's a feedback problem: no record of the 19 good meals, a perfect memory of the two bad ones. The scorecard idea fixes that without a single macro.

It's also the long version of a line I'd used since 2017: make decisions, not mistakes (live LXTA1256). Logging before you eat is that line made practical.

And I was honest about myself in it. I'd regained some weight that winter (live KPDK8043). That's the same point I was making to everyone else: willpower ran out when weight loss wasn't my top priority.

The claim worth unpacking: "keep protein high, keep fiber high"

This was my one-breath summary of how to do keto. Both halves have support beyond my say-so.

Protein. Raising protein from 15% to 30% of energy, with carbohydrate held the same, cut what people chose to eat by 441 kcal a day and weight by 4.9 kg over 12 weeks in 19 adults (Weigle et al., 2005). A review put about 1.2 to 1.6 g per kg a day, with about 25 to 30 g per meal, alongside better appetite and weight management (Leidy et al., 2015).
Fiber. The European food-safety panel set 25 g a day as adequate for normal bowel function in adults, and linked higher intakes with weight maintenance (EFSA, 2010). On keto that means spending carbs on vegetables.

What isn't on the evidence pages is anything testing my calendar, string or scorecard methods. Those are my coaching habits, not findings.

Who should track differently

If you have a history of an eating disorder, daily scores, logging every bite, or "bring the fats way down" can feed the problem instead of fixing it. Work out what to track, if anything, with your therapist and doctor. More in eating disorders. And if you have kidney disease, check protein targets with your doctor before raising them.

Key points

"Discipline" problems are usually missing feedback. Track something, even a coloured calendar.
I preferred inches, resting heart rate and lean mass to the scale (live KPDK8043).
Willpower is for short course corrections; habits carry the trip.
Learn to cook a few keto meals well. A week with no loss but two new meals is still progress.
Protein high, fiber high (Weigle 2005, EFSA 2010); fat is the dial, which is my rule, not a finding.
Free accountability: someone who asks you the same questions every week.