Willpower

He & She - Yang & Yin

His Trigger Point In Life

Dear reader, today I will share with you a story about the willpower. This time we will peak in both the male and the female world. Males and females are different in many ways and the are the same at the same time. We are both human beings that have all the qualities and senses and look the same externally and internally with a few differences in some of our organs but we tend to experience the world in a different way. Males for example have a greater ability to focus. They detach easier and as well are less emotional (or experience the emotions in a different manner) but can have higher intensity in anger than woman. Their willpower can be as well a lot stronger as it is somehow connected with the ability to focus. If one is focused then one can follow through with ease.

I will start with the story of my husband and his willpower. It was 2023 when a letter from the GP surgery arrived inviting him for a regular check up over the age of 45 years old. He went and the results were not great. They told him that he is a pre-diabetic and that he has to change his diet. He came home and was murmuring around wondering what to do and how to do it. His diet consisted of a massive cup of coffee with cows milk and 2 to 3 spoons of sugar every day since I knew him. Most days he ate his home made sandwiches for tea after he hit home or he was leaving them for the following day for lunch. The sandwiches were always prepared with mayonnaise, ham, tomato and bread. Every single day Monday to Friday he was having only that for years, like 10 years in a row. A coffee in the morning and a three in one for tea - breakfast, lunch and tea - brunchea 😂 (I created a new word for the 3 in 1).

The day after the GP visit he woke up and said - 'That's it! I am stopping the sugar from today and you are not allowed to buy any more sugar and bring it home.'. - He did not just stop the sugar, he stopped the milk as there is sugar in it, he stopped the normal bread and started buying rye and sourdough bread. He was consuming alcohol now and then usually, around 20 beers an year and sometimes rakia for cheers only. He stopped even that. He is consuming only vodka now if at all, as there is nearly no sugar in it. He cut off all the sweets, cakes, chocolate, everything that had sugar in it and that was only for a start in the first year. He started watching and following different food enthusiasts. As he is a heavy meat eater, he has never fasted in his life except this Holy Night and day that passed in 2025 as I challenged him to try it for a day. And guess what.!? He survived after a day of fasting 😂. He is following and educating himself mainly from people who eat meat and proteins.

This picture is from the summer of 2024 in Crete.

When I use the word 'fast' I mean that one is avoiding everything from the animal world for a certain period of time. We are Christian Orthodox and we fast twice a year for around 40+ days, before Easter and before Christmas. I do not do it for the religion but for my body and the way I feel. I tried it for first time with food around 2020 or 2021 before Easter and since then I do fast every year before Easter. I like to fast Spring time as it feels refreshing and invigorating and prepare me for the summer and the year ahead. My body loves it and feels a lot lighter and more energized during it and after it.

The Results

This is my chubby hubby in early years. Such a fluffy sweety, isn't he?

Very few people have the power to take a decision and to follow it through does not matter what. I warn him not to cut everything off at once as it may have consequences but he said that it will be Ok. After the second week of him stopping sugar he started to experience dizziness but a heavy one. His balance was heavily disturb. If he was to bend down he could not lift up without flying off to one side. He nearly fell of a ladder (he actually did fall, but from a small high). It was scary to watch. He started loosing weight. That first year he lost around 20 kg only stopping the sugar but in everything. He changed the instant coffee with a normal cafeteria coffee. The most frightening of all was the nose bleeding. It was summer time when he started with the nose bleeding (he used to experience nose bleeding before since teenager but when he put a lot of weight this disappeared alongside his constant headaches). This time it was a very heavy and consistent one for up to half an hour at a time. A whole cloths were coming out of his nose and he was swallowing a lot of blood. This bleeding proceeded for an year. It got very worse when we hit Bulgaria that summer as the heat was affecting him even more. There was one moment in the UK outside the boys' karate club where I thought I lost him. The bleeding was so strong and heavy that he nearly suffocated on it. I was wondering if to call the emergency and in my fear I told him off to get on with himself and to stop the bleeding and I do not know if that helped or what happened that the blood stopped. But I still remember the fear as there was a lot of blood coming out. That same summer he did not got the usual hay fever. He used to get it every year. That was a good benefit.

Then in 2024 and 2025 he changed a lot more foods. We started making our own home made ham from baked pork or beef or chicken breast. He stopped buying mayonnaise and started making home made one. He replaced the mayo with hummus and mashed avocado and he replaced a lot of the oils with animal fats in the heat preparation of the food. In 2025 I went on a special food regime for a few months and he joined me for certain parts of it as it was based on meat and animal proteins. He lost over 40 kg since that start day in 2023. He was over 125 kg (I think) and now he is 85 kg.

The same year of 2023 he got a severe pain in his shoulder and he was given a list of daily exercises by the physio. Not only that his willpower is tremendous and superhuman but his consistency and determinations are beyond exceptional. Does not matter if we travel or we are home, he will do the exercises daily with whatever handy weights he can find at the moment. It takes him around 10 min but he does not skip a single day. And I do a few months of 60 to 180 min trainings and then stop. Then go back to it and then stop... My consistency is cyclical and long while his is short but constant and the results are on. I do have a result as well but I do go through very high ups and downs and my body and emotions find it a bit more stressful sometimes. It requests more energy from me.

Reflection Pause

So, to wrap it up, my husband is one of the most determined and consistent people with laser focused willpower on the planet. I am wondering how are you doing in such life triggering situations? Do you take fast decisions? Do you follow through or you start and stop and then start again and stop again? Or you completely give up and procrastinate?

Can you keep the focus on? What about the motivation? What is making you change? And what is keeping you going?

Her Trigger Point In Life

Radka 3 months pregnant with the first child in 2011.

It was 2012 when I found out that I am pregnant again. My first child was only 10 months old and I was still breastfeeding him. Two months before that I started smoking again from time to time. First it was a cigarette a week and then it became a cigarette a day until I felt unwell one day and I made the test. Once I saw that it was positive I stopped smoking straight away. I visited the Midwife clinic and told her that I am pregnant and that I smoked until I found out I was pregnant. She did not believe me that I stopped smoking just like that. She offered me some pills and stickers for the body. I refused them. Every time I visited her she asked me if I have started smoking again. Until the end of the pregnancy the answer was always the same - 'I stopped and I do not smoke anymore.'

I have not smoked since back then. On one of the visits she asked me how I did it. To decide it, to say it and to do it. She explained me that many women restart to smoke and drink again during the pregnancy and cases like mine are rare (I was the first in her care who did that). I told her that the baby health was with a higher priority than the cigarettes and that I was even feeling bad that I restarted as I was breastfeeding the first child now and then. The first time when I stopped smoking was about 18 months before I to conceive with my first child. That was the first time ever that I tried to fast. It was in 2009 or 2010. I failed at the fasting of food very fast but took the firm decision that during that fast I will give up the cigarettes and the alcohol and I will start running and I decided on a start date and followed through. I started running daily so that I can clean and prepare my body for conception and pregnancy. I wanted to clear the vessel. And I did. The midwife was mesmerized that I have stopped the cigarettes twice by my desire and followed through.

Summary

Looking at the model of both my husband and mine willpower, focus and decision making we have a lot of similarities. These are some of our values that have attracted us to each other and have kept us together for over 18 years now. In future stories I will share with you that with growing in age sometimes our perception change as a woman and man. He did make the decision to change only after the doctors advice based on his blood results while I was a lot more determined in my young years. Aging up I started to struggle to detach due to me being a mother and experiencing the world through a different lenses. Every stage and experience in life is lesson that we go through and learn. I did managed to learn a lot more lessons than I ever expected to be ever possible. My aim through these stories is to pass you that knowledge and different perception so that you can flow through life rather than feeling stuck.

If my husband did cut everything at once I do prefer to do it slowly and steady, sometimes in stages as it creates more stability and better foundation but it request a lot more energy and long term willpower and focus like in any business or in life. It is a continuation rather than one off thing.

Picture from summer 2025

When I started fasting I found it very difficult. Nowadays I do water fast or dry fast for over 30 hours without a problem. Fasting teaches one detachment, determination, inner strength, focus, confidence and willpower stability. It is not about the food it is a lot deeper process. I created this year 8 weeks Yoga Challenge called 'Explore & Connect' and I would like to take the opportunity to invite you to join in. I have prepared a page with information. Check it is and fill the form to join me in. Once you fill the form I will contact you and we will take it from there.

The best time to fast, detox and get into shape are February, March, April and May during the Spring as this is when the nature awakes and our body naturally get into that reset rhythm. Then we can repeat or start in the Autumn during September, October and November as this is another period of a natural seasonal change that helps the body to adapt easily. I cannot wait to see you join me in. We will detox the body from heavy foods and strengthen it with a flow of yoga movements. I do eat and drink everything but I do gift my body once a year with that reset and I have not taken any medicine in 18 years now. Here is the link for you brave soul: https://www.radka.life/yoga-challenge