Tip: Concentrate your willpower where you need it most. Don’t try to cut down on your computer chat time and lose weight at the same time. If you’ve spent the whole day fighting the urge to tell off a difficult colleague, don’t go shopping after work. Vohs found that people were willing to purchase more when their willpower had been drained by a previous unrelated exercise in self-control.

Keep blood sugar steady: Even a small blood-sugar dip, which occurs after you’ve skipped a meal, can impair the areas that oversee planning and self-restraint. Ironically, research shows that exerting your willpower decreases glucose even more. So if you skip lunch and spend the afternoon fighting the desire to dip into a coworker’s candy jar, you could set yourself up for an evening binge.

Did you know that willpower is more than just mentally restraining yourself from temptation? Consider this:

Physiological factors, such as blood sugar, brain chemistry, and hormones, also influence–and can undermine–our powers of self-restraint. The good news: “Once you understand the forces that weaken your self-control, you can do a lot to strengthen it,” says Kathleen D. Vohs, PhD, associate professor of consumer psychology at the Carlson School of Management in Minneapolis.

With that in mind, knowing how to handle temptations and using the following tips (put together by writer Nancy Kalish) may be necessary to reaching your fitness and weight goals. “Willpower is like gas in your car,” says Vohs. “When you resist something tempting, you use some up. The more you resist, the emptier your tank gets, until you run out of gas.”

Tip: Eat small meals that contain both complex carbohydrates and protein throughout the day (including breakfast). Keep protein-packed energy bars–with at least 5 g of protein–in your bag so you never have to skip a meal. By stabilizing blood sugar, you’ll be better able to resist overeating–and other impulsive activities–later.

Don’t overdiet: Eating too little not only depletes glucose, it also curtails the production of leptin, a hormone made by fat cells that helps regulate appetite. “Within a few days of starting to diet, your leptin levels can drop by half,” explains Neal Barnard, MD, author of Breaking the Food Seduction. “Plummeting levels can increase appetite and bring on a binge.”

Tip: Follow “the rule of 10″: Multiply your target weight by 10, and never eat fewer calories than that daily total. And be sure to exercise 30 to 40 minutes each day. (A walk is fine.) Daily activity also maintains healthy levels of leptin, research shows.

Don’t skimp on sleep: Research shows that getting less than 6 hours of snooze time decreases decision-making abilities and leads to what Vohs calls “failures of self-control” as the day wears on. One mechanism in play: ghrelin, a hormone that triggers hunger. One study of healthy adults found that after they got 4 hours of sleep just 2 nights in a row, their levels of ghrelin increased by 28% and their appetites by a whopping 23%, especially for salty snacks and sweets.

Tip: Sleep between 7 and 8 hours each night. To get that amount, keep your room dark, quiet, and cool and develop a presleep ritual, such as a 10-minute meditation, to banish the day’s stresses.

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