Choices

The choices you make today will create your tomorrows. Quite often we hear that it’s too hard to try to quit eating sugar or to even keep track of what you eat. The truth is that it will take at least two weeks of various levels of discomfort before you quit craving sugar. It’s an addiction much like alcohol addiction. Tracking your food intake will take a few minutes a couple of times each day but if you allow yourself to become obese, the time in the doctor’s office due to complications caused by obesity will consume much more of your time.

Too Many Choices

Whenever we are faced with too many options, we tend to do nothing at all. (1) In modern times, food choices have increased in many countries. In the not so long ago past, food choices were limited. People ate whatever was readily available, that they could afford,and when anyone began getting overweight, they would merely cut back on their diet staples. I can remember an obese neighbor from my childhood. When her doctor told her to lose weight, he told her to eat less bread, she did and she lost weight. Her choices were limited and the behavior was simple and it worked. Today we have grocery stores stocked with exotic foods from around the world, restaurants, drive-through windows and possibly the most harmful way to get food, delivery. Part of our problem when we decide to get healthy is exactly what kind of food we will eat and where we will get it. Too many choices can be deadly. As a result, we quite often make no changes. As we we ponder our choices, we just return to old habits and the cycle of obesity continues.

HELP!

To possibly offset the paralyzing effect of this availability of food, whenever you embark on your journey to health, decide what your food source will be. If you are going to cook, then plan your menus and make a grocery list. Cook only what is on your menu in the amounts that you are supposed to eat. If you are cooking for others, cook just enough and limit the possibility of having to decide if you want second helpings. If you are going to eat out, decide where and look at the menu online before you go. Make your menu selection beforehand to limit your choices at the dinner table. If you are going to have food delivered, make your selection with your health goals in mind. DO NOT order sugar-laden desserts just because they are on the menu and you don’t have to cook them. Neither breakfast, lunch or dinner are special occasions and a mile-high slice of chocolate cake has just as many calories when it is delivered to your front door as it does coming out of  your oven. If you have food delivered frequently, this is of utmost importance. I have noticed that every restaurant that delivers to your door push their dessert menus strongly, probably because they know that the decision about what’s for dinner is a spontaneous one most of the time and they flood your brain with enticing images knowing that in your undecisive state, you are likely to succumb to them.

Irony

While having too many choices is a wonderful thing in so many ways, it’s a problem for almost everyone. We tend to consider the first few options offered and stop. Our minds naturally move on to something else so, again we have stopped the process of making better decisions. As we ponder multiple options, our reference point changes. When we first decide that we’re hungry, we may automatically know what we want to eat and have a healthy option in mind. As we peruse menus and listen to what other people are talking about eating, our resolve may flounder. Make your decision and be done with it. Take advantage of the Blessing of abundance and find something healthy to eat in a healthy portion. The flip side of this dilemma is that you will either make those positive healthy decisions now or you will make other hard decisions later. Year after year of procrastination and reactive rather than proactive living will eventually take their toll and eventually you will find yourself having to make other hard decisions. You will have to decide which doctor to use, which pharmacy and how to pay your medical bills. Hard decisions are part of life. Make them on this side of the doctor’s office.

Default

A tactic used in sales is to have a default item available to customers. It’s the “suggested” item that you see when you are shopping online. By having a default, your choices are automatically reduced. Have default menus that you can shop for, cook and track without even thinking about it. You will be less likely to consider pizza delivery if you have chicken tenderloins thawed in the fridge and a quick and easy recipe to prepare them. You might like these Sweet and Spicy Chicken Tenders for a delicious, quick and easy dinner entree. We have many recipes that can help you create a default menu so that there’s always a “suggested” item lurking in your mind. It will be much easier to Many people accept that sickness and disability will come to them as their default. While we will all die, we will not all be sick and disabled. If that is your default, however, you may make it come to pass. Change your mindset now. Choose your hard. Choose to make those hard decisions on this side of healthy.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/behind-online-behavior/201410/the-psychology-choice