Is Decision Fatigue Limiting your Results?

Been there, ate that.

I’m a nibbler, especially when it comes to foods that I think I shouldn’t be eating. Instead of just having a cookie, I’ll break it in half and eat a little now promising myself that I’ll save the rest for tomorrow, but I never do. Sometimes it’s 5 minutes later, sometimes it’s a few hours later, but I always finish the cookie and my brain only registers eating a much smaller amount.

It’s a trick that doesn’t really serve brain, body or emotion. Everything counts, not just the things we want to count!

This is one of the many things that made me go “AH HA!” while reading Gretchen Rubin’s newest book on habits – Better Than Before. In fact, I was so thrilled about it I started posting in all my groups and texting friends that they MUST read it. How to Achieve More with Less Stress - click to learn about decision fatigue and what you can do

WHY I LOVE THIS BOOK

Well I’m a habit fiend, this you know because every other week I tend to bring it up (here, here, and here).

This was the first time that someone so clearly defined WHY I love habits and WHY we all need different methods of creating habits based upon our personality.Boom, there it is!!! My day is filled with decisions and every time I can do something that eliminates the need to overthink, while improving my life, well I want in on this.

Personality: Gretchen doesn’t just go through how to form a habit, which I loved when I first saw it from Charles Durrigh, but for some reason couldn’t quite get to work for me in a lot of cases.

She defines a variety of different personality characteristics, from rebels to night owls to creative thinkers, and how those tendencies shape the way we think and act. She does a great job of really covering the all the bases.

Honesty: She shows how hard it is to get back to a habit once we break it. She reminds us that even though you ate that cookie throughout the day all the calories still count. She helps to put in perspective that life doesn’t have to be either/or (either I workout or I spend time with family).

Ideas: Rather than providing a set of guidelines or a pattern to follow, Gretchen just provides ideas throughout the book on how to put this new understanding of yourself to work. She does this by providing a lot of real world examples on how a personality type might exercise more, work more efficiently, eat better, spend less {or more if you are an underbuyer like we are}, etc.

[bctt tweet=”Learn how to use your personality to achieve more with less stress! #motivation” username=”runtothefinish”]

HOW I PUT IT TO WORK

Immediately I started to put together the pieces from Rubin’s examples of different personality characteristics to see what would work best to help me with this ongoing sugar battle.

I knew my attempts to go cold turkey failed and realized that as with most things once you’ve fallen off the bandwagon it is SO MUCH HARDER to get started again…hence my love of habits.

Is decision fatigue holding you back? Learn how to achieve your weight loss, running or healthy eating goals with less effort But when I started my weight loss journey in college I remember setting some hard and fast rules. I thought about foods that didn’t really appeal much to me, but I was eating them due to availability and I made a switch overnight:

I don’t eat fried foods (I never liked fried chicken and I didn’t need breaded food to eat out)
I don’t eat brownies or chocolate cake (I don’t love them they way I do white cake)
I don’t eat Dairy Queen Blizzards (ok this one was just happening way too often, had to stop)

All right if this was so easy why was “I don’t eat sugar” not working?!For the same reason I never followed a diet plan, my personality as a Questioner lead me to the conclusion that I don’t have to give up every food I love to be healthy and feeling restricted by a rule I don’t agree with won’t work.

“The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice.” –From NY Times

But this isn’t an either or situation! I just needed to revamp my rule!

I don’t buy from the bakery – This was something I’d adopted years ago and began to let slip here in Orlando. It started with buying cookies for David…which I of course ate too because I bought them and it lead to buy cups of frosting and danishes; things I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing years ago.
I don’t eat packaged cookies – I really don’t like the hard cookies from a package, but without this rule every time I open a cabinet and see them I have a decision to make. Do I want one or not? Then a mental battle ensues which wears me down and eventually that leads to the cookie. I haven’t had or wanted one since instituting this.
I don’t eat milk chocolate – Honestly it always makes me feel bad, but when it’s available my “I love sugar” branding kicks in and I eat it anyways. Now I just don’t.

Now I can still enjoy the homemade treats that I adore or a vegan white cupcake now and then without the guilt. It’s making it so easy to cut down on my sugar and I feel really good about myself!

Will these rules work for you? Maybe, maybe not. Are you someone who identifies with needing evidence to support a decision and likes to follow the rules?

Have you read this book?

Are you a habit lover? Any you would like to create?

PS – She offers the option to create a habit support group of sorts. If there are enough of you interested I would ABSOLUTELY do this!! It creates a place to stay accountable and check in with each other to report progress.

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