5 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Eating THAT

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82222665As a health and fitness professional, I see and hear more often than anything else that nutrition is the toughest part of developing a health and fitness lifestyle. I can certainly attest to and agree with my clients on this one.

There are times when I even make impulsive decisions that cause me to feel terrible about my moment of weakness. These decisions don’t leave a huge immediate physical impact on my body, but they often mess with my head, make me feel a little mental fog, and lose some of my energy. Then what happens? Sometimes I end up falling off the wagon completely because I feel like I’ve already failed, so what’s the point? I don’t think I have to ask for a show of hands for how many of us have experienced this situation, do I?

The reality of the matter is that it really doesn’t matter how others see us or what they think, it’s how WE FEEL about ourselves. We are the ones who suffer the consequences of our actions and impulsive decisions in moments of weakness.

man_with_question_mark-blueSo how do we fix this? The first thing we really need to do is learn to be less impulsive about the things that could interfere with what is truly important to us. Take these next few steps:

STEP 1: Grab a couple pieces of paper and a pencil (ancient, I know) and sit down with your thoughts.

STEP 2: Write down and clarify your goals and what’s important to you.

STEP 3: Determine and write down all the things that could possibly get in the way of you and your goals. 

STEP 4: Go through each of the scenarios you’ve come up with and create a solid plan of action.

I find that a lot of people are impulsive simply because they aren’t clear enough with themselves about what it is they truly desire. So when the moment of derail approaches, they are more likely to cave in because they haven’t thoroughly thought everything through. Without a clear idea of where you want to end up, you can’t create a good roadmap for how to get there.

So now that you have your roadmap and directions for your destination, when you encounter those moments where you have the opportunity to go off-roading, hopefully you’ll check back with your directions and stay on course. If you still find it difficult in that moment of weakness, ask yourself these additional five questions:

QUESTION 1: How will the decision to eat this make me feel physically tomorrow?

QUESTION 2: How will the decision to eat this make me feel mentally tomorrow?

QUESTION 3: How hard or long am I going to have to workout to burn this off?

QUESTION 4: Am I WILLING to workout that hard/long to burn this off?

QUESTION 5: Is eating this RIGHT NOW going to feel better than how I will feel when I hit the goals I want to achieve LATER?

If the roadmap doesn’t sway you from off-roading, hopefully the answers to these 5 questions will put a bitter taste in your mouth and cause you to push that (fill in the blank) away and stay on course.

Yours in Health,

Tanya

2 thoughts on “5 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Eating THAT”

  1. trifitnessblog Post author

    I really like this posts for those moments in my everyday, where I realize that I am approaching an area where I will be faced with an opportunity that I know will likely lead me astray from my goal focus in nutrition for the day. It either always happens early in the day when I’m stopping to get my coffee and I see the scones, bars, flavored oatmeals, breakfast sandwhiches. I know what I like with my daily coffee and I keep it as pure to coffee as I can tolerate to eliminate the unnecessary sweeteners and syrups and other flavor additions, so I can easily avoid the calorie dense drinks on the menu. The seasonal specials don’t influence me because I know what I like and I like to stick with it. The challenge for me lies in that I know I want to get a breakfast in, or pick up something for an hour later when I may want a snack. This requires a little bit of mindfulness and prep. Now I realize that I have a hot cereal option or a healthy oatmeal sitting next to the microwave with a dish ready to use everyday. This means I at least have a healthy alternative available to me at work in which I can easily just add water and heat it, and then add the good stuff like honey, and peanut butter into it to have a better option than whatever I may have picked up at that local coffee shop. In addition, I save time and money in the long term and have the assurance that there is a better alternative always available when the day gets too busy to make a good decision for the cravings and my goals. Just shows how a little planning and strategy helps me stay on track with moving through my day feeling better and avoiding having to question whether I am making the right choice. I already have that confidence in it.

    -Jeremy Lindquist

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    1. trifitnessblog Post author

      I can definitely relate to that, Jeremy! Thank you for sharing your personal experience and a couple tips that help you make better choices, as well. When you’re prepared, you’re much more likely to choose well and be proud of the decision you made!

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