December 17, 2024 • 21 mins
Hi, Sam here, I'm fighting a cold this week, hope you can excuse my stuffed up voice!
Join me this week as I tackle the difficulty of long term goals, and why in the moment, we tend to make the poor choice (vs the choice we actually want to make).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello and welcome to the Super Awesome you podcast.
My name is Sam.
I'm the host of the show on theSuper Awesome Mix podcast
network.
If you haven't done so already,please take a moment and
consider leaving a five-starreview on the player that you're
currently listening to me on.
It helps a lot to A motivate meto keep going, because I love
getting those five-star reviews.
(00:23):
It means a lot to you know.
Get that recognition, I'll behonest.
B it helps with other peoplewho you know may stumble upon
the show and can be encouragingfor them to listen themselves,
which ultimately the goal isthat we all just become a little
bit more super awesome in theworld.
So if it's helping you out tolisten and this is not your
(00:44):
first episode then hopefullyyour five star review can help
others to listen and get intothe show as well.
You can find more of the show'scontent at super awesome you on
Instagram and on threads.
I have been very busy latelytrying to figure out threads If
(01:04):
you're not on it.
It's basically like a Twitterslash X clone, but it seems to
me like it is very heavy onreplying to people much more
than just like posting content,although, I'll be honest, I'm
still very confused about how toget content that people engage
with, because I was scrollingthrough the other day and
(01:25):
someone just posted the wordmusic and that's literally all
that they wrote, and that thinghad like a hundred likes and a
bunch of you know, re-quotes, orwhatever you want to call them,
where you just like repost themor quote them, and I like pour
my heart and soul into posts ofvarying lengths and get like one
or two likes.
So I feel like I'm missingsomething.
(01:46):
But you know what the spirit ofthe show is, that we treat
every little thing as a learningmoment and you just keep
growing and keep trying thingsout.
There's a quote that I reallylike that I read recently and I
believe it's attributed toThomas Edison, the famous
inventor, and he said somethingalong the lines of like if you
want to be successful, you haveto double your rate of failure,
(02:10):
and I just love that sentiment,and so I feel like I've not only
doubled my rate of failure withthreads, but I've tripled and
quadrupled it lately.
But hopefully, on my way there,I will find some success With
that.
Let's get into today's topic.
I'm going to share a story withyou first.
It's kind of set the tone forthe rest of the episode.
(02:30):
So I am currently trying tolose some weight Ever since I
ran the marathon.
Unfortunately, I injured myselfcoming out of that race, and so
I have not been able to run forthe last month and a half.
However, I'm still eating likeI'm running 30 plus miles a week
, and so I have put on someextra weight, which I'm not too
(02:53):
happy about, you know, and it'ssomething that I think we can
all kind of commiserate with.
At some point or another in ourlives, we've added weight that
maybe we don't want there.
This is not about fat shaming.
This is not about telling younot to be comfortable in your
body.
The whole point is to feelcomfortable in your body.
So if you are carrying extraweight that you just don't want,
(03:13):
or you feel like you've madesome choices that has put it
there and you want to reverse it, then that's all I'm speaking
to, and so I'm in that boat.
I've added on some pounds thatI'm not too pleased about, and I
really want to reverse thattrend.
Now, if you've ever set along-term goal like that and yes
, losing weight is, nine timesout of 10, a long-term goal it
(03:36):
does not happen overnight.
You know the struggle thatcomes with setting a long-term
goal but then realizing that youhave to make minute-by-minute
decisions that add up to thatlong-term goal, but then
realizing that you have to makeminute-by-minute decisions that
add up to that long-term goal.
So, to give you an example ofthis, it is, you know, tuesday,
december 17th, at the time ofthis recording, or you know,
(03:57):
perhaps you're listening to iton the day that it's launched,
and it's the holidays here inthe United States, and
Thanksgiving rolled past, youknow, a couple weeks ago, and
we've got Christmas coming up,and it's the holidays here in
the United States andThanksgiving rolled past, you
know, a couple weeks ago, andwe've got Christmas coming up,
and it's the season that is veryheavy on delicious sugary goods
, and so I'll be sitting aroundbeing like, yes, I'm gonna lose
weight.
You know, I want to drop acouple of these pounds that I
(04:18):
added the last several weeks.
And then all of a sudden I'mpresented with sugar cookies or
a delicious brownie, or some icecream or you know any number of
baked goods that have just madetheir way into our home, and it
is very difficult to turn thatdown when something is just
available right in front of youand you know that you're going
(04:41):
to like it.
You know, generally baked goodsare delicious.
It's really difficult in thatmoment to remember that you're
trying to lose weight and youcan kind of just make a decision
.
You know, on the margin, so tospeak, like you can just
convince yourself, like it'sfine, I'm gonna have one or two
cookies in this moment.
You know, I don't want tocompletely deprive myself of it.
I'm not someone who thinks inextremes when it comes to
(05:04):
dieting.
I think there's just a lot ofproblems with that for many,
many reasons, and so, you know,I tend to want to allow myself
to take a cookie here and there,or eat something sugary or
sweet or some chocolate afterdinner, whatever the case may be
.
But the problem again is that Ihave to remind myself that I'm
making these decisions over avery long period of time, and so
(05:27):
the long-term goal is to losethe weight.
But the short-term issue is thatI'm making these decisions in
the moment, whenever I'mpresented with them, and it's
very easy to forget that this isall going to add up to me
either successfully losingweight or staying the same, or
adding weight onto my body, andso in this little moment, it's
(05:48):
an innocent choice to eat acookie or two.
But then maybe tomorrow comesand I'm presented with more
cookies and more baked goods andI might, in that again moment,
in just the information I haveavailable to me now, you know,
in that second, be like, yeah,I'm going to take more cookies
because you know it's fine, it'sfine.
And then you add this up over365 days and you've basically
(06:09):
never dieted or controlled yoursugar habit whatsoever and
you've either stayed the same oradded on more pounds Totally
speaking from personalexperience, because that's
pretty much what always happensto me.
So the point here is that we,you know, tend to make decisions
in a moment, you know, wheneverwe take the information that's
(06:30):
available to us right now, andit's a very logical thing to
choose the baked good and thesugary snack or take a second
serving when you know thatyou're full and all the things
that kind of stand in the way ofimproving your diet and your
health.
Why is that?
Well, we're basicallyprogrammed to eat, right?
(06:50):
I mean, that sounds like suchan obvious statement, but we
really are.
Eating is a source of fuel forus.
Our bodies will literally breakdown over time unless you feed
them.
Our metabolism is basically onegiant engine in our body that
just is constantly burning fueland, from an evolutionary point
of view, sugar and fat was notsomething that we came across
(07:14):
very often, going way back tothe beginning of humans.
The whole idea of a baked goodis honestly fantasy, right Like
it's kind of a magical thing.
There was no baking, you know.
There were no ovens, therecertainly weren't people farming
cows in the very beginning sothat you get milk, and farming
chickens so you could harvesteggs and having farmland.
(07:36):
Like none of that was happening.
If you wanted to eat, you werebasically eating what you found
in nature, and so when you, as avery primitive human being
thousands of years ago, cameacross something that was sugary
or fatty, your body was like oh, my goodness, I hit the jackpot
.
This is amazing.
I need to load up on as much ofit as possible because I have
(07:57):
no idea when I'm going to be,you know, presented with this
again and the people who youknow.
Again, from an evolutionarypoint of view, survival of the
fittest is is this ideapresented by Darwin.
The whole theory here is thatthe people that made those
decisions, like their brains andtheir guts told them to load up
on fats and sugars wheneverthey were available, probably
(08:18):
succeeded more in nature thanthose that decided not to eat
them or didn't have access tothem.
And so those people may have,just you know, they couldn't
mate, they died of starvation,whatever dark thing happened.
Because, again, humanityhumanity has been through a lot
of trials, like going backthousands and thousands of years
.
Like we have it pretty, prettycush these days, so that's all
(08:42):
well and good.
Like our brains are basicallyprogrammed to see sugar, fats,
high proteins and be like, yes,I want to eat all these things
because I don't want to starve.
It all comes back to notwanting to starve.
I feel like I bring that up inepisodes a whole lot.
But again, we have thisbiological drive at the base of
what we do.
Like that is the very root ofour brains is basically trying
(09:04):
to just keep us alive.
Everything else is just a bonus,okay, but now it's the year
2024, and fats, sugars, proteins, oils all the amazing delicious
things that we can have accessto are very easy to access.
Access, especially if you livein the United States and you are
(09:29):
lucky enough, you know, to haveaccess to food and access to
grocery stores or even fast food, whatever the case may be.
Like you can, you can feedyourself, which is something to
be very, very grateful for, butthe choices that we have to feed
ourselves tend to not be thegreatest.
You know, love Dunkin Donuts,but it's not the most
nutritional way to start yourday right.
(09:50):
It's so heavy on sugar and fat.
But we pick it because, again,our brains are telling us you
know they're coming from aposition of like oh, this is
like sparse, what a treat.
Like, look at this amazinground fried piece of dough that
is full of sugar and fat.
Like, eat as much as youpossibly can until you get sick
because this is great stuff.
(10:11):
And we do that again and againand again.
That's an evolutionary trap.
And then the reason it's a trapis because we end up actually
hurting our health rather thanhelping our health.
Because, let's be honest,putting a donut right next to
like a stem of broccoli, I meanthere's no contest, right?
At least for me, there's justno contest.
Donut 10 out of 10 times untilI feel sick.
(10:33):
And then, maybe, maybe, likethe 11th time, I'll go for the
broccoli.
But our brains look at thatstuff and we're like, oh my gosh
, like it's so rooted in ourevolutionary biology to pick a
donut over a stem of broccolibecause it just lights up our
brain Like the sugar.
Just honestly, it hits so manydifferent things like
(10:55):
neurochemical centers in ourbrain telling us this is
wonderful, you need to do moreof this.
Give me more.
And the broccoli not so much.
So the broccoli comes into thatwhole thing of like delayed
gratification.
If I were to start to pickbroccoli and tofu and like
healthy choices and beans andbrown rice instead of white rice
and like make these dietarychanges that are recommended by
(11:17):
nutritionists, the short-termdecision is one of pain.
I am not a fan of brown rice.
I'm just going to go on therecord.
I don't like it.
If I had to choice betweenbrown rice and white rice, I'm
going to pick white rice almostevery time.
But over time, if I were to pickbrown rice or whole grain bread
instead of white bread andstems of broccoli over donuts,
(11:38):
my health is going to improve.
It will be very slow, it willbe invisible.
At first I don't eat one stembroccoli and suddenly I'm
healthy.
But over that extended periodof time I will start to notice
changes and I'll start to noticethat maybe my waist line slims
a little bit, my pants start tofit a little bit better, I look
better in shirts, I feel better,which is really, ultimately
(11:59):
what this is all about justmaking sure you feel comfortable
in your body, and that delayedgratification hits real hard
after like a year of eatinghealthy and, you know, eschewing
the donut and instead having amore balanced meal, or maybe at
least limiting the donut to likeonce a week, or once a month,
or whatever the case may be, soyou don't totally lose your mind
(12:20):
.
So the issue, though, comes backto what I mentioned in the very
beginning of this episode, orearly on in the episode, which
is, logically, we're makingthose decisions, though, in the
moment, and it's reallydifficult for us to remember
that there is a long-term goalhere.
You know like we have adestination in mind.
That feels very far away,especially when you are first
(12:43):
starting out, like those firstfew days of working out, of
eating healthy, of saving moneyinstead of spending it, of
laying the groundwork down forbusiness that you one day want
to work full time.
For those first few days, youare going to see virtually no
progress.
You're going to think that youare just doing nothing at all
because there's none of thatinstant feedback.
(13:06):
Maybe you get a little bit of ablip early on because you're
proud of yourself for picking ahealthy meal over a sugary,
fatty one.
Or maybe you're proud ofyourself because you didn't buy
those new Nike shoes that youreally, really want.
But a week in, a month in,you're going to start to feel
that pain of like oh, it's beena month of this and I still
don't see anything.
(13:26):
Or it's been a week of this, Istill don't feel any different,
or my savings are still kind oflow.
What's the point?
And it's very easy for yourimmediate brain to take over.
And then you know you've blownup your goal once again.
So here's the shortcut that Ihave learned that really helps
me in these scenarios.
Really helps me in thesescenarios.
(13:47):
Ultimately, this podcast is notjust talking about the problems
and why we get into them, but,you know, ideally giving you
some kind of a toolkit to solvethem.
And here's the thing that worksfor me we have a much easier
time making decisions when wehave a framework to make those
decisions.
So, just like we have aframework for picking sugar and
fat over a healthy vegetable.
(14:08):
You can install your ownframework of decision making and
then that becomes kind of theoverriding set of rules that
your body and your brain listensto whenever you're faced with a
decision.
It acts like a shortcut fordecision making.
So the risk of constantlyhaving to choose broccoli over a
donut you know to go back tothis example time and time again
(14:30):
, the downside of that is likeyou get fatigued making that
choice repeatedly, which isunderstandable, like again, your
brain is really fighting you topick the donut and so at some
point you're probably going topick the donut and then you're
going to feel like you failedand you're off your goal.
But if you had a framework inmind and you had a sense of
(14:54):
identity, for example, identityis a very powerful framework
that really just kind of goesall the way around, this need to
make a decision every singletime, because you look at the
donut versus eating somebroccoli and brown rice, and you
don't even make the decision.
You're just like nope, I'm aperson that eats brown rice and
broccoli instead of donuts, orI'm a person that has oatmeal
(15:17):
for breakfast instead of a donut.
And you just state it factually.
I am a person that fill in theblank.
And you say that to yourselfenough times, you start to make
decisions not from a position ofsomeone who's trying to diet or
trying to make better choicesor trying to save money.
You make the decisions fromsomeone who is what you want to
(15:39):
be.
So I am a fit you know athleteand I treat my body really well
and I make really goodnutritious choices, make really
good nutritious choices.
And so whenever you'represented early on with the
donut or oatmeal for breakfast,you're going to remind yourself
of that statement and you'regoing to think, well, what would
(15:59):
a pro athlete eat for breakfast?
They probably have oatmeal withlike pecans or walnuts.
And you're like cool, well, Iam an athlete, I'm going to pick
the oatmeal with walnuts.
And you do that enough times towhere your brain is no longer
making that choice anymore,because it's now installed this
framework, this identity, towhere you are making choices
(16:19):
from a position of who you wantto be rather than who you are
today.
In my own life, there was a timeperiod where I was vegan, and
that is a very powerful identitythat you can take on when you
want to manipulate your diet,because I was vegan at the time
for ethical choices and alsoenvironmental choices, and when
(16:43):
I was presented with a brownieor some ice cream or you know
something delicious like that,it really was very easy for me
to say no, because the frameworkwas there.
The first questions out of mymouth to anyone presenting me
with that is like oh, is thereeggs or dairy in that?
Is it vegan?
It's probably not vegan.
And they'll say yeah, no, sorry, it's not.
And then that's the end of thedecision.
(17:05):
Okay, great, I can't eat that.
I'm vegan.
Let's put aside, how you know,any opinions you have of vegan
people or veganism.
The whole point of this is justthe example of I had stalled
this identity in my brain of,like I am a vegan person and
therefore all those decisionswere already made for me and I'm
not having to decide to eat thebrownie or not.
(17:26):
I'm only having to decide orlearn eat the brownie or not?
I'm only having to decide orlearn is it vegan, yes or no?
The issue that came in later,in my time being vegan, is I
learned that there are a lot ofreally good vegan baked goods
and I would just run out of myway to go find them and eat them
.
So being vegan on its own isnot necessarily a way to be
healthy.
(17:46):
You can be kind of an unhealthyvegan, and I have firsthand
experience with that, but thepoint again is just that I
identified with this title, thislabel, and I was making
decisions not as someone who wasthinking about being vegan or
wasn't sure or anything likethat.
No, it was very factual, likeI'm vegan and therefore I don't
(18:07):
eat dairy or egg products.
So if you are someone that wantsto save a whole bunch of money,
but you find that youfrequently shop online and you
buy things you don't really needor you buy frivolous items just
for fun or to pass the time,one identity you can start to
take on is say I am someone thatsaves 50% of my paycheck or 10%
(18:31):
of my paycheck.
I'm someone who saves.
I'm someone that has a lot ofmoney in my savings account just
in case I ever need it.
And you start to getcomfortable with that statement.
And so whenever you areshopping online or you find
yourself you catch yourselfshopping online, you're like
wait, no, you know, someone whosaves a lot of money isn't
shopping online, like that's howthey're saving their money.
(18:53):
They decide that they don'tneed another pair of shoes or
another pair of leggings oranother t-shirt, they probably
realize that the clothes thatthey have already will do just
fine.
And you close out the windowand you move on with your day
and you do that again enoughtimes over the course of a year,
and you do that again enoughtimes over the course of a year
and you probably will shockyourself with how much you can
save if you cut out extraneousspending like that.
(19:20):
But it does take a little bit inthe beginning to find that
identity, create kind of thisidea of who you want to be, who
you believe you should be, andallowing that to start to
shortcut a lot of thesedecisions that you'll find in
the day-to-day reality ofworking towards that.
So set the goal, set theintention and then work your way
towards that through kind ofthese like shortcuts.
Again, this is really helpfulfor me.
(19:42):
It may or may not be helpfulfor you, but I think it's a very
powerful tool when we arereally trying to create lasting
change in ourselves and not haveto constantly fight our biology
, you know, especially when itcomes to something like weight,
where our biology can, you know,really have a strong drive to
get us to make the unhealthy, orthe donut choice versus the
(20:07):
broccoli and brown rice choice,the donut choice versus the
broccoli and brown rice choice.
That is my journey that I amcurrently partaking, and
hopefully I will find that I'msuccessful here in several
months as I work to undo a lotof my post-marathon weight that
I've gained and hopefully soonI'll be back running, which will
certainly help with this aswell.
(20:29):
Thank you so much for tuning inanother week.
I am not going to be here thisnext week because it is a
holiday week, but you can lookforward to a bonus episode from
another show on our networkcalled what Are you Listening To
.
It will feature me, matt andJen talking about our favorite
holiday songs, our favoriteChristmas songs.
(20:50):
It's a lot of fun.
I hope you tune in and enjoyand, if you like it, you can
also find her show Jen's show,what Are you Listening To as a
separate podcast stream tofollow.
I will be back right before thenew year with another new
episode.
Until then, I hope you have asuper awesome couple of weeks.
Hello and welcome to the Super Awesome you podcast.
My name is Sam.
I'm the host of the show on theSuper Awesome Mix podcast
network.
If you haven't done so already,please take a moment and
consider leaving a five-starreview on the player that you're
currently listening to me on.
It helps a lot to A motivate meto keep going, because I love
getting those five-star reviews.
(00:23):
It means a lot to you know.
Get that recognition, I'll behonest.
B it helps with other peoplewho you know may stumble upon
the show and can be encouragingfor them to listen themselves,
which ultimately the goal isthat we all just become a little
bit more super awesome in theworld.
So if it's helping you out tolisten and this is not your
(00:44):
first episode then hopefullyyour five star review can help
others to listen and get intothe show as well.
You can find more of the show'scontent at super awesome you on
Instagram and on threads.
I have been very busy latelytrying to figure out threads If
(01:04):
you're not on it.
It's basically like a Twitterslash X clone, but it seems to
me like it is very heavy onreplying to people much more
than just like posting content,although, I'll be honest, I'm
still very confused about how toget content that people engage
with, because I was scrollingthrough the other day and
(01:25):
someone just posted the wordmusic and that's literally all
that they wrote, and that thinghad like a hundred likes and a
bunch of you know, re-quotes, orwhatever you want to call them,
where you just like repost themor quote them, and I like pour
my heart and soul into posts ofvarying lengths and get like one
or two likes.
So I feel like I'm missingsomething.
(01:46):
But you know what the spirit ofthe show is, that we treat
every little thing as a learningmoment and you just keep
growing and keep trying thingsout.
There's a quote that I reallylike that I read recently and I
believe it's attributed toThomas Edison, the famous
inventor, and he said somethingalong the lines of like if you
want to be successful, you haveto double your rate of failure,
(02:10):
and I just love that sentiment,and so I feel like I've not only
doubled my rate of failure withthreads, but I've tripled and
quadrupled it lately.
But hopefully, on my way there,I will find some success With
that.
Let's get into today's topic.
I'm going to share a story withyou first.
It's kind of set the tone forthe rest of the episode.
(02:30):
So I am currently trying tolose some weight Ever since I
ran the marathon.
Unfortunately, I injured myselfcoming out of that race, and so
I have not been able to run forthe last month and a half.
However, I'm still eating likeI'm running 30 plus miles a week
, and so I have put on someextra weight, which I'm not too
(02:53):
happy about, you know, and it'ssomething that I think we can
all kind of commiserate with.
At some point or another in ourlives, we've added weight that
maybe we don't want there.
This is not about fat shaming.
This is not about telling younot to be comfortable in your
body.
The whole point is to feelcomfortable in your body.
So if you are carrying extraweight that you just don't want,
(03:13):
or you feel like you've madesome choices that has put it
there and you want to reverse it, then that's all I'm speaking
to, and so I'm in that boat.
I've added on some pounds thatI'm not too pleased about, and I
really want to reverse thattrend.
Now, if you've ever set along-term goal like that and yes
, losing weight is, nine timesout of 10, a long-term goal it
(03:36):
does not happen overnight.
You know the struggle thatcomes with setting a long-term
goal but then realizing that youhave to make minute-by-minute
decisions that add up to thatlong-term goal, but then
realizing that you have to makeminute-by-minute decisions that
add up to that long-term goal.
So, to give you an example ofthis, it is, you know, tuesday,
december 17th, at the time ofthis recording, or you know,
(03:57):
perhaps you're listening to iton the day that it's launched,
and it's the holidays here inthe United States, and
Thanksgiving rolled past, youknow, a couple weeks ago, and
we've got Christmas coming up,and it's the holidays here in
the United States andThanksgiving rolled past, you
know, a couple weeks ago, andwe've got Christmas coming up,
and it's the season that is veryheavy on delicious sugary goods
, and so I'll be sitting aroundbeing like, yes, I'm gonna lose
weight.
You know, I want to drop acouple of these pounds that I
(04:18):
added the last several weeks.
And then all of a sudden I'mpresented with sugar cookies or
a delicious brownie, or some icecream or you know any number of
baked goods that have just madetheir way into our home, and it
is very difficult to turn thatdown when something is just
available right in front of youand you know that you're going
(04:41):
to like it.
You know, generally baked goodsare delicious.
It's really difficult in thatmoment to remember that you're
trying to lose weight and youcan kind of just make a decision
.
You know, on the margin, so tospeak, like you can just
convince yourself, like it'sfine, I'm gonna have one or two
cookies in this moment.
You know, I don't want tocompletely deprive myself of it.
I'm not someone who thinks inextremes when it comes to
(05:04):
dieting.
I think there's just a lot ofproblems with that for many,
many reasons, and so, you know,I tend to want to allow myself
to take a cookie here and there,or eat something sugary or
sweet or some chocolate afterdinner, whatever the case may be
.
But the problem again is that Ihave to remind myself that I'm
making these decisions over avery long period of time, and so
(05:27):
the long-term goal is to losethe weight.
But the short-term issue is thatI'm making these decisions in
the moment, whenever I'mpresented with them, and it's
very easy to forget that this isall going to add up to me
either successfully losingweight or staying the same, or
adding weight onto my body, andso in this little moment, it's
(05:48):
an innocent choice to eat acookie or two.
But then maybe tomorrow comesand I'm presented with more
cookies and more baked goods andI might, in that again moment,
in just the information I haveavailable to me now, you know,
in that second, be like, yeah,I'm going to take more cookies
because you know it's fine, it'sfine.
And then you add this up over365 days and you've basically
(06:09):
never dieted or controlled yoursugar habit whatsoever and
you've either stayed the same oradded on more pounds Totally
speaking from personalexperience, because that's
pretty much what always happensto me.
So the point here is that we,you know, tend to make decisions
in a moment, you know, wheneverwe take the information that's
(06:30):
available to us right now, andit's a very logical thing to
choose the baked good and thesugary snack or take a second
serving when you know thatyou're full and all the things
that kind of stand in the way ofimproving your diet and your
health.
Why is that?
Well, we're basicallyprogrammed to eat, right?
(06:50):
I mean, that sounds like suchan obvious statement, but we
really are.
Eating is a source of fuel forus.
Our bodies will literally breakdown over time unless you feed
them.
Our metabolism is basically onegiant engine in our body that
just is constantly burning fueland, from an evolutionary point
of view, sugar and fat was notsomething that we came across
(07:14):
very often, going way back tothe beginning of humans.
The whole idea of a baked goodis honestly fantasy, right Like
it's kind of a magical thing.
There was no baking, you know.
There were no ovens, therecertainly weren't people farming
cows in the very beginning sothat you get milk, and farming
chickens so you could harvesteggs and having farmland.
(07:36):
Like none of that was happening.
If you wanted to eat, you werebasically eating what you found
in nature, and so when you, as avery primitive human being
thousands of years ago, cameacross something that was sugary
or fatty, your body was like oh, my goodness, I hit the jackpot
.
This is amazing.
I need to load up on as much ofit as possible because I have
(07:57):
no idea when I'm going to be,you know, presented with this
again and the people who youknow.
Again, from an evolutionarypoint of view, survival of the
fittest is is this ideapresented by Darwin.
The whole theory here is thatthe people that made those
decisions, like their brains andtheir guts told them to load up
on fats and sugars wheneverthey were available, probably
(08:18):
succeeded more in nature thanthose that decided not to eat
them or didn't have access tothem.
And so those people may have,just you know, they couldn't
mate, they died of starvation,whatever dark thing happened.
Because, again, humanityhumanity has been through a lot
of trials, like going backthousands and thousands of years
.
Like we have it pretty, prettycush these days, so that's all
(08:42):
well and good.
Like our brains are basicallyprogrammed to see sugar, fats,
high proteins and be like, yes,I want to eat all these things
because I don't want to starve.
It all comes back to notwanting to starve.
I feel like I bring that up inepisodes a whole lot.
But again, we have thisbiological drive at the base of
what we do.
Like that is the very root ofour brains is basically trying
(09:04):
to just keep us alive.
Everything else is just a bonus,okay, but now it's the year
2024, and fats, sugars, proteins, oils all the amazing delicious
things that we can have accessto are very easy to access.
Access, especially if you livein the United States and you are
(09:29):
lucky enough, you know, to haveaccess to food and access to
grocery stores or even fast food, whatever the case may be.
Like you can, you can feedyourself, which is something to
be very, very grateful for, butthe choices that we have to feed
ourselves tend to not be thegreatest.
You know, love Dunkin Donuts,but it's not the most
nutritional way to start yourday right.
(09:50):
It's so heavy on sugar and fat.
But we pick it because, again,our brains are telling us you
know they're coming from aposition of like oh, this is
like sparse, what a treat.
Like, look at this amazinground fried piece of dough that
is full of sugar and fat.
Like, eat as much as youpossibly can until you get sick
because this is great stuff.
(10:11):
And we do that again and againand again.
That's an evolutionary trap.
And then the reason it's a trapis because we end up actually
hurting our health rather thanhelping our health.
Because, let's be honest,putting a donut right next to
like a stem of broccoli, I meanthere's no contest, right?
At least for me, there's justno contest.
Donut 10 out of 10 times untilI feel sick.
(10:33):
And then, maybe, maybe, likethe 11th time, I'll go for the
broccoli.
But our brains look at thatstuff and we're like, oh my gosh
, like it's so rooted in ourevolutionary biology to pick a
donut over a stem of broccolibecause it just lights up our
brain Like the sugar.
Just honestly, it hits so manydifferent things like
(10:55):
neurochemical centers in ourbrain telling us this is
wonderful, you need to do moreof this.
Give me more.
And the broccoli not so much.
So the broccoli comes into thatwhole thing of like delayed
gratification.
If I were to start to pickbroccoli and tofu and like
healthy choices and beans andbrown rice instead of white rice
and like make these dietarychanges that are recommended by
(11:17):
nutritionists, the short-termdecision is one of pain.
I am not a fan of brown rice.
I'm just going to go on therecord.
I don't like it.
If I had to choice betweenbrown rice and white rice, I'm
going to pick white rice almostevery time.
But over time, if I were to pickbrown rice or whole grain bread
instead of white bread andstems of broccoli over donuts,
(11:38):
my health is going to improve.
It will be very slow, it willbe invisible.
At first I don't eat one stembroccoli and suddenly I'm
healthy.
But over that extended periodof time I will start to notice
changes and I'll start to noticethat maybe my waist line slims
a little bit, my pants start tofit a little bit better, I look
better in shirts, I feel better,which is really, ultimately
(11:59):
what this is all about justmaking sure you feel comfortable
in your body, and that delayedgratification hits real hard
after like a year of eatinghealthy and, you know, eschewing
the donut and instead having amore balanced meal, or maybe at
least limiting the donut to likeonce a week, or once a month,
or whatever the case may be, soyou don't totally lose your mind
(12:20):
.
So the issue, though, comes backto what I mentioned in the very
beginning of this episode, orearly on in the episode, which
is, logically, we're makingthose decisions, though, in the
moment, and it's reallydifficult for us to remember
that there is a long-term goalhere.
You know like we have adestination in mind.
That feels very far away,especially when you are first
(12:43):
starting out, like those firstfew days of working out, of
eating healthy, of saving moneyinstead of spending it, of
laying the groundwork down forbusiness that you one day want
to work full time.
For those first few days, youare going to see virtually no
progress.
You're going to think that youare just doing nothing at all
because there's none of thatinstant feedback.
(13:06):
Maybe you get a little bit of ablip early on because you're
proud of yourself for picking ahealthy meal over a sugary,
fatty one.
Or maybe you're proud ofyourself because you didn't buy
those new Nike shoes that youreally, really want.
But a week in, a month in,you're going to start to feel
that pain of like oh, it's beena month of this and I still
don't see anything.
(13:26):
Or it's been a week of this, Istill don't feel any different,
or my savings are still kind oflow.
What's the point?
And it's very easy for yourimmediate brain to take over.
And then you know you've blownup your goal once again.
So here's the shortcut that Ihave learned that really helps
me in these scenarios.
Really helps me in thesescenarios.
(13:47):
Ultimately, this podcast is notjust talking about the problems
and why we get into them, but,you know, ideally giving you
some kind of a toolkit to solvethem.
And here's the thing that worksfor me we have a much easier
time making decisions when wehave a framework to make those
decisions.
So, just like we have aframework for picking sugar and
fat over a healthy vegetable.
(14:08):
You can install your ownframework of decision making and
then that becomes kind of theoverriding set of rules that
your body and your brain listensto whenever you're faced with a
decision.
It acts like a shortcut fordecision making.
So the risk of constantlyhaving to choose broccoli over a
donut you know to go back tothis example time and time again
(14:30):
, the downside of that is likeyou get fatigued making that
choice repeatedly, which isunderstandable, like again, your
brain is really fighting you topick the donut and so at some
point you're probably going topick the donut and then you're
going to feel like you failedand you're off your goal.
But if you had a framework inmind and you had a sense of
(14:54):
identity, for example, identityis a very powerful framework
that really just kind of goesall the way around, this need to
make a decision every singletime, because you look at the
donut versus eating somebroccoli and brown rice, and you
don't even make the decision.
You're just like nope, I'm aperson that eats brown rice and
broccoli instead of donuts, orI'm a person that has oatmeal
(15:17):
for breakfast instead of a donut.
And you just state it factually.
I am a person that fill in theblank.
And you say that to yourselfenough times, you start to make
decisions not from a position ofsomeone who's trying to diet or
trying to make better choicesor trying to save money.
You make the decisions fromsomeone who is what you want to
(15:39):
be.
So I am a fit you know athleteand I treat my body really well
and I make really goodnutritious choices, make really
good nutritious choices.
And so whenever you'represented early on with the
donut or oatmeal for breakfast,you're going to remind yourself
of that statement and you'regoing to think, well, what would
(15:59):
a pro athlete eat for breakfast?
They probably have oatmeal withlike pecans or walnuts.
And you're like cool, well, Iam an athlete, I'm going to pick
the oatmeal with walnuts.
And you do that enough times towhere your brain is no longer
making that choice anymore,because it's now installed this
framework, this identity, towhere you are making choices
(16:19):
from a position of who you wantto be rather than who you are
today.
In my own life, there was a timeperiod where I was vegan, and
that is a very powerful identitythat you can take on when you
want to manipulate your diet,because I was vegan at the time
for ethical choices and alsoenvironmental choices, and when
(16:43):
I was presented with a brownieor some ice cream or you know
something delicious like that,it really was very easy for me
to say no, because the frameworkwas there.
The first questions out of mymouth to anyone presenting me
with that is like oh, is thereeggs or dairy in that?
Is it vegan?
It's probably not vegan.
And they'll say yeah, no, sorry, it's not.
And then that's the end of thedecision.
(17:05):
Okay, great, I can't eat that.
I'm vegan.
Let's put aside, how you know,any opinions you have of vegan
people or veganism.
The whole point of this is justthe example of I had stalled
this identity in my brain of,like I am a vegan person and
therefore all those decisionswere already made for me and I'm
not having to decide to eat thebrownie or not.
(17:26):
I'm only having to decide orlearn eat the brownie or not?
I'm only having to decide orlearn is it vegan, yes or no?
The issue that came in later,in my time being vegan, is I
learned that there are a lot ofreally good vegan baked goods
and I would just run out of myway to go find them and eat them
.
So being vegan on its own isnot necessarily a way to be
healthy.
(17:46):
You can be kind of an unhealthyvegan, and I have firsthand
experience with that, but thepoint again is just that I
identified with this title, thislabel, and I was making
decisions not as someone who wasthinking about being vegan or
wasn't sure or anything likethat.
No, it was very factual, likeI'm vegan and therefore I don't
(18:07):
eat dairy or egg products.
So if you are someone that wantsto save a whole bunch of money,
but you find that youfrequently shop online and you
buy things you don't really needor you buy frivolous items just
for fun or to pass the time,one identity you can start to
take on is say I am someone thatsaves 50% of my paycheck or 10%
(18:31):
of my paycheck.
I'm someone who saves.
I'm someone that has a lot ofmoney in my savings account just
in case I ever need it.
And you start to getcomfortable with that statement.
And so whenever you areshopping online or you find
yourself you catch yourselfshopping online, you're like
wait, no, you know, someone whosaves a lot of money isn't
shopping online, like that's howthey're saving their money.
(18:53):
They decide that they don'tneed another pair of shoes or
another pair of leggings oranother t-shirt, they probably
realize that the clothes thatthey have already will do just
fine.
And you close out the windowand you move on with your day
and you do that again enoughtimes over the course of a year,
and you do that again enoughtimes over the course of a year
and you probably will shockyourself with how much you can
save if you cut out extraneousspending like that.
(19:20):
But it does take a little bit inthe beginning to find that
identity, create kind of thisidea of who you want to be, who
you believe you should be, andallowing that to start to
shortcut a lot of thesedecisions that you'll find in
the day-to-day reality ofworking towards that.
So set the goal, set theintention and then work your way
towards that through kind ofthese like shortcuts.
Again, this is really helpfulfor me.
(19:42):
It may or may not be helpfulfor you, but I think it's a very
powerful tool when we arereally trying to create lasting
change in ourselves and not haveto constantly fight our biology
, you know, especially when itcomes to something like weight,
where our biology can, you know,really have a strong drive to
get us to make the unhealthy, orthe donut choice versus the
(20:07):
broccoli and brown rice choice,the donut choice versus the
broccoli and brown rice choice.
That is my journey that I amcurrently partaking, and
hopefully I will find that I'msuccessful here in several
months as I work to undo a lotof my post-marathon weight that
I've gained and hopefully soonI'll be back running, which will
certainly help with this aswell.
(20:29):
Thank you so much for tuning inanother week.
I am not going to be here thisnext week because it is a
holiday week, but you can lookforward to a bonus episode from
another show on our networkcalled what Are you Listening To
.
It will feature me, matt andJen talking about our favorite
holiday songs, our favoriteChristmas songs.
(20:50):
It's a lot of fun.
I hope you tune in and enjoyand, if you like it, you can
also find her show Jen's show,what Are you Listening To as a
separate podcast stream tofollow.
I will be back right before thenew year with another new
episode.
Until then, I hope you have asuper awesome couple of weeks.
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