A lot has been written about decision fatigue over the past few years. Do a quick Google search and there are several great articles that pop up. Each takes a general look at what decision fatigue is and some of the effects. In General, decision fatigue is the idea that people get mentally tired after making decisions. This in effect, creates an environment for bad decisions to be made.
How does this relate to how you eat? Get up in the AM, great intentions, going to be a good day. First decision, whats for breakfast? You survive that one and have a decently health breakfast. Deal with kids, spouse, go to work, make more decisions. Getting hungry, its 10am and its time for a mid am snack. Sticking with your healthy ideals, you have a handful of nuts and a few berries. Back to work, more decisions. Lunchtime, well I have been pretty good all day so I am going to have a chicken parm sandwich. It’s starting to slip. By late afternoon you are gorging on snicker bars and looking for the person in the office who is always selling candy for some fundraiser. Dinner ends up looking like a Superbowl party.
Ok this is an exaggeration. You get the picture. I am also sure you can all relate. The effects of decision fatigue are really noticeable when you are doing something outside of your normal routine. This makes sense as you are making decisions that most likely are outside your normal routine.
When I was getting my pilots license I would come home exhausted from only an hour of flying. Afterwards my will power was weak and I would usually end up eating poorly.
Knowing this, how do you consistently make good healthy choices when it comes to eating? There are a few techniques and ideas that work best. The first is routine. Eat the same foods at the same time every day. This will take the decision out of your hands and works well for many people. The drawback is that it is boring and lacks variety.
Limit meals and snacks. Unless you are a bodybuilder from 1991, there is no need to eat 6 meals a day. I actually used this approach for years, literally 15 years. I ran into problems with this method as I got busier at work and family made me busier at home. I was so used to eating every 3 hours that if I missed a meal, I would revert to caveman mode. I had trouble forming sentences until my basic need of food was met. Very true, just ask my wife, I literally became useless. With this method, there are just too many decisions and variables to go wrong. Stick with a set amount of meals for the day. I usually eat twice, lunch and dinner. I add in one snack on days I train. This limits the amount of decisions I have to make about food and the amount of times things can go wrong.
Stick with whole foods. Growing up, whenever we were getting in shape for something, my brother and I would go on what we call the Green Eyes diet. Super simple, we only ate things that are green or had eyes at some point. I have seen so much energy put into reading labels and debating about what ingredient is healthy or not healthy. I got so sick of all the talk, no one really knows what half these ingredients will do to you. Nowadays I eat natural, one ingredient whole foods for 95% of my meals. This may sound or seem hard, however it makes decisions on what to eat much easier. I have other reasons for sticking with this approach that I will go into on other post as well. The best part of eating only whole foods is that it is hard to get fat eating them, provided you don't eat 6,000 calories of raw honey or natural maple syrup a week.
Last tip is to eat within a window of hours. For me, 8 hours works best. I try and eat all of my calories between 12 and 8. This constraint helps curb the late night binging. It also allows a nice amount of time from the last meal of the day to the first meal of the next day. This has helped my digestive track feel the best it has in years.
Bottom line on reducing decision fatigue to eat healthier is to create your own constraints. The more you can automate and take day to day decisions out of your meals, the better you will do. Start off with one small change at a time, this will help you be more successful. The constraints/rules above work for me. You may find them helpful or want to create your own. Most importantly, be consistent and you will see great progress!