Tasty Cheats - Weighing Your Options

I’m right in the middle of reading The Paleo Coach by Jason Seib and really love the chapter where he talks about temptation (Chapter 3: Temptation’s Secret Plays). We all know what we should and should not be eating in order to be healthy, yet we always seem to give in to temptation and cheat way more than we should. We know our goals, and we know where we want to be, but we’re always sabotaging our progress towards those goals.

Jason Seib suggests weighing all the reasons you want to eat better and get healthy, against all the reasons you want to eat whatever tasty morsel it is that is tempting you. He suggests we “install an imaginary balance scale” in our minds and carefully weigh our options prior to giving in. I’ve taken it a step further and written down some of the main reasons I want to get healthy and fit and will review these the next time I am tempted to eat ice cream, or candy, or anything else that is delicious and completely unsatisfying once it’s eaten. Here is my list:

Now, each time I’m tempted, if I can’t come up with enough (good) reasons why I should eat that cheat that completely outweigh all my healthy goals, I’m not going to do it! And let’s face it… the only reason we can ever come up with to eat a tasty cheat is that it tastes good, and that is certainly not reason enough to keep having migraines, poor sleep, no energy, and excess body fat.

What are your reasons for wanting to get healthy? Are you brave enough to post them for all to see?