Speaker 1: Hey, friends, it's Eric. Let's talk about something hard. How
Speaker 1: many times have you made a promise to yourself and
Speaker 1: broken it. You said you'd go to bed earlier, start exercising,
Speaker 1: or stop reaching for that late night snack, but when
Speaker 1: the moment of choice came, something pulled you in the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. Those moments, those choice points, are where everything happens,
Speaker 1: and when we keep failing at them, it doesn't just
Speaker 1: derail our goals. It chips away at something deeper, our
Speaker 1: trust in ourselves. But it doesn't have to stay that way.
Speaker 1: In my upcoming free workshop, the Six Saboteurs of Self Control,
Speaker 1: we'll explore what happens at these choice points, why they're
Speaker 1: so hard to navigate, and most importantly, how to approach
Speaker 1: them differently. This isn't about willpower or trying harder. It's
Speaker 1: about understanding the hidden forces that lead to making the
Speaker 1: wrong choices and learning the tools to rebuild your confidence
Speaker 1: one choice at a time. Imagine trusting yourself again, knowing
Speaker 1: that when you say you'll do something, you actually follow through.
Speaker 1: That's what this workshop is about. Join me and let's
Speaker 1: turn your choice points into moments of strength. Go to
Speaker 1: Good Wolf dot me slash self control. That's Goodwolf dot
Speaker 1: me slash self control to register for this free workshop.
Speaker 2: Having conscious awareness enables us to see what we're about
Speaker 2: to do and potentially to make a different choice. To
Speaker 2: feed the good wolf, the one that again represents what
Speaker 2: we aim to do.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 3: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 3: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 3: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 3: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 3: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 3: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 3: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 3: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 3: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 3: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 3: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 3: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Michelle Seger,
Speaker 3: an award winning researcher at the University of Michigan with
Speaker 3: almost thirty years studying how to help people adopt healthy
Speaker 3: behaviors in ways that can survive the complexity and unpredictability
Speaker 3: of the real world. Michelle's first book, No Sweat, was
Speaker 3: featured in The New York Times and won the t
Speaker 3: and fifteen Best Book Awards in the Diet and Exercise category.
Speaker 3: It also became the number one selling book in Amazon's
Speaker 3: Exercise and Fitness category when released. Today, Michelle and Eric
Speaker 3: discuss her new book, The Joy Choice, How to Finally
Speaker 3: Achieve Lasting Changes in Eating an Exercise.
Speaker 1: Hi, Michelle, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It is great to be here again.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm so happy to have you on. I was
Speaker 1: saying to you before we started that I don't remember
Speaker 1: when we talked to you, it's probably at least four
Speaker 1: years ago, but the conversation really has stuck with me
Speaker 1: since then. It's one of the things I reference a lot,
Speaker 1: which is the basic idea that you know, the key
Speaker 1: is just to move in any way anytime that you can,
Speaker 1: and that everything counts. You know, those things really really
Speaker 1: left an impression on me. But you've got a new
Speaker 1: book out called The Joy Choice, How to Finally Achieve
Speaker 1: Lasting Changes in eating an Exercise. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: that a second, but let's start like we always do
Speaker 1: with the parable. In the Parable, there's a grandparent who's
Speaker 1: talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandchild stops, thinks about it for a second and
Speaker 1: looks up at their grandparent and says, well, which one wins,
Speaker 1: and the grandparent replies, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do.
Speaker 2: I love that you start the podcast this way. It's
Speaker 2: a profound foundational thing both I would say, in my
Speaker 2: life and in my work. And this time around, I
Speaker 2: actually am going to tell you a quote that is
Speaker 2: so meaningful to me, and I think it has to
Speaker 2: do with this what you just read the Parable, and
Speaker 2: it's from Dan Segall, who I'm sure your listeners know
Speaker 2: where our attention goes Neural firing flows and neural connections grow,
Speaker 2: and so putting that parable within this essential neuroscience which
Speaker 2: speaks to how important it is for us to feed
Speaker 2: the wolf that we really want to become, if you will,
Speaker 2: the virtues that we want to embody and live. But
Speaker 2: I also I think it's really important to bring the
Speaker 2: challenge to doing that. It sounds logical to say, well,
Speaker 2: if we feed the right wolf, then we're going to
Speaker 2: live in the way we really value living. And again
Speaker 2: I value this, I believe in it, and it's still
Speaker 2: challenging sometimes because and this is the thing, because it
Speaker 2: takes conscious awareness before we feed the wolf, and having
Speaker 2: conscious awareness number one enables us to see what we're
Speaker 2: about to do and potentially to make a different choice
Speaker 2: to feed the good wolf, the one that again represents
Speaker 2: what we aim to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so much of the quote unquote bad
Speaker 1: wolf behavior in our lives is completely unconscious. As you said,
Speaker 1: it's just running on autopilot. It's just the default behavior
Speaker 1: that we've either been conditioned into that we are left
Speaker 1: with after we deal with all our stresses and problems
Speaker 1: and busyness. The parables a little dramatic, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's you know, good wolf and bad wolf. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've always preferred the Buddhist terms of skillful and unskillful, right,
Speaker 1: But as I've joked many a time, a parable about
Speaker 1: an unskillful wolf just doesn't work the same. But that's
Speaker 1: really what we're talking about. So most of our unskillful
Speaker 1: behavior is happening on autopilot, and we have to be
Speaker 1: able to bring things to conscious awareness in order to
Speaker 1: change them. And that is at least half the battle.
Speaker 2: I think when we first spoke about this five to
Speaker 2: seven years ago, I don't know that I raised that issue.
Speaker 2: That's why it's so wonderful to have an opportunity to rethink, well,
Speaker 2: what does it mean to me today? That idea is
Speaker 2: so important to me that it is pasted on my
Speaker 2: wall right in front of me. So it's hard to
Speaker 2: do when we have the intention, and when we practice,
Speaker 2: we get better at it.
Speaker 1: Yep. Absolutely, So I want to pivot to the book,
Speaker 1: and I want to start with the idea that a
Speaker 1: lot of us who are listening, many if not most
Speaker 1: of us, have had significant challenges in building consistent exercise
Speaker 1: and eating habits. They are elusive for many, many, many people,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of this conversation where we're going
Speaker 1: to start, is trying to explore why that is, and
Speaker 1: then we'll move into some of the ways we can
Speaker 1: solve that. But you start off by saying we initiate
Speaker 1: a change in eating or exercise in what you call
Speaker 1: a motivation bubble. Say a little bit more about what
Speaker 1: a motivation bubble is.
Speaker 2: The motivation bubble is a concept that just came to
Speaker 2: me when I was talking to a journalist about why
Speaker 2: we start and stop and start and stop endlessly. It's
Speaker 2: because we've been taught to approach exercise intentional eating in
Speaker 2: this way that focuses us on very aspirational goals. And
Speaker 2: of course, if we're going to achieve aspirational goals, then
Speaker 2: we've got to do it right, and we have to
Speaker 2: do it precise in precise ways. And if you think
Speaker 2: about that as a bubble, it's this big thing, and
Speaker 2: we often don't think of exercise or healthy eating in
Speaker 2: the same way we think about parenting or our work
Speaker 2: or being a life partner with someone. It's separate, and
Speaker 2: it's over there, and we have to do it right,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to plan it, and it's on a
Speaker 2: separate trajectory then everything else. It's a bubble that is
Speaker 2: in a different orbit from the other life bubbles that
Speaker 2: we live in. And so because it's so over inflated
Speaker 2: by the moment we make it, whether it's New Year's
Speaker 2: whether it's leaving our doctor's office and we're finally gonna
Speaker 2: please them or do it right or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: it bumps up against any other life area and it
Speaker 2: just bursts. It's fragile because it's over inflated.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that idea of how these bubbles rub
Speaker 1: up against the other areas of our life. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's a fundamental idea that runs through this book, and
Speaker 1: it's a fundamental idea that I learned through coaching a
Speaker 1: lot of people over the years. And that idea, and
Speaker 1: you say it very well in the book and in
Speaker 1: many different ways. The core idea, though, that you say
Speaker 1: is that habits require a stable context to form. So
Speaker 1: that's great. However, most of our lives are not anywhere
Speaker 1: near a stable context. If you have a demanding job,
Speaker 1: and you have children, and you have perhaps aging parents,
Speaker 1: and you have a social life, and I mean, our
Speaker 1: contexts are never stable. They're always changing. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I really figured that out working with people where I'd
Speaker 1: be like, well, let's just you know, every morning at
Speaker 1: ten am you're going to do X right, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of benefit in some degree of specificity. And
Speaker 1: what do you do if ten o'clock every day you
Speaker 1: have no idea quite what's going to be going on then,
Speaker 1: And so this idea of a stable context. Share a
Speaker 1: little bit more about.
Speaker 2: That, sure, And I want to say I believe planning
Speaker 2: is very important. So if we don't plan something, it
Speaker 2: is unlikely to happen. So this concept that we're talking about,
Speaker 2: it's not mutually exclusive of planning. It's actually what we
Speaker 2: have to do when our plans don't work out. Yes,
Speaker 2: But before we go to that issue, I want to
Speaker 2: stay focused on your question about the stable context. So
Speaker 2: habit formation, which is doing something automatically without the need
Speaker 2: for cognition or effort or will power, is wildly popular.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of best selling books about it
Speaker 2: over well quite a few years, but it's become even
Speaker 2: more popular recently. Part of the reason it's become more
Speaker 2: popular is because it is an easy way to develop apps.
Speaker 2: So if people are trying to develop fitness apps or
Speaker 2: different types of apps, it seems like, oh, I'll use
Speaker 2: the habit loop and I'll create my app around. It's
Speaker 2: very easy and it makes sense. But the problem is
Speaker 2: is that what works in theory doesn't necessarily and often
Speaker 2: doesn't work in reality. And so let's go back to
Speaker 2: the stable context habit formation is based on in academia.
Speaker 2: It's discussed a little differently than you know, the three
Speaker 2: steps of the habit loop, which is a context queue
Speaker 2: that is stable. It requires stability. Then we've got two
Speaker 2: step two the behavior, let's say flossing. We as the
Speaker 2: queue is either putting our toothbrush down or walking in
Speaker 2: the bathroom at night, whatever the queue is that you've established.
Speaker 2: And then three of some type of reward with flossing.
Speaker 2: That could be a feeling of a clean mouth or
Speaker 2: accomplishment or whatever the reward is. Now, with a behavior
Speaker 2: like flossing that happens in the bathroom, often at night
Speaker 2: after the kids are asleep, there's not a lot of
Speaker 2: room for disrupting that context. But when we step out
Speaker 2: of the bathroom into the realities of our full life
Speaker 2: context and daily needs, like you introduced in the beginning,
Speaker 2: there are so many forces and unexpected things that we
Speaker 2: simply don't know are going to happen. And the habit
Speaker 2: loop is based on the assumption that this context is
Speaker 2: going to remain stable. But when we're talking about more
Speaker 2: complicated behaviors that might have multi steps, that might have
Speaker 2: a lot of resons, sentiment or ambivalence with them, like
Speaker 2: exercise and intentional eating tends to have while those forces
Speaker 2: easily disrupt the context Q. And so that's why the
Speaker 2: whole concept of habit formation its value has been overgeneralized
Speaker 2: in the field of health promotion, because health promoting behaviors
Speaker 2: are much more complicated than a simple behavior like flossing
Speaker 2: our teeth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's really interesting. You know, we've interviewed many
Speaker 1: of the leading proponents of the popular writing about habits,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of wisdom in there, and there
Speaker 1: is limitation in there. You know, let's take bj Fog
Speaker 1: and tiny habits right, a great method, but like, how
Speaker 1: do you scale from a tiny habit to a big habit?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's some ways to do it, but there's
Speaker 1: a point where it crosses over from something that can
Speaker 1: be automated to something that really can't's And you know,
Speaker 1: I love what you just said there because you pulled
Speaker 1: out two really important things, two things that are work
Speaker 1: against us. One is just the chaos of life. Yes,
Speaker 1: I planned to go to the gym this morning at
Speaker 1: eight am, and I woke up with my kid as
Speaker 1: a fever. Okay, well, not going to the gym, right.
Speaker 1: So we've got all these external things, And then you
Speaker 1: brought up the fact that we often have all this
Speaker 1: ambivalence inside of us around this and when those two
Speaker 1: things collide, it's a disaster, right, Because maybe I could
Speaker 1: overcome the internal ambivalence if I can get just a
Speaker 1: routine going. You know, I often think I can't make
Speaker 1: a habit out of exercise, but I can build momentum
Speaker 1: around it, you know, I can get some energy behind
Speaker 1: it where it's way easier to do than it used
Speaker 1: to be, maybe when I was first starting the habit.
Speaker 1: So you've got these external things that rub up against
Speaker 1: the internal. We all would know this phenomenon, which is
Speaker 1: that like, okay, we are supposed to be working out
Speaker 1: at ten am, we get a call from our boss
Speaker 1: at ten o'clock and at ten ten we're done, and
Speaker 1: we don't work out. Right, we could, but that combination,
Speaker 1: we've got just enough excuse that is now rubbed up
Speaker 1: against are internal ambivalence that it just comes off the rails.
Speaker 2: And that's why I don't want to leave this conversation prematurely,
Speaker 2: because it's so foundational to everything else we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about. But that is why I call them decision
Speaker 2: disruptors and decision traps, because it's that internal self talk that,
Speaker 2: by the way, is not our fault. It does not
Speaker 2: derive from us. It derives from outside of us. We've
Speaker 2: internalized it through our socialization, through the education we've received
Speaker 2: in society and the media, in research, you know, from
Speaker 2: our clinician's office. Everything we've learned about exercise and eating
Speaker 2: has taught us to think about it in a very
Speaker 2: myopic and really unhelpful way for most people. I mean,
Speaker 2: why is it that we think of exercise and healthy
Speaker 2: eating with this need for precision, with this need to
Speaker 2: hit a bullseye, when all these other life areas again,
Speaker 2: things that we want to sustain for life, being parents,
Speaker 2: good parents, hopefully, but guess what, there's ups and downs
Speaker 2: in our parenting, there's ups and downs in our relationships,
Speaker 2: in our marriages, there's ups and downs in our career.
Speaker 2: But we don't bring that same sensibility and wisdom yeah
Speaker 2: to eating and exercise but it's again, it is not
Speaker 2: our faults as individuals. It is simply the way we've
Speaker 2: learned to approach it. And I have to say, some
Speaker 2: behavior change strategies cultivate a type of a precision thinking,
Speaker 2: which doesn't help most people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a world of difference between something that
Speaker 1: you can manage to sort of keep rolling for thirty
Speaker 1: days versus something that you're going to keep rolling for
Speaker 1: thirty years. Nearly any relationship can survive thirty days.
Speaker 2: That's right, good fight, good fight.
Speaker 1: But very few can survive thirty years. And it's a
Speaker 1: completely different orientation. And so we'll get to orientation around
Speaker 1: exercise and eating, like why our orientation is difficult there?
Speaker 1: But let's stay for a couple of minutes on this
Speaker 1: idea of habits, when they work and when they don't.
Speaker 1: You talk about people being habiters or inhabitters. What does
Speaker 1: that mean?
Speaker 2: Sure? Well, you know, I want to be clear that
Speaker 2: that was a playful concept that I created to get
Speaker 2: us to think more critically about what we've been taught
Speaker 2: about how to change our behavior. Whether it's worked for us,
Speaker 2: why may or may not work for us, Why may
Speaker 2: or may not work for other people? So, as you know,
Speaker 2: in my book, I use my husband as an example
Speaker 2: a pure habitter. And while I contend in the book,
Speaker 2: and I've been doing a lot of talking about this recently,
Speaker 2: that habit formation is not going to work for most
Speaker 2: people when it comes to complex health promoting behaviors, it
Speaker 2: does work for some people, and my husband is a
Speaker 2: great example of this, because he has created a frictionless
Speaker 2: experience again to create his context queue for his exercise habit.
Speaker 2: In the morning, he sleeps in his eyes exercise clothes,
Speaker 2: and I always say, thank goodness, he is a good
Speaker 2: laundry person. And his alarm goes off at you know,
Speaker 2: five five point thirty in the morning. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: exactly what time because I am still sleeping, and he
Speaker 2: goes into the basement, He's already dressed, gets on the bike, exercises,
Speaker 2: no one else in the house is up, and then
Speaker 2: he has a sense of satisfaction. So his reward, and
Speaker 2: I have asked him about it, his reward is that
Speaker 2: he feels like he's accomplished something, and it's often the
Speaker 2: only thing he feels that way about. So some people
Speaker 2: can do that, but he is a habitter in all
Speaker 2: areas of his life. And this isn't necessarily true for everyone,
Speaker 2: but I have tended in my coaching too to see
Speaker 2: that people who succeed with a complex behavior like exercise
Speaker 2: or healthy eating often are quite disciplined. Often structure their
Speaker 2: life so that it doesn't have a lot of interruptions.
Speaker 2: They check off their to do list, most of it
Speaker 2: every day because of who they are, and I believe
Speaker 2: that they represent a minority of the population, and they
Speaker 2: have the innate self discipline to push through even when
Speaker 2: they don't want to do something.
Speaker 1: Hmm, I want to pick at that for a minute,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to. We'll come back around to it,
Speaker 1: because I think there's a lot in there that is
Speaker 1: actually very interesting, because I think some of what he's
Speaker 1: doing is, you know, sort of best practices right for this.
Speaker 1: So some of it is he's naturally oriented that way,
Speaker 1: and you know, the other is he's figured out how
Speaker 1: to get up at the time that nothing else is
Speaker 1: going to get in the way. You know. As people
Speaker 1: often ask me, like we should I exercise in the
Speaker 1: morning or the evening, I'm like, well, the first answer
Speaker 1: is it totally depends on you, right. The second answer
Speaker 1: would be assuming there's not a strong preference for in
Speaker 1: your life. Morning tends to be better. And the reason
Speaker 1: morning tends to be better is less things can get
Speaker 1: in your way in the morning. Right by the time
Speaker 1: six o'clock rolls around, any number of emergencies could have
Speaker 1: occurred in your rear, in your family at six am,
Speaker 1: there's far less of them. So there is something to
Speaker 1: be said for he's done that. But I think what
Speaker 1: you just pointed to is there's a rigidity, yes, in
Speaker 1: that and some people I don't want to make this
Speaker 1: a gender thing, yeah, but I have seen this where,
Speaker 1: particularly in child rearing families, where the father is able
Speaker 1: to sort of get some rigidity and the mother doesn't
Speaker 1: because she's the front line of the support. And so
Speaker 1: it's not fair to compare those two people in that
Speaker 1: way because their context are very different.
Speaker 2: That's right. And you know what you're speaking to is
Speaker 2: the chapter on chaos. Yes, the fact that research does
Speaker 2: show that the more chaos in the house, and of
Speaker 2: course the person who is primarily responsible for managing the
Speaker 2: chaos has much less ability to stick to the plan, ye, right,
Speaker 2: which is the quote unquote, And we're not using the
Speaker 2: word rigidity in a negative way. It's descriptive. Right. Yes,
Speaker 2: there still tends to be a gender that is primarily
Speaker 2: a charge of child rearing and house management, and it
Speaker 2: does tend to be the female, but it really any
Speaker 2: whichever parents is going to be primarily responsible for these issues.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about how much unanticipated unexpected there is
Speaker 2: in our life is singular individuals. Now add on top
Speaker 2: of that one to three kids, maybe a couple pets,
Speaker 2: and you know whatever else that might be going on,
Speaker 2: and that exponentially increases the amount of interruption that our
Speaker 2: self care behaviors are going to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's explore a couple of assumptions underlying you know,
Speaker 1: why habits don't work for inhabiters. Sure, we've got a
Speaker 1: few different assumptions. I don't think we need to hit
Speaker 1: all of them, But do you want to hit a
Speaker 1: couple of them?
Speaker 2: Sure, well one of them. And we've already spoken about this,
Speaker 2: So I'm just going to check a box by explicitly
Speaker 2: saying one of the assumptions of successful habit formation is
Speaker 2: that it's going to work equally well across behaviors. Because
Speaker 2: the books talk about many different types of behaviors, they
Speaker 2: generalize and so we know that that isn't true based
Speaker 2: on how you and I have just been talking about it.
Speaker 2: And even in the habit literature, which is going to
Speaker 2: be the most precise discussion of habit formation, and the
Speaker 2: academic literature, there's even a nuanced new conversation going on
Speaker 2: in that literature about gie is habit formation really appropriate
Speaker 2: for a complex, multi step behavior like physical activity? And
Speaker 2: so they're discussing it right now. But I think it's
Speaker 2: important to point out that that is occurring and it's
Speaker 2: a more nuanced, important conversation. Another assumption I can check
Speaker 2: the box on really quickly is that it's going to
Speaker 2: work equally well for everyone. While we already talked about
Speaker 2: certain roles and responsibilities really make it a much heavier,
Speaker 2: if not impossible lift. And in fact, the most popular
Speaker 2: study that gets quoted both, I would say, in academia
Speaker 2: and an industry is a twenty ten study that assessed
Speaker 2: how long it takes to form habits. Do you know
Speaker 2: that study that I'm talking about. It gets talked about
Speaker 2: all the time, and it basically says, while there's a
Speaker 2: huge variation between behaviors and people from like eighteen days
Speaker 2: to two hundred and fifty six something in that range,
Speaker 2: so huge variation, which is so huge that it's almost
Speaker 2: it's basically meaningless. But the sixty six day average still
Speaker 2: gets talked about, even though it's an average of you know,
Speaker 2: eighteen days to over two hundred. But the important thing
Speaker 2: about that getting at everybody is that the study was
Speaker 2: conducted among university students who are have very different lives,
Speaker 2: and yet even among a group of students who have
Speaker 2: a lot more flexibility traditionally, fifty percent at least of
Speaker 2: those university participants did not achieve the automaticity status that
Speaker 2: that sixty six day average is about. So we have
Speaker 2: to ask if students who tend to not be juggling
Speaker 2: all these things that we've been talking about can achieve automaticity, Wow,
Speaker 2: then how are people who are you know, have a
Speaker 2: few kids, you know, and work outside of the home
Speaker 2: and have aging parents. The third thing I want to
Speaker 2: say is that the assumption is that automating our choices
Speaker 2: about exercise and healthy eating is the ideal because in theory,
Speaker 2: automating it, Yes, I don't want to have to use willpower. Yes,
Speaker 2: I don't want to have to use my cognition. It's
Speaker 2: such a limited resource. But in lives that necessitate pivoting
Speaker 2: and being flexible, we need the exact opposite. So the
Speaker 2: assumption that automaticity is the gold standard what we should
Speaker 2: all aim for, I think is false because of the
Speaker 2: reasons we've talked about already. If we are not optimally
Speaker 2: primed to pivot with our exercise and health eating, then
Speaker 2: you know, as forty years shows us, we won't be
Speaker 2: successful sticking with it, or at least most people won't.
Speaker 1: Right, And we want automaticity because it sounds easier, and
Speaker 1: we know that when something becomes automatic for us, it's
Speaker 1: easy to do flossing as an example. Or I was
Speaker 1: trying to think of a habit I've just developed recently
Speaker 1: that I realized has become automatic. But it's a very
Speaker 1: small thing. I can't remember what it is now.
Speaker 2: I want to say, not only does do we want
Speaker 2: it because it sounds easy, It is a wonderful resource
Speaker 2: that our brains are structured to have, so it is beneficial.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of times people drive places that
Speaker 2: they know, you know, on autopilot. I don't want people
Speaker 2: to think that I'm anti habit. I'm absolutely not anti habit.
Speaker 2: What I am concerned about is the over generalization of
Speaker 2: the value of habit formation for complicated behaviors that people
Speaker 2: keep failing at. And I think one of the reasons
Speaker 2: is because as a field, we keep telling people to
Speaker 2: do things that are just not valid in their life contacts.
Speaker 1: Right. Right, It's not that automaticity is bad or that
Speaker 1: we wouldn't want it where we can have it, But
Speaker 1: you don't want to insist on an approach that's simply
Speaker 1: not going to work, right, You just keep bashing your
Speaker 1: head against the wall. So we sort of debunked that.
Speaker 1: You're probably assuming you are trying to form a habit
Speaker 1: that is a multi step complex habit, like eating well
Speaker 1: or exercising regularly, and you have a complex life, right,
Speaker 1: Your life is such that it has chaos in it.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to say we're now talking about ninety
Speaker 1: percent of the people at this point. Right, some people,
Speaker 1: if you're already exercising every single day for the last
Speaker 1: nine years, you can just tune Michelle and I out
Speaker 1: and move on to the next show. For everybody else, though.
Speaker 2: Less let me interrupt unless you want to understand. Unless
Speaker 2: that person who does have it down wants to understand
Speaker 2: why other people in their lives are struggles so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think it is valuable for the people who
Speaker 2: get it right or not get it right is the
Speaker 2: wrong word, who have successfully figured out how to sustain
Speaker 2: and be consistent with these complicated behaviors.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'm going to pause here and say that
Speaker 1: listeners do not despair. We're not saying like you're doomed
Speaker 1: to never stick with eating right or exercising. This is
Speaker 1: not you know, a band and all hope you who
Speaker 1: enter here, right, We're going to get there, but we're
Speaker 1: sort of taking down some of the myths before we
Speaker 1: get there. So let's talk a little bit about You've
Speaker 1: got a section called why we don't just do it?
Speaker 1: You know, just do it? Be in quotes, write that phrase,
Speaker 1: just do it. So what are some of the reasons
Speaker 1: that we don't just do it? We've identified some of them. Yes,
Speaker 1: but now I think we're moving from the external to
Speaker 1: the internal.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Thank you. That is a perfect introduction. So we
Speaker 2: have learned to perceive, approach, and experience exercise and intentional eating. Again,
Speaker 2: while these ideas might generalized to other self care behaviors,
Speaker 2: the book is really explicitly focused on eating an exercise
Speaker 2: because of the reason they are uniquely united or under
Speaker 2: the umbrella of weight loss, and all of the really
Speaker 2: problematic things that brings between weadism and shame and hating
Speaker 2: exercise because it's punishing because you think you have to
Speaker 2: do it hard, or feeling deprived, not because you actually are,
Speaker 2: but because you're making a choice out of this external
Speaker 2: should I can't eat that bad food, and it makes
Speaker 2: you feel resentful or rebel. And here I am jumping
Speaker 2: into the four decision disruptors, which reflect the inner scripts,
Speaker 2: the inner things, the things we tell ourselves at these
Speaker 2: decision points. We're at a party. We recently started an
Speaker 2: eating plan that we felt really good about and have
Speaker 2: really been successful following. And we've noticed that we feel good.
Speaker 2: We go to a party and there's nothing on our
Speaker 2: plan there. And on top of that, there there's a
Speaker 2: listening chocolate cake across the room that you know is
Speaker 2: seducing us with the look and the aroma and all
Speaker 2: the stuff. And instead of saying to ourselves, oh, geez, I,
Speaker 2: you know, yes, chocolate cake is great, but I love
Speaker 2: this eating plan I'm on. The internal script tends to
Speaker 2: be again, it's not our fault. That's how we've learned
Speaker 2: to think about it. Oh my god, I can't have
Speaker 2: that chocolate cake. I can't have it. It's not on
Speaker 2: my eating plan. What is one of the biggest disruptors.
Speaker 2: It's rebellion because humans are wired to rebel against anything
Speaker 2: which takes away our freedom. So that's this internal rebellion
Speaker 2: script that we play. And of course what happens is
Speaker 2: there's all this energy to just take the thing we
Speaker 2: don't think we should or can have, and we don't
Speaker 2: even do it with a sense of gosh, how much
Speaker 2: do I want of the cake? Do I need to
Speaker 2: eat the whole piece of cake? Often what happens out
Speaker 2: of rebellion is we eat three pieces of cake because
Speaker 2: we are just taking that energy of I can't and
Speaker 2: it's boomeranging into you know, screw you. I'm gonna eat
Speaker 2: as much as the cake as I want to. So
Speaker 2: that's one of the primary internal decision traps I've seen
Speaker 2: in my coaching, and you know, as a coach, I'm
Speaker 2: wondering if you recognize these decision disruptors that happen at
Speaker 2: the moment of choice. And this is why instead of
Speaker 2: thinking we need things to be precisely right and automated.
Speaker 2: I mean, how is that decision like that at a
Speaker 2: party automated? We are outside of any context. We've established
Speaker 2: our eating habits around and we have this seduction occurring.
Speaker 2: And so if we don't have the mental wherewithal to
Speaker 2: make a choice that is the most adaptive choice that's
Speaker 2: going to enable us to both stick with our greater goals,
Speaker 2: whatever those are. It doesn't have to be precisely right,
Speaker 2: but also feel like we're participating in our social lives
Speaker 2: with our families and our friends, which is among the
Speaker 2: most motivating things that human beings have is other people.
Speaker 2: So if our exercise and healthy eating inner dialogue reflects
Speaker 2: a conflict between participating with the people we feel most
Speaker 2: connected to, while that is an automatic setup to fail too,
Speaker 2: because we are, for anything in human nature, motivated to
Speaker 2: align with our families to participate. And then we're talking
Speaker 2: about rebellion. We've talked about another really common one is perfection.
Speaker 2: We can use the chocolate cake as an example. So
Speaker 2: looking at the chocolate cake, it's a black or white,
Speaker 2: it's can I have it or can't I have it?
Speaker 2: It's the can't is a perfect world? I cannot have
Speaker 2: at all the cake, all or nothing, and nothing in
Speaker 2: that situation is eating the whole thing or more. And
Speaker 2: that sets us up when we look at our choices.
Speaker 2: Am I gonna run for forty five minutes or walk
Speaker 2: for forty minutes like I planned? All? Oh gee, that
Speaker 2: phone call only gives me thirty five minutes? Why bother?
Speaker 2: Or nothing? I'm not going to do anything? So it works.
Speaker 2: This all or nothing really, this black and white thinking, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, is a cognitive distortion, yet it's the
Speaker 2: way potentially the majority of people think about these two
Speaker 2: choices in the arenas of exercise and eating. Another one
Speaker 2: is what I call commendation, which is really a bit
Speaker 2: outside of the topic of exercising and eating, but it
Speaker 2: is fundamental to the decisions people make in the moment.
Speaker 2: Right if someone's needs or our work needs seem to
Speaker 2: be competing with our plan to exercise or our eating
Speaker 2: plan because a dear friend just handed us a delicious
Speaker 2: chocolate chip cookie that she made, and we feel that
Speaker 2: we need to show her that we care about her
Speaker 2: in value this gift she just gave to us. That
Speaker 2: instead of thinking about, well, gee, I'm eating this way,
Speaker 2: that doesn't include the chocolate chip cookie or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: It could be a burrito for all I care. My
Speaker 2: need to validate her needs is more important than my need.
Speaker 2: And again, if it's all or nothing thinking, then it's
Speaker 2: the whole cookie versus something else or not at all.
Speaker 2: And these things are the internal part that disrupt in
Speaker 2: the moment decision. It's how our brain has learned to
Speaker 2: think about it. And that's why the book and the
Speaker 2: method is really about guiding people to notice in the moment.
Speaker 2: It gets back to your pivotal parable, which is which
Speaker 2: am I going to feed this old reaction and habitual
Speaker 2: way of thinking, which Tens hasn't served most people for
Speaker 2: many years? Or do I want to feed a different
Speaker 2: wolf that's going to give me a more adaptive long
Speaker 2: term result.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a question about the perfectionism,
Speaker 1: the all or nothing. On the exercise side, it seems
Speaker 1: very clear to me right that all or nothing thinking
Speaker 1: is not helpful because if I can't work out for
Speaker 1: an hour, I don't work out at all versus working
Speaker 1: out for forty five minutes or five minutes even right,
Speaker 1: I think if there's anything that has changed my ability
Speaker 1: with many of these things, particularly exercise. It has been
Speaker 1: a little to something is better than a lot of nothing. Right,
Speaker 1: do something, you can do something. But I want to
Speaker 1: pivot this to things like eating, and particularly things like
Speaker 1: eating sweets, because there are differing opinions out there, and
Speaker 1: I think the answer you're going to give me is
Speaker 1: it depends. But nonetheless I'm still gonna kind of walk
Speaker 1: through the question more about how you would think about
Speaker 1: it than what your answer is. And that is there
Speaker 1: are people who say, you know, when it comes to sweets,
Speaker 1: for me, I am an abstainer. Abstaining works best for me.
Speaker 1: I don't have to figure out under what circumstances. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a recovering alcoholic ratic, So in this case, I'm
Speaker 1: an abstainer. Right. I often talk about the beautiful clarity
Speaker 1: of zero. Right, it's just simple, there's no debate in there.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But food is a different animal than drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1: So there are some people who say, look, I just
Speaker 1: I cut it out completely. And then there are other
Speaker 1: people who are looking to integrate it and in a
Speaker 1: way where they've got some degree of moderation around it.
Speaker 1: And there's some people who think that you're kind of
Speaker 1: one of those or the other, and determining which of
Speaker 1: those you are is really a wise thing to do
Speaker 1: and then come down in that way. But how do
Speaker 1: you think about that challenge when it comes to eating?
Speaker 2: Thank you for raising that that is a really important issue.
Speaker 2: So I want to say, as you already said, now
Speaker 2: there are some people who feel that the issue on
Speaker 2: addiction versus not when it comes to eating, I would
Speaker 2: say has not been solved. There are just really core
Speaker 2: people and doing research who claim both sides. But a
Speaker 2: more mundane how we live our lives perspective, it is
Speaker 2: important for us to figure out. Now the challenge is
Speaker 2: if people say, well, I am the type of person, Well, no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a step back. Part of the
Speaker 2: problem is that we're asking this question without explicitly shining
Speaker 2: a light on the context of the food choices, because
Speaker 2: people would say, oh, I'm a zero person, I cannot
Speaker 2: do moderation. But really it's a false dichotomy. If people
Speaker 2: are making choices under shoulds and feeling like they've got
Speaker 2: to do something, or feeling that their bodies or they
Speaker 2: are bad or unattractive or whatever it is. If all
Speaker 2: of that junk surrounds the eating choice. Then I would say,
Speaker 2: we can't know if someone is truly a moderation versus
Speaker 2: a zero person because it's all these other forces that
Speaker 2: are inside of our brain that we've learned to have.
Speaker 2: We have to be aware that that's going to be
Speaker 2: going on, because it's very hard to do moderation if
Speaker 2: you're going to have perfection and rebellion and other decision
Speaker 2: traps because those forces they're not going to let you
Speaker 2: be successful with moderation or for zero for that matter,
Speaker 2: because we're always going to be reacting number one. I
Speaker 2: want to make sure that that issue is clear. Getting
Speaker 2: back to the moderation versus zero, There are, for sure
Speaker 2: individual differences, but here's something that most people may not know.
Speaker 2: The emerging research on this question suggests that it is
Speaker 2: the moderation approach which is going to be more effective
Speaker 2: for more people. So there's a couple of studies. One
Speaker 2: study is looking at a weight loss registry, and I'm
Speaker 2: not focusing on weight losses an outcome because I think
Speaker 2: it really sets people up to not stick with exercise
Speaker 2: and healthy eating for many of the reasons we spoke
Speaker 2: about five to seven years ago. But they wanted to
Speaker 2: know in this group of people who had lost and
Speaker 2: were maintaining a substantial amount of weight, which strategy was
Speaker 2: going to be most effective with eating over a year.
Speaker 2: Is it coming to a weekend with you know, trying
Speaker 2: to stick to the plan, which would be a zero approach, right,
Speaker 2: I don't do any of it. I'm going to stick
Speaker 2: to the plan no matter what. Or is coming to
Speaker 2: the weekend eating with something with a little more flexibility,
Speaker 2: which is technically in the literature called flexible restraint. Which
Speaker 2: of those two eating stategies is going to be most
Speaker 2: adaptive for eating over time? And the research found and
Speaker 2: you're not going to be surprised because of the way
Speaker 2: I've set this up that it's the flexible restrainers who
Speaker 2: had more adaptive eating and outcomes. So I believe it
Speaker 2: comes back to this core wisdom about how we live
Speaker 2: every other area of our life. We can't hit a
Speaker 2: bullseye every time we parent, we cannot hit a bullseye
Speaker 2: every time we engage with our partners and our work.
Speaker 2: And it's that sensibility that it's about a journey and
Speaker 2: an intention. We want to do things a certain way,
Speaker 2: but sometimes we can't. I can't do it today, okay,
Speaker 2: Or I have to make the perfect and perfect choice.
Speaker 2: Or I could make no choice, but that isn't going
Speaker 2: to get me as far as the perfect and perfect choice.
Speaker 2: So I think the biggest issue is that we have
Speaker 2: come to believe that exercise and eating are different than
Speaker 2: these other lifelong journeys.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that idea of flexible restrainers. Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think could I moderate drugs and alcohol? I probably would.
Speaker 1: It seems like the better choice right at this juncture
Speaker 1: in my life. I've proved multiple times that doesn't work,
Speaker 1: and the risk reward ratio is just stupidly out of whack.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, It's just you know, it's like, well, what
Speaker 1: would I get, Well, I'd be able to have a
Speaker 1: drink a couple times a week, what might I lose everything? Okay?
Speaker 1: Not worth doing, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Piece of cakes a little more subtle, And you know,
Speaker 1: I certainly know that Ginny and I have been on
Speaker 1: a I would say, very good healthy eating journey, particularly
Speaker 1: since her mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I think we
Speaker 1: were healthy before and then we kind of upped it
Speaker 1: even from there. But it has not been rigid and restraining.
Speaker 1: You know, there is flexibility in there. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the important things is there are situations like
Speaker 1: you talked about, where we find ourselves in a situation
Speaker 1: and we have to be able to make a decision.
Speaker 1: And I want to get to that because that's really important.
Speaker 1: I also think that we can really do well with
Speaker 1: planned exceptions. Yes, a planned exception would be today is Wednesday,
Speaker 1: November twenty third. Listeners, you are going to hear this
Speaker 1: in January. But for Michelle and I, it's a day
Speaker 1: before Thanksgiving. I could make a planned exception tomorrow that
Speaker 1: you know what, for Thanksgiving dinner, I'm just eating whatever
Speaker 1: and I'm going to have one piece of dessert and
Speaker 1: that's it done. Right now. The problem for a lot
Speaker 1: of us is that if we're all or nothing right,
Speaker 1: the minute that we blow up with a Thanksgiving dinner,
Speaker 1: we think, well, screw it. It's Thanksgiving weekend, right, it's
Speaker 1: the holidays, right, And the next thing we know, it's
Speaker 1: January first. So I found you know, Okay, let me
Speaker 1: be clear about what the rules are. And again, there's
Speaker 1: some flexibility in them, but they are rules that are
Speaker 1: designed to have flexibility. There's lots of ways this can
Speaker 1: go wrong. You know, I've been in the only on
Speaker 1: special occasions and the next thing, you know, like Billy
Speaker 1: getting to see on his report card is a specials
Speaker 1: and you know, but being clear birthdays or I've had
Speaker 1: other people who, you know, I don't think they have
Speaker 1: alcoholism issues. They said, I'm just not going to drink
Speaker 1: alone at my home. Yes, and their life isn't like
Speaker 1: they're not out partying all the time. For a college student,
Speaker 1: that's a terrible thing. It's not going to make any difference.
Speaker 1: But for most adults, they just go, Look, if I'm
Speaker 1: out with friends, I'm gonna have a couple drinks. But
Speaker 1: when I'm home alone, nothing right. So there are ways
Speaker 1: that we can have some flexibility and also some clarity.
Speaker 1: It's not all or nothing that's correct.
Speaker 2: And I think inherent in the flexible approach and strategy
Speaker 2: that I'm teaching, inherent in that is people are making
Speaker 2: intentional decisions. So that's also the beauty of flexibility is
Speaker 2: it asks people to be in charge of their choices,
Speaker 2: not the inner scripts. It's about saying, oh, I see
Speaker 2: you perfection steering me down, or I see you rebellion
Speaker 2: steering me down. But guess what you're the bad wolf.
Speaker 2: And I know that I've been feeding you for thirty
Speaker 2: years and it doesn't get me where I want to go.
Speaker 2: So I want to go in a different direction. And
Speaker 2: so I think for me anyway and my philosophy, and
Speaker 2: it sounds like we might align on this is that
Speaker 2: when you teach this flexible approach, it is inherently about
Speaker 2: the individual saying, Okay, this is what I care most about,
Speaker 2: this is how I want to participate in celebrations. It
Speaker 2: asks people to become very clear about what they value,
Speaker 2: what they most want, and it asks people to critically
Speaker 2: think about, you know, if I'm going to stick with this,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to stick with a healthier eating lifestyle
Speaker 2: just like a parent, and you know, for a journey
Speaker 2: of thirty years. On the other side of the thirty years,
Speaker 2: what's really going to let me do that? And rigidity
Speaker 2: it works for some people, and like you said, when
Speaker 2: it comes to alcohol, being rigid is absolutely the solution.
Speaker 2: You know, it's important for people to truly know what's
Speaker 2: going to work for them. But again, if people don't
Speaker 2: understand the societal context around the meaning of eating, healthy
Speaker 2: eating and exercise, that has the potential to continuously thwart
Speaker 2: what people do because it creates these inner dialogues, the
Speaker 2: forces that lead us to the bad wolf instead of
Speaker 2: the skilled wolf, if you will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, underlying a lot of what you're saying here is
Speaker 1: reconnecting with our ability to choose and our ability to
Speaker 1: decide what's important to us, and not doing that on autopilot, right,
Speaker 1: not just following the scripts we've been given. Not doing
Speaker 1: this because even because my doctor said I should, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying we should just heedlessly ignore our doctors.
Speaker 1: It's worth going when my doctor said that I should
Speaker 1: probably do this, And why would you have said that?
Speaker 1: It's because if I don't, this might happen. Oh well,
Speaker 1: if that happened, that would affect my relationship with my children. Like,
Speaker 1: we eventually get back to what matters to us. But
Speaker 1: reconnecting with our choice is the key piece.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, just choice, conscious choice, which is the opposite of
Speaker 2: an automatic habit. Now, I do want to say something
Speaker 2: that I think is crucial. We've been talking about it
Speaker 2: in one way, but I think it's really crucial to
Speaker 2: say it in this way. The value of any choice
Speaker 2: at a party after work, the value of every single
Speaker 2: choice we make, is determined by the context of the
Speaker 2: other choices and needs. If we're not aware of that,
Speaker 2: and we're not skilled at being able to pivot and compromise,
Speaker 2: find the creative compromise. I don't have the sixty minutes
Speaker 2: to take the walk outside. I only have fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: but I care that it lifts my mood. You know,
Speaker 2: I have all these kid things to do, and I've
Speaker 2: got this work that I've got to get done, but
Speaker 2: I have fifteen minutes. So when we become skilled in
Speaker 2: being able to compromise and pivot, which is of course
Speaker 2: the joy choice, the perfect and perfect option that let's
Speaker 2: us do something instead of nothing. When we do that,
Speaker 2: then we can keep our momentum. If we don't know
Speaker 2: how to successfully navigate those choices with intention, then they're
Speaker 2: going to keep derailing us, which kicks us right off
Speaker 2: the path of lasting change.
Speaker 1: You actually say early in the book what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here are choice points. You and I had an
Speaker 1: interesting conversation about where that phrase comes from, and we
Speaker 1: realized I might have arrived at it from multiple different sources.
Speaker 1: But these choice points, I'm at a choice point. Do
Speaker 1: I eat the chocolate? Do I not? Now I have
Speaker 1: a choice whether I work out, whether I don't work out,
Speaker 1: And you say, I call these conflicts choice points, and
Speaker 1: they are the real place of power for achieving lasting
Speaker 1: changes in eating an exercise. And I think that's so
Speaker 1: much of what this is about is about learning to
Speaker 1: navigate choice points. You know, when I work with a
Speaker 1: coaching client, you know, we start off and I say, well,
Speaker 1: let's put what structure we can put in place, Let's
Speaker 1: put what plans we can put in place, because you
Speaker 1: know what, if we can get some of that in great,
Speaker 1: But you know what, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you're still going to bump up against these choice points.
Speaker 1: And what we can learn to do is say, what
Speaker 1: is happening inside me when I make the right choice?
Speaker 1: And what is happening inside me when I make the
Speaker 1: wrong choice or the choice that I want to make,
Speaker 1: or the choice I don't want to make. Let's non
Speaker 1: moralize it, right, the choice I want to make versus
Speaker 1: the choice I don't want to make. And the value
Speaker 1: of a choice point actually is that it can narrow
Speaker 1: our window of focus to a moment we can actually go, oh,
Speaker 1: here's what I was saying to myself, Here's what I
Speaker 1: was thinking, here's what I was feeling. Okay, Well, what
Speaker 1: might I say to myself next time? What might I
Speaker 1: do differently next time? It gives us a real, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, an actual, specific point in
Speaker 1: time that we can look at, and it becomes less
Speaker 1: about Oh, I've got to figure out my entire emotional
Speaker 1: makeup versus I have to figure out what's going on
Speaker 1: inside me.
Speaker 2: Now, that's right and inherent in choice point is choice,
Speaker 2: And as you know from all of your work, choice
Speaker 2: is the epitome of what cultivates autonomy and self determination.
Speaker 2: And we know that high quality motivation is embodied in
Speaker 2: the idea that I'm in charge and I get to choose,
Speaker 2: and that is the antidote to all or nothing thinking, Yeah,
Speaker 2: all are nothing, thinking there's only two choices, and I'm
Speaker 2: forced to choose between sticking to the plan one hundred
Speaker 2: percent or just tossing it all to the wind. But no,
Speaker 2: the choice point is wait a sack, there are options here.
Speaker 2: They give me freedom to align myself with the context
Speaker 2: of needs and options at the moment.
Speaker 1: Let's pivot to what can we do in choice points?
Speaker 1: And you talk about an executive functioning team. These are
Speaker 1: aspects of our brain that we can and you correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm saying this wrong, but that we can
Speaker 1: call upon in choice points to help us make better decisions.
Speaker 1: Is that an accurate way of saying it?
Speaker 2: I would say that choice points evoke our executive functioning team. Okay,
Speaker 2: when we are at moments of decision making, when we're
Speaker 2: at moments of problem solving and potentially pivoting, that is
Speaker 2: the work of our executive functions. And as you know
Speaker 2: in the book, I talk about three primary executive functions
Speaker 2: that are discussed in the literature on eating, especially in
Speaker 2: other areas of living like ADHD. Sometimes they talk about
Speaker 2: seven executive functions. So there's different ways of talking about it.
Speaker 2: But the bottom line when it comes to executive functioning
Speaker 2: is it is our brains innate decision making, self management,
Speaker 2: problem solving, goal striving apparatus. And so why don't we
Speaker 2: cultivate it the three primary executive functions so that we
Speaker 2: better set our brains up to help us make the
Speaker 2: skilled choice.
Speaker 1: I want to go into those three in a second,
Speaker 1: but I want to just clarify a little bit of
Speaker 1: what we're saying here. I think that what you're saying,
Speaker 1: is that step one is we have to recognize we
Speaker 1: are in a choice point, yes, right, because so often
Speaker 1: we just slip off into not exercising, not eating right right,
Speaker 1: without any real thought of what's happening. You know, I
Speaker 1: often talk about the very first thing we have got
Speaker 1: to do is bring whatever is happening into consciousness. That's right,
Speaker 1: Recognize that I'm about to make a decision or a choice.
Speaker 1: It may not seem like I am, but I am
Speaker 1: about to and I'm making it the way I traditionally
Speaker 1: have made it without thinking about it. So I first
Speaker 1: have to bring it up into recognizing, Okay, I'm in
Speaker 1: a choice point. And now once I've done that, then
Speaker 1: I call in my executive functioning tools to help me
Speaker 1: make the right choice.
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't say I'm calling on because it's that
Speaker 2: kind of happens automatically. What I'm saying is the way
Speaker 2: we think about it is either going to thwart or
Speaker 2: support our executive functioning right, because the old reactions, the
Speaker 2: old decision traps that we've talked about, the inner script.
Speaker 2: If you're scripting, I can't, I can't, or it's got
Speaker 2: to be all or nothing. You can see how that
Speaker 2: script that we tell ourselves, the narrative, absolutely distracts us
Speaker 2: from the options. Yes, so how can our executive functions
Speaker 2: work effectively when we're going down a rabbit hole with
Speaker 2: the shoulds and all the black and white thinking. So
Speaker 2: you are one hundred percent right, and I think this
Speaker 2: is becoming more are out there in mainstream. But behavior
Speaker 2: change is belief change and different choice making, and we
Speaker 2: cannot do either of those things if we are not
Speaker 2: conscious at the point of choice. So it isn't as
Speaker 2: sexy as peloton or habit formation being aware at a
Speaker 2: point of choice. But we cannot change the way we think,
Speaker 2: which is the precursor to changing what we do, if
Speaker 2: we do not have conscious awareness at that point.
Speaker 1: Great, So let's talk about the three executive functions that
Speaker 1: you think are critical for making healthy choices.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the first primary executive function is called working memory,
Speaker 2: and this is the part of our brain that holds
Speaker 2: and processes information at the same time. And most people
Speaker 2: can only hold in process like one to three pieces
Speaker 2: of information. So you can see that if you're focused
Speaker 2: on a narrative about I can't, I can't that sort
Speaker 2: of thing, or I've got to please her, or I
Speaker 2: want her to know I love those kinds of thoughts
Speaker 2: that's in your brain. So that kind of thinking has
Speaker 2: a huge potential to overwhelm our working memory. But working
Speaker 2: memory is the backbone of effective problem solving because that
Speaker 2: is the space. It's not really you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: calling it a literal space, but that's where problem solving happens.
Speaker 2: And if we can't hold the information in our brain
Speaker 2: because we're too focused on worrying about whether we're going
Speaker 2: to make the right decision, then we won't be able
Speaker 2: to problem solve and pivot. So that's working memory, and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about the decision tool that I created to
Speaker 2: clean up that space, if you will. Then we've got
Speaker 2: cognitive flexibility or flexible thinking. Our brains are innately wired
Speaker 2: to do flexible thinking. If we think about eating an
Speaker 2: exercise in more flexible ways. We are basically aligning this
Speaker 2: new thought process with this very important ability, mental ability
Speaker 2: that we have to pivot like we do in all
Speaker 2: these other areas of our lives. And then the third
Speaker 2: primary working memory is referred to as inhibition. More popularly,
Speaker 2: people think about this ability as self control. And so
Speaker 2: this has been the primary focus changing our eating. We're
Speaker 2: just going to inhibit ourselves. We're going to stick to
Speaker 2: the plan. But in reality, I believe more people would
Speaker 2: be successful if instead of feeling like they have to
Speaker 2: inhibit all the time, they actually learn to think about
Speaker 2: choice points and that being flexible is actually adaptive not
Speaker 2: having to do it perfect. But actually, you know what,
Speaker 2: just like all these other life areas, I'm going to
Speaker 2: do this perfectly, imperfectly, so I stay the journey.
Speaker 1: So what is the joy choice?
Speaker 2: So there's a technical definition which I I'll say the
Speaker 2: joy choice is the perfect and perfect option that lets
Speaker 2: us do something instead of nothing. This doesn't just give
Speaker 2: us the momentum we want to keep going forward on
Speaker 2: the path or journey of lasting change. There's another really
Speaker 2: meaningful way to think about it, and that is that
Speaker 2: if our decision to take a part of that self
Speaker 2: care activity, a part of that exercise, a part of
Speaker 2: our eating plan and fulfill that, we are doing that
Speaker 2: to take care of ourselves, to respect our greater goals,
Speaker 2: and in doing so, we are fueling ourselves for the
Speaker 2: people and projects we care most about. So it's not
Speaker 2: just about the formula for sustainability that has science supporting it.
Speaker 2: It's also about making a choice that lets us be
Speaker 2: our full self that harmonizes exercise choice or our eating
Speaker 2: choice with the whole other parts of our lives and
Speaker 2: who we are, which includes our connections and loved ones.
Speaker 2: So that is why it's called the joy choice. It
Speaker 2: lets us harmonize exercise and eating within our full self.
Speaker 1: I love that. So let's talk about the decision making tool?
Speaker 1: Is it pop? Is that the decision making tool? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: I'm referencing the right one. So this is a way
Speaker 1: to sort of navigate choice points.
Speaker 2: Yes, if our executive functioning is this innate brain system
Speaker 2: for pivoting and problem solving and long term coal pursuit, Like,
Speaker 2: wouldn't it be wonderful if we could support the three
Speaker 2: primary executive functions? And so this is a tool that
Speaker 2: I've developed and used with my coaching clients, and I
Speaker 2: call it POP. Now, I'm going to bring us back
Speaker 2: to the very beginning of our our conversation where you
Speaker 2: asked me about the motive bubble. We talked about the
Speaker 2: fact that the motivation bubble is very vulnerable and life
Speaker 2: bursts it. Right, it bumps up against something and life
Speaker 2: bursts the bubble. While with the pop decision tool, instead
Speaker 2: of letting life burst our bubble in this passive way
Speaker 2: where we're kind of victimized by things, we autonomously take
Speaker 2: charge and we puppet. So it's both a metaphor for
Speaker 2: us being in charge. We pop our plan. It's not
Speaker 2: workable any longer, so we're gonna pop it. And what
Speaker 2: we do when we pop it is then we open
Speaker 2: up the option. So that is the overarching metaphor. But
Speaker 2: it's actually an acronym which is really good for our
Speaker 2: working memory, recall, remembering, and recall. So POP stands for pause.
Speaker 2: And like we've talked about it throughout this conversation, if
Speaker 2: we don't take a moment to bring our consciousness to
Speaker 2: the choice, then our automated, un skillful responses will just
Speaker 2: take over. So pause introduces this intentional moment where we
Speaker 2: can say, Ah, which wolf do I want to feed?
Speaker 2: I'm going to feed the one that's going to really
Speaker 2: take me to where I want to go. So that's
Speaker 2: the first PM POP the oh I designed it to
Speaker 2: support working memory because it enables us to clear away
Speaker 2: to name any of the traps temptation, rebellion, accommodation, perfection. Oh,
Speaker 2: I see you, but guess what. That's the unskilled wolf.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go there. Let me focus my attention,
Speaker 2: take a breath, and then go on to the second
Speaker 2: step in POP, which is the O open up our
Speaker 2: options and play well. How better to cultivate flexible thinking
Speaker 2: than to consider it as an opportunity to play? Well? Gee,
Speaker 2: there's this awesome chocolate cake over there. I want some
Speaker 2: of it. What are my options here? What did I
Speaker 2: plan to eat? What did I plan to eat later?
Speaker 2: I think hmm, I could eat half the cake, and
Speaker 2: I could do to wiggle around, tweak something else.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: It invites us to think in creative and playful ways
Speaker 2: about the choice point. And that is flexible thinking or
Speaker 2: cognitive flexibility in its essence. And now the second P
Speaker 2: and the ending of the POP decision tool is pe
Speaker 2: pick the joy choice. There's no right or wrong answer here.
Speaker 2: The joy choice is the perfect and perfect option that
Speaker 2: lets us do something instead of nothing, giving us momentum
Speaker 2: and helping us harmonize our eating an exercise choice within
Speaker 2: our full self. So what POP? Does as an acronym,
Speaker 2: is it makes it easier to recall. I want to say.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean it's going to be effortless. You still
Speaker 2: have to learn how to use it, and you can
Speaker 2: put it as a contact in your phone. That's one
Speaker 2: way people use it, so that you can learn to
Speaker 2: memorize it. But it also strategically guides our attention away
Speaker 2: from the decision traps to play. I have options here,
Speaker 2: let me open them up, and then to picking the
Speaker 2: imperfect choice that for the past three decades I haven't
Speaker 2: given myself permission to do because I'm forced to stick
Speaker 2: to the plan, which then I just rebel against. So
Speaker 2: it guides the specific thought process in a way we
Speaker 2: don't need to inhibit ourselves. It's not about harnessing self control.
Speaker 2: That's not the conversation. The conversation is given the choice
Speaker 2: point and my full set of needs and the value
Speaker 2: that choice has right now based on the full context
Speaker 2: of other things, which is the one I don't have
Speaker 2: to rebel against that question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I think that's a very
Speaker 1: helpful acronym, And we do need some approach because we're
Speaker 1: often going to find ourselves at choice points. Also in
Speaker 1: moments of stress. Yes, you know that's where the bubble
Speaker 1: tends to rub up against life in moments of stress.
Speaker 1: And we know that in moments of stress, executive function
Speaker 1: tends to take a hike. So it's really helpful to
Speaker 1: be like, have something as simple as pop okay, here
Speaker 1: I am, what do I do? And walk through those things?
Speaker 1: And I love the joy choice, this idea of the
Speaker 1: perfectly imperfect that allows me to do something rather than
Speaker 1: nothing in the context of everything I want to be
Speaker 1: eating an exercise has changed so fundamentally for me over
Speaker 1: the last decade, I would say, and it really has
Speaker 1: been in a complete reframing of it. And this is
Speaker 1: probably normal with age to some degree. But a reframing
Speaker 1: from vanity, a reframing from sholds and into this is
Speaker 1: what I know supports me in being the person that
Speaker 1: I want to be in the world. You know, when
Speaker 1: I don't exercise, I don't make a good interviewer. I
Speaker 1: don't make a good coach, I don't make a good father,
Speaker 1: I don't make a good dog owner. I'm not a
Speaker 1: particularly good partner. I'm very deeply unhappy within myself, you know,
Speaker 1: So for me, with exercise it's just I just remind myself,
Speaker 1: like you're going to feel a certain way an hour
Speaker 1: from now, How do you want to feel in an hour?
Speaker 1: And I know for me, the way I want to
Speaker 1: feel in an hour is the way I feel on
Speaker 1: the other side of exercise, proud of myself, energized, you know.
Speaker 1: And same thing with food. You know, how do I
Speaker 1: want to feel at the end of this meal? How
Speaker 1: do I want to feel and what supports me in
Speaker 1: what matters to me? And you talk about this near
Speaker 1: the end of the book, which is really just the
Speaker 1: important of value based decision making. Right, the more we
Speaker 1: can be clear on what really matters to us, we
Speaker 1: have a much better chance of making good decisions because
Speaker 1: there's clarity there. But a lot of times we don't
Speaker 1: ever take the time to get that clarity, and so
Speaker 1: we're making decisions in a fog about like, well, what
Speaker 1: really matters to me is this cake?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: So so I love that you sort of kind of
Speaker 1: near the very end sort of bring it back to
Speaker 1: that core idea.
Speaker 2: Well, and the neuroscience, the emerging science, directly supports that idea.
Speaker 2: I think that's among the most exciting science on creating
Speaker 2: sustainable behavior change is the work showing that when we value,
Speaker 2: when we believe that a choice aligns with who we
Speaker 2: are at our core, those brain regions light up. And
Speaker 2: also it's predictive of people making decisions over time related
Speaker 2: to that healthy choice. And the good news is we
Speaker 2: can actually change a lot. Some of your listeners might think, well,
Speaker 2: I don't value exercise in that way. I don't have
Speaker 2: those experiences. It feels like it should, So I mean,
Speaker 2: the beauty is is that it's actually quite easy to
Speaker 2: convert exercise from those shoulds and chores to feeling like
Speaker 2: a gift, and that it's a part of who you are,
Speaker 2: it's reflecting your values. So I mean, I think that's
Speaker 2: really important because people might be feeling gosh, I don't
Speaker 2: know how to do that. The first step is to
Speaker 2: recognize whether you have been coming to your exercise and
Speaker 2: eating choice points with this feeling of should and rule
Speaker 2: and precision, and if you are, the first thing is
Speaker 2: to say, gosh, has that worked for me or not?
Speaker 2: And again, if it works for you and it makes
Speaker 2: you a happy person, there's no reason you have to
Speaker 2: pull away from that. Right. Just like you said at
Speaker 2: the beginning, when we understand that our choices around what
Speaker 2: we eat and how we move our bodies reflect who
Speaker 2: we want to be and our personal preferences and the
Speaker 2: realities the true realities of our daily lives. Yep, that's
Speaker 2: the recipe for sustainable change.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Well, Michelle, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: It's been such a pleasure to talk with you. I
Speaker 1: found The Joy Choice a great read and so much
Speaker 1: great wisdom in it, So thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2: For having me again. It was such fun to talk.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
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