Holiday (Life) Nutrition Tip

I rarely talk or write about nutrition as I think others are imminently more qualified.  However, as I write this on the eve of Thanksgiving, I’m compelled to share with you a valuable mental model that can be applied to all your eating.  It has little to do with macronutrients, micronutrients, or calories.  Instead, it involves a bit of human psychology and the trap of dichotomous thinking. 

Many of us, me included, consciously or subconsciously label our nutrition for a day as either “great” or “bad.”

A great day is a day in which we make healthful nutrition decisions; we are intentional about what we eat; we are mindful of how much we eat.  If we were to grade our nutrition for the day, we would give it an A.

A “bad” nutrition day is a day in which we throw caution to the wind.  The doughnuts at the office looked so good we decided to have two (no real harm in this).  At a lunch meeting that day, we reviewed the menu and decided to order dessert as well.  Why?  Well, because we already ate the doughnuts that morning, we might as well label it a “bad” day and indulge.  This continues throughout the day, and by the end of the day, we are in a true nutrition free-fall.  It’s a “bad” day, so we might as well live it up (and, of course, get back on track the next day).  If we were to grade this day, we would give our eating an “F.”

I operated like this for many years.  

But there is an alternative.  Instead of the dichotomy of good or bad, we could view each day’s “grade” as a continuous variable.  Instead of “great” or “bad,” we could ascribe an A, B, C, D, or F.  Our focus now changes from “I either have great or bad days” to “Today might not be an A, but can I avoid the spiral to an F and achieve a C+.”

Before a big family holiday, a work party, a celebratory dinner out (or, let’s be honest, a late-night flight in which the Delta snack basket comes around for the third time), I remind myself that I don’t have to achieve an A for the day, but I don’t have to default to an F.  There is so much value in achieving a B (or even a D+).

Take home message:  Don’t let a day’s eating get away from you.  It surely doesn’t have to.  String together a high percentage of A’s and then strive to turn your would-be F’s into as many C’s as possible.  And yes, an F every once in a while is okay. 

Final point: You are the one assigning the grade.  Thus, this mental model works for whatever your approach to nutrition might be.