Access is 9/10ths of the Problem
If you're trying to eat better, keep bad foods out of your life.
If you’re new here I’m the Rational Technologist, a writer interested in living better with technology - sometimes through the technology of sharing ideas through this blog.
Today’s blog post is one of those times when the link to technology is tenuous, but there probably is some psychology and science in here so let’s hop in.
This year I’ve been trying very hard to eat better and exercise more - and it’s been working, I’ve lost over 20 pounds and built a lot of muscle and that’s clearly been downstream of those better physical activity and diet decisions.
But, someone has thrown a wrench into everything, and while it has been a very small setback, I think its also an opportunity for some valuable learning and reflection. On most days I resist eating loads of sugary candy, cookies, sodas and the like, however ever since my mother has been in town visiting, my consumption of all of these things has gone up significantly. I have probably eaten more Twizzlers (licorice) in the last 48 hours than in the last 48 weeks. All of this has made me take pause, remember why I dislike having family stay with me long term, and helped remind me of some important diet basics.
Access is Everything
When it comes to food access is everything, bringing unhealthy food into your home is the biggest and most fundamental mistake you can make. Once it’s in your home not eating it becomes much, much harder.
You’ve already paid for it.
It’s extremely accessible.
You know it’s there.
The cost benefit of consumption is disconnected from aquisition.
Ultimately, once the [insert bad thing] is easily accessible, its a lot harder to use laziness as a reason not to do something unhealthy! While it might be good monk-esque training to learn to have candy in front of you and not take it, and most people do need to be able to say no to this type of stuff, the issue is that when you don’t have a bunch of delicious candy in front of you, eating way too much of it just isn’t possible.
When I do eat unhealthy things - I try to save my room for things like store made gelato that aren’t made in a mass manufacturing facility - I want to do it outside of the house, this makes it more experience, and less 15 second boredom antidote. Theres also a positive social pressure where eating a whole bag of licorice at home is absolutely imaginable, eating an entire tub of gelato in front of the store staff or friends is . . . not.
We Forget What We Don’t See
Another thing that I think is almost as underappreciated as the access issue is that we literally just forget things we don’t see in front of us. Twizzlers (yes I will continue to use this extremely personal example) are something that essentially never crosses my mind in regular life. But, now that they are literally sitting in the next room over they are crossing my mind roughly once per hour.
There are so many things like this. When something is sitting on your table or in the next room you become aware of it’s existence in a sort of immediate sense, but whats even worse is that when you eat something like a piece of licorice you are reminded how its tastes and that you enjoy it. I have found much diet success in finding foods that I enjoy in the moment, and which provide me with lots of valuable nutrients, but which I basically don’t think about until meal time swings around, because they aren’t literally solid sugar.
Unsurprisingly, Twizzlers are not the only problem, my mother has also brought Mike and Ike’s (which somehow I can mentally avoid despite enjoying them because I am really trying to avoid red food dye . . . which is probably also in Twizzlers . . . ) and Aero chocolate bars into my home, which are “foods” I also have not had in years. I think its easy to discount it, but not having these things around means no only are you not eating them, but you’re not thinking about them and you have to find better ways to cure boredom or momentary stress and anxiety.
Volume is Bad
And then theres the problem of volume - I kind of touched on this before with the tub of gelato comment, but I think it’s really underrated. When you buy stuff at a store you are buying stuff for future consumption, and so it’s really great if the food isn’t so incredibly easy to consume in volume that you’ll be able to snack. For example, two foods I do look forwarding to eating most days are an egg sandwich, and this really delicious cereal, but unlike Twizzlers neither of these foods come in small snackable quantity, and both require a dish and some amount of “preparation” even if thats just pouring cereal and milk into a bowl. Being able to take a very yummy food straight out of a plastic bag and put it straight into your mouth is asking for trouble.
The Solution?
The solution to all of this is simple don’t bring things you’re trying to avoid into your life . . . duh. But, I think it goes beyond this, we need to think about shaping habits that are easy to maintain and reinforce and making doing things we don’t want to do more difficult.
Theres probably also something to be said about how people can sometimes get out of a flow and be disrupted by others, or disrupt others, in a way that makes them less healthy. In the future I might have a conversation saying “I appreciate you being so thoughtful by sharing your candy with me, but please keep it out of my sight and out of my mind, I am trying to be healthy”. Doing things like this might seem over the top, but if it makes you enjoy spending time with friends and family more, then I think its worthwhile.