Every day you make thousands of decisions. From the time you wake up in the morning, to the time you lay down to bed, you are constantly making decisions. If you are trying to start a new diet, you need to understand your true motivations and the factors of decision-making, because a diet is nothing more than a very prolonged string of decisions that point you in a new direction for better health and fitness.
Everyone functions with a basic motivational system. We predict the outcome of our actions based on past experience. If something has worked well in the past, we naturally gravitate toward that type of behavior again and again to get a similar result. This is a strong cyclical drive of motivation that directs our decision-making. This isn’t very helpful, though, if you’re trying something for the first time, like a new diet. When you start a new diet, you need to have positive experiences early that will reinforce your decision to stick to it and keep repeating your new habits. So it is important to have a system that helps you stay on track with your new diet.
Emotions complicate decision-making. There are two types that influence decisions: integral emotion, and incidental emotion.
Integral emotion is a feeling you may have about a decision at hand. If you are making a decision to change to a new diet, you may have feelings about that decision and you can anticipate possible outcomes that may affect the way you feel about this new decision. You may imagine yourself failing another venture into the unknown and possibly failing miserably like you did with previous attempts.
Incidental emotion is basically a feeling that you happen to be having at the time you make your decision. There is no real relevance to the decision that you’re making, you’re just being affected by an external factor. For instance, if you were horribly stuck in traffic before showing up for work, you may have pent up anger over the imposition of all of those obnoxious drivers on the road. If you jump right into making decisions after this kind of experience, you’re very likely to make different decisions than you would have if you weren’t feeling lingering feelings of anger. Your brain isn’t really wired up to compartmentalize emotions.
New research shows that emotion is a really important part of decision-making.
If you’re trying to be successful with a new diet, you need to pay attention to the way your emotions influence your decisions. If there is something that you just love to eat, and your diet is keeping you from eating it, you may have feelings of anger or resentment. This has potential to push you into wrong decisions because your emotions will cloud your judgement. If you want to stick to your diet, don’t cut yourself off from sweets completely. You should include a daily treat to help you stay on track. There is a new type of healthy chocolate that includes diet suppressants, added nutrients and vitamins, and comes in bite-sized portions. This is a great way to keep on track without letting yourself binge or fall victim to runaway emotions.
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