#7- Learning to Triage has been my lesson for this summer. WAY too many demands, still no ability to clone myself. In fact, I was at my daughter's summer camp volunteering for 5 days to do crafts with 175 kids (and some crafty adults) when I got a text asking me to volunteer to teach a craft class in early October. I don't even teach crafts- I was only doing so at camp out of love for my daughter- it's not like this is a skill or passion of mine. Anyhow, right before I felt guilty and agreed I stopped. No. I am not doing this. THIS week is my craft "give" for the year, no more. It felt really good to say no, almost as good as ice cream.
I do try to pick up the occasional extra condiment when I am out and about (salt packets, mustard packets- some places have lemon packets and/or vinegar packets, which is very fancy) and that helps me make an emergency eating kit.
Anyhow, read on- I hope you get something from this as I did :)
When the Going Gets Tough: 10 Tips for
Surviving a Rough Spot
By Sébastien Noël
Last updated on June
28th, 2013
Sticking to Paleo (any diet) is hard enough on an ordinary
day. But every so often, life just goes above and beyond to rain on your
parade. Sometimes it’s a family emergency that leaves you dashing from work
straight to the hospital every day with no chance to even think about cooking
healthy food. Sometimes it’s as simple as a monster project at work or a hectic
finals week. And sometimes it’s the unique form of nutritional hell that is air
travel. But one way or another, it’s going to happen to all of us, and the
common factor is stress.
Stressful times in your life are when your
body needs the most nourishment, but they’re also the times when that
nourishment is hardest to get. The good news is that a rough spot doesn’t have
to derail all your efforts to keep yourself healthy, especially not if you plan
for it in advance, and don’t wait until the crisis actually hits.
Anatomy of a Rough Spot
Think of your decision-making process as a
pair of scales. On one side are all the things that support a healthy
lifestyle, both internal (the desire to lose weight, to be healthy and fit, to
have more energy) and external (good food being available and affordable). On
the other side of the scale are all the things that tempt you to make unhealthy
choices, both internal (cravings, desire for comfort food) and external (the
lack of anything healthy to eat, the cost of good food, lack of time to sleep
or work out). Just like any scale, whichever side is “heavier” wins out –
that’s the decision you’re ultimately going to make.
Rough spots in your life all take weight off
the “healthy” side of the scale and add it to the “unhealthy” side. Internally,
they’re usually accompanied by all kinds of negative emotions like fear, grief,
and loneliness. This can make you lose track of your long-term health goals,
and leave you craving sugary “comfort foods.”
Externally, rough spots are often a perfect
storm of circumstances that can defeat even the best of intentions. Sometimes,
you don’t have a lot of control over your own food (think of getting stuck in a
hospital or an airport). You’re often time crunched, and even smart people make
bad decisions when they’re rushed. Money is another factor; eating well on a
budget is possible, but it’s hard to learn at first.
A Word about Playing Superhero: Don’t.
In the middle of all these internal and
external problems, the temptation to play the superhero is very enticing: “I’ve
had 6 hours of sleep in the past 3 days, and I’m an emotional wreck from the
car accident yesterday that sent my daughter to the ER with three broken ribs,
but I’m still getting up at 5am to squeeze in a workout before my 10-hour
shift, and if there’s nothing Paleo to eat during the hospital visiting hours
afterwards, I’ll just have another caffeine pill and tough it out. I have to be
strong enough. Everyone is counting on me.”
As absurd as it sounds, this is extremely
compelling in the moment. You’re needed. You’re important. You’re that
indispensable person who’s holding the world together. Deciding to
singlehandedly take on the impossible and win gives you a crazy adrenaline
rush, and sometimes, that’s the only good feeling around.
The “scale model” of making decisions in the
middle of a rough spot should clearly show why this approach is a bad idea.
Many different things can weigh down the healthy side of the scale; willpower
is only one of them. Trusting to willpower alone is weakening your response to
the situation, because it’s an artificial limit, (and as discussed in the article on
willpower, it isn’t likely to work anyway). That frantic burst of
energy fades fast; it won’t power you through the long term.
Looking at willpower as just one of the many
weights on the scale gives you a valuable distance from the tendency to blame
yourself for every imperfection, because you can see all the other factors
involved. If you’re struggling to make healthy choices during a hard time in
your life, it’s not because you’re weak, stupid, lazy, or unmotivated. It’s
a simple mathematical calculation: the weight on the “unhealthy” side of the
scale is heavier than the weight on the “healthy” side. So don’t waste time and
energy beating yourself up; it’s not helpful anyway. Instead, use that time and
energy to re-balance all the different weights on the scale.
10 Tips for When the Going Gets Tough
10. Ask for help. Most people love the chance to be
someone else’s hero, but they can’t help you if they don’t know you need it.
Make it clear that they can say no if they’re too busy, but there’s no harm in
asking. Some little favors that can make a big difference:
- “Here’s
10 bucks; would you mind grabbing me ______________ while you’re at the
store?” (add weight to the “healthy” side of the balance by making it
easier to eat good food)
- “Would
you mind picking Jimmy up from school today?” (add weight to the “healthy”
side by giving you extra time to work out, cook, or just take a nap)
- “Would
you mind taking that bowl of candy off your desk just for today? I’m
trying to eat healthy, and it’s a really rough day for me; I could use a
little help.” (take weight off the “unhealthy” side by removing easy
access to junk food)
9. Reshuffle your resources. All rough spots give you a “crunch” in at
least one area – time, money, energy, patience, environment (lack of access to
good food), or something else. All of these “crunches” are weights on the unhealthy
side of the scale. But not all crises crunch you in everything simultaneously.
Sometimes, you can use what you have to make up for what you don’t.
In particular, you can often exchange time or
energy for money. You can either pay someone for the convenience of buying your
food pre-made, or take the time to make it yourself for less. So if you’re
broke but not busy, use your time to look up the cheapest recipes you can find
and cook all your food at home (here’s a list of money-saving tips
to get you started). On the other hand, if you’re busy or exhausted but you
have extra cash, consider getting your groceries delivered, buying a bunch of
pre-cut vegetables and rotisserie chicken for dinner, or otherwise paying
someone to save your precious minutes.
8. Reward yourself. You are making a series of difficult choices
under extremely tough circumstances. Little rewards make you feel better,
reducing the desire for comfort foods to mask the pain (taking weight off the
“unhealthy choices” side of the scale).
“Rewarding” yourself with unhealthy food is
obviously counterproductive, but what about a new bottle of nail polish, a
desktop toy, or a trip to the movies? If you don’t have time for anything in
the moment, make a plan for a reward you can enjoy when the rough spot is over,
so you’ll have something to look forward to.
It doesn’t have to cost money, either. Rewards
can be as simple as taking 30 seconds to congratulate yourself on a job well done.
Humans crave praise: think of the way a kid’s eyes light up at a sincere
compliment from a parent or a coach. Adults need that affirmation just as much;
we’re just better at hiding it. Even if you feel a little silly, take the time
to celebrate yourself for getting through an especially tough day. You deserve
it.
7. Learn to triage. The triage system was developed as an
efficient and useful way of distributing medical resources under the brutally
stressful conditions of a military hospital. It sorts patients into 3 groups:
- People
who will live if they have to wait for care.
- People
who are already dead/will die whether they get medical care or not.
- People
who will live if they get immediate care, but will die if they don’t.
The first group gets put on a waitlist. The
second group gets some strong painkillers and a quiet bed if they’re lucky. The
third group gets the bulk of the available medical resources, because that’s
where those resources will do the most good.
How does this have anything to do with Paleo?
Going through a rough spot in your life is like being a doctor on a
battlefield: too many demands, and not enough resources. So you need to divide
the demands into three groups:
- Things
that can wait.
- Things
you can’t fix no matter what you do.
- Areas
where acting right now can actually make a difference.
Leave the first group alone for now; you can
deal with them when you’re through the rough spot. Let the second group go
because there’s nothing you can do so there’s no point wasting time and energy
on them. Focus on the third group, the areas where your time, energy, and other
resources can actually help.
This helps you apply your resources most
effectively. Thinking back to the scale, if you have a decision that’s too
heavily weighted against you from the start, don’t waste your resources
uselessly weighing down the healthy end. It just drains you of time, energy,
and money that you could have used more effectively somewhere else.
6. Prioritize. Closely related to triaging is the art of
setting priorities. This means ranking the items in the 3rd triage
category (areas where acting right now can actually help) in order of how
important they are. Some things in this category are urgent (immediately
demanding attention, like a new Facebook notification), but they just aren’t important
(related to your long-term goals and values, like spending time with your
family). Setting priorities helps you stay focused on what really matters.
Sit down with a pen and paper and plan out
your schedule, your budget, or whatever it is that’s stressing you out. First,
write out your priorities, from most to least important. Then, start at
the top, and write down how much of your scarce resources you’ll need to
dedicate to each priority.
To prevent getting distracted by
urgent-but-not-important things, it helps to post the priority list somewhere
very visible, or use it to make a detailed daily outline of how you’re going to
spend your resources (time, money, energy, or whatever else it is), and then
stick to it.
This process can be brutal. It’s very
difficult to accept that you just don’t have enough resources for all the
things that are important to you. Here especially, there’s that temptation to
play the superhero, to temporarily avoid the pain of trimming down your expectations
by declaring against all reason that you can squeeze 30 hours of work
into a 24-hour day.
But the reality is that you aren’t that
superhero, and you have 24 hours to work with just like the rest of us. You
cannot win a one-(wo)man war with reality. Acknowledge the existence of your
limits and direct your resources into what’s truly important (not just urgent):
you’ll ultimately have more control over your own life and fewer regrets.
You’ll have to pick your battles, but you’re much more likely to win the ones
you do choose to fight.
Like triaging, setting priorities helps you
decide where you can best use the weights at your disposal, and where you’ll
have to compromise to make sure the important things get done. (And as a side
note, it’s okay and normal for your priorities to change along the way. In
fact, it’s good to re-evaluate every time your life takes a major change. The
list is a tool to help you live, not a set of ironclad rules that you need to
follow.)
5. Inspire yourself. Psyching yourself up to play the superhero by
doing everything at once is counterproductive. But once you’ve made a logical
decision about what you can and can’t take on (using the priorities/triage
system above), there’s definitely a time to give your emotional motivation a
boost by hunting down some inspirational or motivating resources (adding more
weight to the “healthy” side of the scale).
Read a new health-related book, or re-read an
old favorite. Watch an inspirational movie. Think of a quote that always makes
you feel like you’re ready to take on the world, and post it somewhere visible.
If you always struggle with Paleo when you’re travelling, paperclip it to your
passport. Other good places include the background of your phone or computer,
the inside of a cupboard door, or the inside of your wallet. Some ideas to get
you started:
- “If
you’re going through Hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
- “A
vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise
healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world” – Paul
Dudley White
- “You,
as a food buyer, have the distinct privilege of proactively participating
in shaping the world your children will inherit.” – Joel Salatin
- “When
you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” – Franklin D.
Roosevelt
Alternately, you could do the same thing with
pictures that remind you of your priorities. The point is just to throw more
weight onto that side of the scale, in whatever way is most compelling to you.
4. Let go of perfection. Recognize that Paleo won’t always be at the
top of your priority list. It might be time to make the best choices that align
with your current priorities, and commit to rearranging your priorities when
the crisis is over.
This sounds like defeatism. It’s not. It’s not
about totally throwing your diet to the winds. It’s notabout gorging on junk
food “while you can,” on the theory that helping an elderly parent through
palliative care will somehow be less heartbreaking if you singlehandedly keep
Ben & Jerry’s in business. It’s about eating well when it doesn’t conflict
with your higher priorities, and letting go of guilt and judgment when you
can’t do everything at once.
Freeing yourself from the pressure to stay
perfectly on track can actually help in the long run, because one late-night
run to IHOP when nothing else is open doesn’t lead to a slippery slope of
“well, I failed; might as well give up the whole thing.” In other words, it
actually takes a huge weight of negative emotions off the “unhealthy”
side of the scale. When the crisis is over, you won’t have to pull yourself out
of a hole of self-hatred and feelings of failure, because the period of
less-than-perfect food quality was all part of the plan.
3. Break it up. If thinking about the next six months is
overwhelming, think about the next week. If that’s overwhelming, think about
the upcoming day. If even that’s overwhelming, just think about the next hour,
or the next 5 minutes. Your mind and body are screaming for chocolate-chip
cookies, but can you grit your teeth and hold out for 5 more minutes? There are
300 seconds in 5 minutes; count them one by one. Name all the states you can,
alphabetically or geographically. Go through your phone and delete all your old
text messages. Sing the most inane pop song you can remember (in your head or
out loud). Memorize your driver’s license number. Clean the toilet.
This sounds ridiculous, but here’s the kicker:
when you commit to the next 5 minutes, you’re tapping into the incredible
motivational power of setting specific, realistic, measurable goals. Achieving
a goal sets off a powerful chemical response in your brain, a flood of dopamine
that sets off the exact same reward pathways that the cookies would have, only
without the stomachache. If you can just power through that first 5 minutes,
you’ll get an instant energy boost to help you keep it up.
2. Practice stress management. Stress
(from any source) has a sneaky way of overwhelming all the willpower and good
intentions in the world. Some people feel the overpowering urge to mask the
stress with comfort food; others unintentionally starve themselves of nutrients
because they’re just too stressed to eat. And who has energy for cooking dinner
or going to the gym after a night spent lying awake and
worrying?
Productive stress management techniques (that
actually address the problem, instead of just covering it up) are much more
effective than trying to force through this kind of resistance on willpower
alone. Again, don’t try to play the superhero. Look for better ways to tip the
scale in your favor:
- Keep
a journal, even if you think you’re a lousy writer. Just writing “I hate
my life and I want to die” over and over again can be surprisingly
therapeutic. Or indulge your inner 5-year-old with some sparkly crayons
and have fun doodling.
- Take
a deep breath. Look out the window, or away from whatever your stressor
is, and breathe in as much air as your lungs can hold. Then blow it out
again. Meditating is even better if you’re already in the habit, but most
of us aren’t, and taking up a habit of meditation in the middle of a
crisis is realistically not going to happen.
- Take
a walk. Just a spin around the block is often enough.
1. Plan ahead. Planning ahead gets the number 1 spot because
it’s the easiest and most effective method – and also the one most of us are
least likely to actually do. Human beings are chronically bad at planning for
problems that aren’t right in front of our noses (think of the huge number of
people who have a new car every two years, but no retirement savings). And then
we’re chronically getting blindsided by crazy emergencies that randomly crop up
when we least expect them.
You can’t plan for specific emergencies in
advance, but you can make an all-purpose grab-and-go Paleo SOS kit that will
power you through the day if your routine gets thrown off, giving an unexpected
crisis much less power to throw you off your Paleo game.
Here’s a sample Paleo SOS kit for one person:
Food
- 2
cans or single-serving foil packages of fish (whatever kind you like, as
long as it doesn’t require a can opener)
- 1
Larabar (or a similar Paleo-friendly energy bar)
- Small
container or a few packets of salt and pepper
- 3
of your favorite tea bags, with some squeeze packets of honey if you take
it.
- 3
packets of instant coffee, if you drink it
- A
serving-size bar of dark chocolate
- Single-serving
squeeze packets of almond butter or another nut butter
- Single-serving
packages of Natural Calm
- Bag
of jerky
- Knife,
fork, and spoon
- Paper
napkins or baby wipes
- Sealed
plastic bottle of water (so you don’t have to worry about it staying
fresh)
- 2
or 3 index cards with recipes so easy you could throw them together with
your eyes closed (in case you’re stranded living at someone else’s house)
Other Stuff
- A pocket-sized book that makes you smile (to read instead of giving in to cravings for junk food). From Touch of Trash- I like Sudoku, word search and other game books as well. I like to keep a copy of a favorite previously read book in my trunk also, in case I get stick somewhere.
- A
copy of all your important keys (house, car, bike lock, office, etc.)
- Small
notebook and a pen
- 1
day’s supply of any medications or supplements you take, clearly labeled
- 4-5
pads or tampons (for women)
The hardest part about this is just getting up
and doing it before the crisis happens. You probably even have most of these
things in your house right now, and it only takes a few minutes to get them
together – go do it!
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