Decision fatigue via dieting spilling over into life
vinerie
Posts: 234 Member
Holy smokes! I just read a post by @sidesteel on strategies for non-tracking eating methods and I realized why I am struggling. And when I say struggling, I don't mean losing weight. That is going fine. But I'm mentally exhausted from thinking about food all the time--how many calories in this snack? How many calories do I have left in the day? What should I order at this restaurant to fit in my calorie goal? Should I eat this or that for lunch. Should I eat more protein? How can I get more good fats in my diet? And on and on.
In short, I have been spending all my time making decisions about food, I am wasted. In other words, I've got some decision fatigue. And I'm not doing a good job making decisions elsewhere--I.e. My job. I've got a fairly autonomous career (I.e. No one is looking over my shoulder) but that means it is on me to, you know, make decisions and take action to meet my goals. But I haven't been doing a great job at that.
Anyone else feel a little mentally fatigued from this "journey?" How do you cope? What are your strategies for staying on point in other areas of life and not letting the quest to drop lbs zap all your mental energy?
In short, I have been spending all my time making decisions about food, I am wasted. In other words, I've got some decision fatigue. And I'm not doing a good job making decisions elsewhere--I.e. My job. I've got a fairly autonomous career (I.e. No one is looking over my shoulder) but that means it is on me to, you know, make decisions and take action to meet my goals. But I haven't been doing a great job at that.
Anyone else feel a little mentally fatigued from this "journey?" How do you cope? What are your strategies for staying on point in other areas of life and not letting the quest to drop lbs zap all your mental energy?
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I've never found it mentally fatiguing. The number of decisions I have to make with food pales in comparison to the number of decisions I have to make in other areas of my life. (You want to talk decision fatigue, try picking out a home school curriculum with an eye on college prep.)
I do plan my meals a day in advance, sometimes more. Maybe that's why it doesn't seem like any bigger deal than making a grocery list. You could try that.0 -
I do plan my meals in advance. It's a lot of decisions.0
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I have serious decision fatigue from my job, which is extremely stressful.
I compensate by making as few decisions as possible in my personal life. If decisions have to be made, I try to make them on the weekend. I have a routine that I stick to as closely as possible. I eat mostly the same things all the time, so I know roughly how many calories is in everything. My basic food list is:
Salmon
Turkey Burgers
Tuna
Chicken Sausages
Cheese
Yogurt
Frozen Veggies
Apples
I get home from work, if I know I've got a fair number of calories left for the day and I'm hungry, I'll make two turkey burgers instead of one, or put cheese on it, or whatever.
I also do IF most of the time (skipping breakfast), so that's one less meal I have to design each day.0 -
I'm not, but I guess that's how I'm wired. I've cooked for years. Planning ahead, shopping for it, planning menus? It's all second nature to me. I started cooking for my family when I wanted to earn my Girl Scout badge for cooking and my mother went back to work. I haven't stopped since.
I can appreciate that it's different for different people. It's much harder for my sister, for example. However, as the years have gone by, she's found strategies to make it easier for herself since it doesn't come naturally to her.
Hopefully, others like you will post in this thread and give you some ideas!0 -
PeachyCarol wrote: »I'm not, but I guess that's how I'm wired. I've cooked for years. Planning ahead, shopping for it, planning menus? It's all second nature to me. I started cooking for my family when I wanted to earn my Girl Scout badge for cooking and my mother went back to work. I haven't stopped since.
That's great! My fiancé and I cook together, which I appreciate. I am hoping to hear from some folks who do feel a bit of a mental burden in thinking about this all the time, though!0 -
I have a breakfast, lunch, and snack for workout days and a breakfast, lunch, and snack for off days. Once I decided what fits my macros, there is almost literally zero decision-making involved in any of those meals. I add them and eat them.I do plan my meals in advance. It's a lot of decisions.
I mean, yeah, if we have some leftover protein I really liked, I sometimes switch that out for the yogurt and protein powder but, other than that, it's totally autopilot.
Dinners, I cook for the family most days and have whatever I make. The only question is how much, but that question exists no matter what.
Restaurants can be a thing, but there are a handful we like and I already know what to order at each one.
I guess someone who desires a lot more variance will have a lot more decisions to make but, again, that issue exists wholly apart from weight loss decisions, except for people who can manage to eat as much of whatever they want anyway.
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I feel the same way sometimes. There are days where it feels like all I did was think about food. And it can affect my productivity in other areas.
Routines and minimizing how much I need to think about it are most important for me.
- pre log as much as possible. I usually have 3 to 5 items that I bring for lunch. They are all prelogged. So I can eat them without having to think about tracking calories.
- Get to lunch without being hungry. If I start eating lunch before 11 then I am going to be hungry again by 3 or 4, which will result in unsanctioned snacking and going over my calorie goal. And that means a lot of thinking about food. To combat this I try to make my breakfast have the following properties, which through experience I know keep me satisfied until lunch: 525 to 550 calories, at least 13 g of ft, at least 25 g of protein.
- Can't eat out everyday. Too much caloric uncertainty.
- Limit MFP forum time. This place drains productivity if I start checking it at work. Especially on entertaining Fridays.
I'd love to get to the point of not having to be so rigorous with logging. But I'm not there yet.
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Oh, I hear you on this one big time.
I have slacked off at work dramatically since starting on "the journey". Things have only started to level out lately as I become better at making decisions now that I have a few standard options stored in my brain that I no longer need to think about.
I may be about to step up my career a notch, so I am glad I made the big changes to my diet before that happened as I know I am going to need to sharpen my mental tools in the next few months to make the transition.
Boring choices help, as stated above, as well as figuring out what a particular splurge looks like. I know that I can eat my favorite meal at the Spur (almost my full days calorie allowance) if I only have a herbal tea and a greek yoghurt for breakfast and skip lunch. I know that I can have a Quarter Pounder with cheese for dinner if I have an omelette for breakfast and a particular small lunch. Knowing that sort of thing makes me feel secure and I have picked up those habits and rituals over time.
Pre-logging helps out on the days where I need to keep my focus for work. My meals and portions have already been planned and weighed and all I need to do is take out a tupperware and eat it.
We only have a certain amount of Willpower. That is actually a thing (refer, Dan Ariely research)0 -
I If you want to have a meal with 70 ingredients, each of which you have to weigh and measure, then you're setting yourself up to get burnt out.
Yes, that is me. I LOVE to cook. I am what they call a "foodie." I will not eat the same thing every day as someone up thread suggested.
The thing is, I have thin, healthy friends. They eat a variety of food when we go out to eat (we like to try new restaurants and chefs). It MUST be possible to eat without analyzing every single bite, no?
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greaseswabber wrote: »- Limit MFP forum time. This place drains productivity if I start checking it at work. Especially on entertaining Fridays.
I'd love to get to the point of not having to be so rigorous with logging. But I'm not there yet.
Lol. Yes, I have wasted a lot of time on the forums.
Thanks for commiserating with me, and also for the tips!0 -
PeachyCarol wrote: »I'm not, but I guess that's how I'm wired. I've cooked for years. Planning ahead, shopping for it, planning menus? It's all second nature to me. I started cooking for my family when I wanted to earn my Girl Scout badge for cooking and my mother went back to work. I haven't stopped since.
That's great! My fiancé and I cook together, which I appreciate. I am hoping to hear from some folks who do feel a bit of a mental burden in thinking about this all the time, though!
Their was a point when I could literally spend hours planning out my "perfect day" on MFP. I can get pretty OCD and am a worrier by nature. Not sure if it's the case for you, but maybe you're just overthinking it. Let it go a little. Try to make food not as important as you're currently making it. Yes, you want to stay in your calorie goal and get close to your macros. No, you don't need to hit all of your numbers exactly.
Also, how long have you been logging? I found the longer I was on here, the easier it became. Weighing is no big deal. I, personally, no longer pre-log my days. When I'm super busy I pre-log bc I bring food to work, etc. But otherwise I just do my best to hit my goals while still eating what I want. Hungry at 2pm? Reflect on your day. Often I realize I haven't had enough protein so I reach for a Greek yogurt over an apple. While i do spend time looking at weekly goals and checking some personal goals, I try not to let it be so consuming.
Most important, if it's effecting the rest of your life you need to back off. Figure out a way that's more sustainable for you, otherwise you will never stick to it anyway.0 -
I'm three years into a doctoral thesis (with attendant teaching responsibilities), and I 100% relate to this. Like PeachyPlum above, I find that I can cut down on my decision fatigue most effectively when I have a relatively restrictive routine -- both for exercise and for food. I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast every day (cottage cheese, bagel, apple), and have a small rotation of lunches (salads and sandwiches) and a slightly wider variety of dinners that I make regularly (and quickly) and whose calorie values I'm familiar with. Veggie burgers, pasta, eggs, couscous, lentil dishes tend to be on that list. It's still tougher when I have to deal with cooking food for my partner as well (he spends half the week with me), and that's where the decision-making gets tough to stick to, even now.0
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khoshgeleh16 wrote: »I'm three years into a doctoral thesis (with attendant teaching responsibilities), and I 100% relate to this. Like PeachyPlum above, I find that I can cut down on my decision fatigue most effectively when I have a relatively restrictive routine -- both for exercise and for food. I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast every day (cottage cheese, bagel, apple), and have a small rotation of lunches (salads and sandwiches) and a slightly wider variety of dinners that I make regularly (and quickly) and whose calorie values I'm familiar with. Veggie burgers, pasta, eggs, couscous, lentil dishes tend to be on that list. It's still tougher when I have to deal with cooking food for my partner as well (he spends half the week with me), and that's where the decision-making gets tough to stick to, even now.
Good luck on the diss! I gained weight when working on mine
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I do plan my meals in advance. It's a lot of decisions.
How far in advance? I find the most sustainable and helpful method for me is to create permanent meal plans. They're almost like recipes, or templates for a meal, with all the components and target grams already there. I then plan which meals I'm going to make all week, and what the grocery list needs to look like accordingly. I also plan (a bit more roughly) which meals are happening on which days.
But I like structure. I don't need much variety. I don't like complicated meals as an everyday thing, so a lot of my templates are as fast and low prep and simple as possible. (I bake or cook something special when I'm feeling creative and interested in it, not as part of my routine.)
With this system, I never have to walk into the kitchen and make a decision. I don't have to sit down and work on it every night -- it's almost all done on one day, in one chunk, like a project. And as the templates get familiar, even that gets easier. Over time, I'll expand them.
This may not work if you and your fiance need high variety, or have other food preferences that I don't have.0 -
Oh, yes. I hear you. My brain can go around balancing every meal adding the complexity of a diabetic's concerns as well. Adding up my macros. On and on. Here's some tricks.
Have a few go-to pre-measured meals ready to go. Get a routine going.
Simply eat half of any restaurant meal you pick. You automatically halve the calories.
Let MFP do the counting and resolve only to look, say, just before or just after dinner.
The more routines you have going, the less of your executive thinking you have to dedicate to the task.0 -
I If you want to have a meal with 70 ingredients, each of which you have to weigh and measure, then you're setting yourself up to get burnt out.
Yes, that is me. I LOVE to cook. I am what they call a "foodie." I will not eat the same thing every day as someone up thread suggested.
The thing is, I have thin, healthy friends. They eat a variety of food when we go out to eat (we like to try new restaurants and chefs). It MUST be possible to eat without analyzing every single bite, no?
If you are active daily and have a small appetite and most of your body is lean mass, then yes, probably.
For me... no. Not all all. If I am not spending a good portion of my daily physical and mental energy controlling every morsel of food and forcing myself to exercise even though I hate it, I am gaining weight. Life isn't fair.
I think it does somewhat seem to be negatively impacting my performance in other areas of life, but I figure in the long run being unhealthy would start to do that also, so I just try to mitigate the effects as much as I can by making to-do lists, eating the same few things for breakfast (which is the meal I eat so I don't get tempted by donuts and junk, not because I'm all that hungry) and not going out to eat too often because I know it will induce a can't-figure-out-the-calories panic mode.0 -
And you don't have to eat the same thing every meal. Figure you have W calories for breakfast, X calories for lunch, Y calories for dinner, and Z calories for snack. As long as W + X + Y + Z = your calorie and macro goals, it doesn't matter what's actually in the meals.
A foodie, I would think, should be able to come however many different breakfasts are reasonable and can be adapted to having W calories. Then you just pick one. Doesn't matter which one. Same with the other meals. Maybe you pair a slightly lower calorie W with a slightly higher calorie Y. Or skip the Z.
As long as you don't require each meal, each day to be sui generis, it's a feasible approach. If you do have that requirement, you're basically stuck with a lot of food decisions to make, but that's personal preference, not a restriction imposed by weight loss.0 -
When I used to compete, one of the things I HAD to learn was how to eat systematically. Why? Because by eating that way, it took really no thought. Eating the same foods for my meals at every meal (for a short time), allowed me more to focus on my training and not whether or not I was over consuming. It takes some getting used to, but lots of people do eat the same things for breakfast, lunch, etc. It's usually dinner and snacks where they blow it. So if you're going to snack, just eat the same snacks all the time so you're not doing mental jumping jacks every time.Holy smokes! I just read a post by @sidesteel on strategies for non-tracking eating methods and I realized why I am struggling. And when I say struggling, I don't mean losing weight. That is going fine. But I'm mentally exhausted from thinking about food all the time--how many calories in this snack? How many calories do I have left in the day? What should I order at this restaurant to fit in my calorie goal? Should I eat this or that for lunch. Should I eat more protein? How can I get more good fats in my diet? And on and on.
In short, I have been spending all my time making decisions about food, I am wasted. In other words, I've got some decision fatigue. And I'm not doing a good job making decisions elsewhere--I.e. My job. I've got a fairly autonomous career (I.e. No one is looking over my shoulder) but that means it is on me to, you know, make decisions and take action to meet my goals. But I haven't been doing a great job at that.
Anyone else feel a little mentally fatigued from this "journey?" How do you cope? What are your strategies for staying on point in other areas of life and not letting the quest to drop lbs zap all your mental energy?
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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I really understand this too. I have gone from losing the first 21 pounds by just limiting what I ate, but not eating very healthily, to thinking about food ALL DAY LONG. It's working, and I'm glad, but I am constantly trying to juggle what to eat and when, and, since I am trying to eat a low sodium and low cholesterol diet, I'm finding it hard to find low sodium foods that are easy to make and actually taste like food. I resort mostly to sandwiches, chicken, yogurt and edamame, since I really don't like to cook, and tend to eat the same things every day so that I don't have to continually juggle nutrition counts. Unfortunately, I'm also an OCD perfectionist, and, even if a food has 30 confirmations, I have found that a lot of label information doesn't match those confirmations and end up editing the information because I'm not going to put incorrect information into my diary.
It's not fun being like this. But the ultimate problem is that I think about food way more than is good for me. The upside is, it's working, I'm losing weight, and tomorrow will be 60 days consecutive logging in, which I never thought I could do, so it is helping a lot with self-discipline as well. But, yes, it is tiring, I agree with you. 0 -
Most days, I eat pretty much the same thing during the day, so I always have the same amount of calories left for dinner. Dinners may vary, but I have a rotation of maybe five meals I make and I already know how much I can eat of any of them to fill in those remaining calories. On bike riding days, I have a different routine for timing and quantity of what I eat during the day, but it leaves the same amount of calories left for dinner. As far as restaurant meals...we are in a rut with our dining out, so there are about five places we go and I have the menus memorized by now, and I know which things fit into my budget.
This works because I don't try for a high degree of precision. I try to err on the side of eating a little less than my goal. That way, if donuts show up at work one day, I don't worry about calculating whether I can fit it in because I know I have a calorie buffer for it. I log it and go on with everything I would normally eat that day knowing that I will be a little over goal for the day. It's the weekly average intake that I'm more concerned about.0 -
I'm a creature of habit. Once I figured out which meals I like, fit into my calorie budget, and keep me full, I stuck with them. I usually eat the same breakfast, lunch, and snack Monday-Friday (so dinner is the only thing I really have to think about, but I know which meals will work). The weekends take more thought, but it's worth it to enjoy more food.
I also pre-log the night before, so it's easy to just copy all of today's meals tonight onto tomorrow's diary and then edit as needed.
However, I realize not every enjoys eating the same meals! In that case, I would come up with "meals" in MFP and rotate them however you want. So maybe create 5 different breakfast meals (or more if you want). Do the same for lunch, dinner, and snacks. Keep them all around the same calories and macros, that way it's easy to interchange them any day you want.0 -
I If you want to have a meal with 70 ingredients, each of which you have to weigh and measure, then you're setting yourself up to get burnt out.
Yes, that is me. I LOVE to cook. I am what they call a "foodie." I will not eat the same thing every day as someone up thread suggested.
The thing is, I have thin, healthy friends. They eat a variety of food when we go out to eat (we like to try new restaurants and chefs). It MUST be possible to eat without analyzing every single bite, no?
I'm a foodie too, but I mostly limit my creativity to the three or four nights a week I cook for my fiance and the day I cook for my massage therapist, with whom I have a barter arrangement.
Breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and bedtime snack tend to be very similar, so less decision making.
When my fiance and I go out to eat, I know it's going to be a bigger meal than usual so upped my exercise earlier in the day. I make guesses as to what in the database sounds close enough and don't worry about being dead on. Since I keep losing my goal of a pound a week, this is accurate enough. I save my obsessiveness for when I'm home with my scale.
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PS, I pack my kids' lunches and they look almost the same every day, with slight variety. Same reason. Mama doesn't have time to think any more than I have to! They get more variety at dinner and on the weekends.0
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harpsdesire wrote: »I If you want to have a meal with 70 ingredients, each of which you have to weigh and measure, then you're setting yourself up to get burnt out.
Yes, that is me. I LOVE to cook. I am what they call a "foodie." I will not eat the same thing every day as someone up thread suggested.
The thing is, I have thin, healthy friends. They eat a variety of food when we go out to eat (we like to try new restaurants and chefs). It MUST be possible to eat without analyzing every single bite, no?
If you are active daily and have a small appetite and most of your body is lean mass, then yes, probably.
For me... no. Not all all. If I am not spending a good portion of my daily physical and mental energy controlling every morsel of food and forcing myself to exercise even though I hate it, I am gaining weight. Life isn't fair.
I think it does somewhat seem to be negatively impacting my performance in other areas of life, but I figure in the long run being unhealthy would start to do that also, so I just try to mitigate the effects as much as I can by making to-do lists, eating the same few things for breakfast (which is the meal I eat so I don't get tempted by donuts and junk, not because I'm all that hungry) and not going out to eat too often because I know it will induce a can't-figure-out-the-calories panic mode.
Finding an exercise you don't hate would be a great topic for a new thread. I'm getting most of my exercise from gardening these days. Lots of alternatives to pounding away on the treadmill, to give an example of an exercise I dislike.
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I had the same problem. I make a lot of decisions at work too. It took me about 2 months to find a way of eating that hit my calorie and macro goals and that I could sustain. And then I just repeat that....my meal structure and sources of protein and fat are repetitive and some would say boring. I tend to vary the fruit and veg mix only. I need to do this because I have to free up my brain for work. There is no figuring out in advance how to fit in birthday cake. I just go over on special occasions. There is no working grandmas lasagne in either. But it's ok my main sources of fat are avocados and chocolate.0
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Decision fatigue is probably the number one reason I haven't succeeded in my many attempts at "lifestyle changes" in the past. I totally get where you're coming from. By nature, I'm someone who loves variety, but this time I've been making simpler meals. I like refrigerator oatmeal, so I make a lot and eat it most days for breakfast. I like salads, so I plan to eat a salad at lunch most days. Maybe just taking it easy and repeating some reliable meals and snacks for a couple of weeks would allow you to have a "break" without being detrimental to your weight loss goals.0
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I guess I should have mentioned that I'm a foodie too, but I had to decide what I wanted more - a different gourmet meal every night served with a side of decision burnout, or an adequate variation of similar foods cooked with different spices and a side of mental health.
I do my foodie stuff on the weekends, when I don't have a million other things to think about.0
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