We often don’t realize the connection we create when we make mini-decisions that create maxi-outcomes and the effect they have on our stress level. For example; when we tell ourselves that we will start our diet on Monday, it sounds like a great decision. However, that very statement alone will cause a maxi-outcome you don’t want and lead to failure. Find out how our mini-decisions can affect our ability to move forward.

Hello, everybody, nutritionist, Keith Klein, with you here today for lean body coaching with my sidekick Snickers Klein.Say hello to everybody, buddy. As you all know, this thing you’ve all heard, I name all my pets after junk food.That way, I could be surrounded by junk food and never tempted to eat it. Listen, I want to tell you, in 40 years of career and nutritional counseling, one thing that I’ve noticed is a lot of people get themselves in trouble with making a mini decision that actually has a maxi outcome attached to it, and they really don’t see the connection. You know, for example, “I’ll just eat this cake right now because it sure would taste good,” yet several weeks later when they’re standing in front of their mirror, the clothes aren’t fitting, they’re crying because there’s 12 dresses on the floor and they’ve got nothing to wear, they don’t look back and make the connection that it’s all because of the choices they made, the decision to goahead and eat the cake.And I think it’simportant that later on when they have to face that effect from that decision that we start to get a little bit more real and realize that that is a direct result of our own behavior.

This comes back to the pain pleasure/principle that I’ve talked about from psychology 101 throughout the program, the idea that we are motivated to move towards pleasure and we are motivated to move away from pain. But I think the question you have to ask yourself is, “Didn’t the action of eating the cake create pain later on? And if what you’re saying is true, Keith, why do we keep doing that to ourselves?” Well, again, what happens is the person becomes myopically fixated on eating the cake in the moment, so to speak, as opposed to focusing down the road on what the effects of that decision is going to be. And so,I think the brain is so fixated on the pleasure in the moment that we get caught up in that and we’re really not thinking about what it’s going to create for us later on down the line. What I would encourage us to do is to maybe stop focusing for a moment on the pleasure in eating the cake and become a little bit more fixated on the pain that it’s going to create later on in my life for me. If I stop focusing on the pleasure and I start focusing on the pain, that could instrumentally turn mychoices for the day, the week of the month or whatever into more weight loss for myself instead of focusing so much on the pleasure.

And I think one of the questions you have to ask yourself before you grab that particular food (whatever it is, I use cake as an example), you have to ask yourself, “Is this what I want to create for myself?” right?So, when you go to the gym and you workout,you’re excited because, you know, the workouts going to create a better body, better energy, better endurance for yourself later on.However, when you reach out for the cake, what are you creating for yourself later on?You’re only really creating more weight gain, slower results, more frustration later. And as you know, in my program, I never say you can’t have the cake, I try to temper that with how oftenwe do it, the amounts of it that we eat and things of that nature. But remember, for every behavior that you have, there’s a corresponding outcome, right? And so, the outcomes could be good, it could be bad, it could be indifferent, it really doesn’t matter.For every decision you make,for every action you take, there will be a corresponding outcome. And by asking yourself, “Is this really what I want to create for myself?” it causes me to pause, stop, and take a look at the outcome as opposed to the momentary pleasure.

I watch people all the time give up long-term pleasure, right, for short-term pain, right? Or it’s actually just the opposite, they’ll engage in short-term pleasure to create long-term pain.And that’s a little bit more about what I’m talking about, you got to stop and ask yourself, “Is this what I want to create for myself?” And, you know, when you say no to the cake, what you’re really saying is yes to being thin, or maybe you’re saying yes to maintaining that weight loss that you’ve achieved. So, I don’t see say no to the cake, once again, it could be cookies, it could be whatever creates the problem, I don’t see saying no to it as the way I want to approach it.Instead of saying no, what I a lot of times I say, instead of, “I can’t have that,” I simply say, “You know, I don’t eat that anymore.”And then it takes on a different network in my brain, a different framework if you would, and then I don’t feel as deprived, I don’t feel like you’re really giving it up. Remember, you can eat the cookies, right, but then you can’t wear the bikini, and you have to ask yourself, “Which is more important?” So, as a bodybuilder, it wasn’t that I didn’t want the cookies when I was getting ready for a contest or show, it was that if you put the cookies in front of me, what I visualized was my competitors coming to my door, ringing the doorbell with a tray of cookies and saying, “Hey, buddy, would you like to have some cookies?” And of course, if a competitor did that who’s going to be competing the same show as me, there’s no chance in hell that I would touch the cookie. So, you see, by reframing it like that, the cookies didn’t matter to me anymore. And if I visualized my competitors trying to tempt me with the cookies in an attempt for them to win the show over me, it was much more motivating for me to give up the cookies.

Now, let me reframe that a little bit. You know, I’ve never really thought about the idea that I’m giving up anything. I’m not giving up the cookies, I get to wear a 6-pack of abs. I didn’t give up the cookies, instead of craving the cookies, I always craved the trophy. So, you see, at the end of the day, I think that it would be very wise if you could come up with a way in which you could look at the long-term result of this current choice. Again,people make many decisions that create maxy outcomes, they often don’tsee the connection. But if you could makethe connection before you engage the behavior to the outcome, maybe you’re less likely to engage in the behavior as often as much or as many, right? So, I want to leave you with that thought, that remember, you’re not giving up the food, the treats, you get to have the body. And what I’ve noticed about real athletic competitors is they really don’t care about the food because they care about the look more. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re motivated by your look, your health, or whatever, what matters to me is that you make positive changes in your eating for long-term success, okay? Again, I’m nutritionist, Keith Klein, hey, listen, it’s been a real pleasure answering your questions on Facebook, posting new recipes and seeing you all try that. I just want you to know how much that means to me and the rest of our crew and I really appreciate all the great feedback you’ve been giving us. Don’t hesitate to give us some criticisms too, that’s how we get better. So, until next time, everybody, have a great weekend.Bye-bye.