Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Can you have a nice amount of vice?

To Cheers, to Gobble, to Guzzle without suffering negative consequences? I wholeheartedly believe that YES, vice is a normal, natural part of life and that even those of us with hugely addictive personalities can incorporate the right amount of vice.

I’m getting my acronym on again in today’s show:

4 Steps To Make Vice Work For You.

Step 1: V.olition.

To utilize volition and make vice work for you:  

A). Buy with volition. Food marketing can be sneakily seductive. Often all it takes is a quick check in with yourself before you make an unplanned purchase. I’ll often ask myself: “How will I feel after I eat this?”

B). Eat with volition. This is a to work on for me. I’ll regularly find myself vacuuming down food like I haven’t eaten for days… like there are vultures circling ready to pounce on my leftovers! I have to force myself to be more mindful. To have gratitude… and, to chew!

C). Stop with volition. When do you know to stop eating? Is it when your plate is empty? When you’re so stuffed you can’t possibly squeeze in any more? Or when you’re consumed the amount you decided to consume? The right amount for your body, your energy, your goals.

Step 2: I.ngredient.

Dependent on where you’re currently at with your eating, your fav vice might be as processed as cookies and cream ice-cream or as natural as home made sweet potato chips. Step 3 will help you manage even processed crap-o-la and step 4 encourages you to continuously evolve your vice of choice… however for now, know that the more natural the easier you’re making it on yourself.

As crafty as the big food companies get with their marketing they are equally masterful at getting that perfect addictive mix of ingredients to make it impossible to stop once you start.

To utilize ingredient and make vice work for you:  

A). Try the closer to one ingredient option. Chips really don’t need more than 1-3 ingredients. Potato, quality oil and salt. However Mac Donald’s in the US uses 19 ingredients to make their fries.

B). Eat only ingredients you recognize. It blows my mind how we’ll willingly devour the prettily packaged end product when at any stage of the production line that food is likely going to look pretty-hugely-appealing.

C). When the closer-to-one-ingredient further from perfect-addictive-mix option isn’t available? Make your own. I don’t want you to miss out. Rather it’s a matter of choosing the ingredient/s and the vice that works for you.

Step 3: C.ontrol.

This is about choosing the day, the amount, the type of vice. You’re in control. You make the rules and play by them.

Rather than feeling the glittering grips of those two for one packets of chocolate biscuits stealthily stalking you as you make that quick trip to the supermarket for more almond milk. They’re hanging at the end of aisle flaunting their cheap, addictive – yet I’m sure delicious – new flavours…

These fake foods will always be there. Control is yours to grab however you need to decide your rules in advance. 

To utilize control and make vice work for you:  

A). Admit there are some trigger foods that you cannot have control around. Foods that your only option of control is to declare them a “No Go!” zone. These are hot chips for me. I’d really rather just not eat them rather than spend a disproportionate amount of my daily control (or daily discipline quota) struggling to minimize my consumption.

B). Acknowledge there are some situations it’s just preferable to not expose yourself to. Situations where time after frustrating-guilt-inducing time you’ve over demolished. Like the all you can eat buffet.

C). Accept and communicate with those you love that so far as the food you give your body, ultimately the choice – the control – is yours, and yours alone. It’s not rude to decline the dessert that is not aligned with your goals. I would argue its rude to try and guilt someone into eating that dessert.

Step 4: E.volution.

Or constant and never ending improvement. One of the assumptions that will set you up to struggle in any aspect of life is that there is that one, best place to seek out and hold stubbornly to.

Whether we’re talking figuratively and it’s the way you eat – the vices you allow yourself. Or whether we’re talking more literally and it’s the land you covet and buy and expect to never, ever change.

Is that one a little out of left field?

I was listening to a podcast yesterday that discussed the numerous huge cities of the past that were wiped out by changing water levels and later discovered again with changing water levels.

I guess it comes back to our natural human need for certainty. That some of us (myself included) are potentially debilitatingly attracted to.

To utilize evolution and make vice work for you:  

(at your own pace as you’re able)

A). Prioritize one ingredient treat / vice foods over refined fake food.

B). Prioritize nutritionally dense high value treat / vice foods over nutritionally void food.

C). Pay attention to your energy levels, focus and even positivity the day after indulging. And consider making adjustments accordingly if the opportunity cost you’re experiencing is too high.

To get actionable today is there a vice that isn’t working for you?

You’ll know because it’s costing you something that in your heart you know should – and in fact IS – more important.

It might be costing you your health? Your relationship? Your confidence, self certainty and belief in yourself?

I’ve focused predominately on the food side of vice today however you can absolutely imagine how 3 of the 4 steps:

Volition | Control | Evolution could absolutely be applicable to most other forms of vice.

The thing is, often enough knowing is NOT enough. You need the annoying yet helpful little steps and guidelines to making the knowing actionable. So that’s your action step for today. Take the vice that first came to mind. The vice that is costing you something you know is more important… and apply these 3-4 steps to it.

It’s never a matter of either avoiding or relinquishing control to vice – rather it’s a matter of implementing the Steps To Make Vice Work For You.

If you liked 4 Steps To Make Vice Work For You, you’ll also like: How To Find And Feed Your Motivation To Lose Weight.

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.