{"id":7649,"date":"2018-07-20T08:30:05","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T12:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/?p=7649"},"modified":"2018-07-12T14:29:49","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T18:29:49","slug":"7649","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/health-maintenance\/7649\/","title":{"rendered":"Today&#8217;s Loss Tomorrow&#8217;s Gain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"container\">\n<div class=\"layout-wrapper\">\n<article class=\"article\">\n<div class=\"container grid print-section article-detail\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-md-7\">\n<h1 class=\"page-title\">How to Make Healthy Food and Healthy Lifestyle Choices Now<\/h1>\n<div class=\"article-hero\">\n<p class=\"description\">Learn how to control your impulses and delay gratification to make healthy decisions, avoid temptations, and choose bigger, long-term benefits over small, immediate rewards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"ratingsDiv\">\n<p><!-- START Gigya Rating Widget --><\/p>\n<div id=\"gigyaRatingWidgetContainer\">\n<div><span style=\"color: #000000;font-weight: bold\">Today\u2019s Loss Is Tomorrow\u2019s Gain<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<article class=\"print-section\"><strong>Picture this<\/strong>: you\u2019re walking down the beach, trip over a half-buried lamp, and out bursts a genie. But this is no ordinary genie \u2014 it\u2019s a delay genie, and he\u2019ll only grant you one wish right away or three wishes in a year\u2019s time. (And hey, no time travel, or wishing for more wishes!)<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-7651 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/files\/2018\/07\/genie.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"141\" height=\"221\" \/>Three wishes are obviously more than one, but a year is a long time to wait. So you have the impulse to go ahead and make that one wish right now. Don\u2019t feel too bad \u2014 this common trait behavior is called future discounting. It\u2019s when we\u2019re inclined to choose immediate gratification over greater future rewards.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are you surprised?<\/strong> Like an opportunistic hunter-gatherer who stumbled across a bush full of ripe berries, evolution has taught us to take what we can get while we can get it. And just imagine all the things that could go wrong with that lamp over a whole year:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your significant other sells \u201cthat ugly old lamp you keep around.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A villain steals the lamp to make an immediate wish to take over the world.<\/li>\n<li>You get hit by a bus (or run over by a flying carpet).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But we don\u2019t live in a world of magic lamps, and we aren\u2019t hunter-gatherers anymore. We exist in a time of 401k plans and long-term educational goals, a world where we can eat ten thousand calories at a sitting if we really want to. Moreover, research shows that the most successful among us in this modern world have the self-discipline to choose the options that benefit us in the future instead of doing what feels good in the moment.<\/p>\n<p>Some of us have it worse than others, too. Extroverts face a harder time choosing the future over the present than introverts.1 (Who wants to worry about the future when you\u2019re partying in the moment with friends?) And some people have addiction problems linked to the instant gratification that future discounting provides.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some tips and tricks to gain more self-control so you can choose those three future wishes over that measly immediate wish.<\/p>\n<h2>Learn from the Past You<\/h2>\n<p>Forming new habits is a great way to gain self-control and minimize future discounting. Maybe it\u2019s a common occurrence for a coworker to show up with donuts every morning, and the sweet taste of sugary dough seems a lot more rewarding than the healthier you that will result if you stick to your diet plan. If you got in the habit of making a delicious smoothie every morning, you can reward yourself with a filling treat and avoid the hunger pangs that say, \u201cdonut now!\u201d Changing your habits can take away the future discounting choice altogether and replace it with an automatic action.<\/p>\n<h2>Trick the Current You<\/h2>\n<p>When faced with a present vs. future choice, change your wording to make it clear there will be zero reward down the line if you take the immediate option. By saying, \u201cI can have three wishes in a year and zero now, or one wish now and zero in a year,\u201d rather than, \u201cI could have one wish now or three later,\u201d you clarify that you\u2019ll end up with nothing, zero, zilch in the future. And won\u2019t that be disappointing?! This simple wording change helps us understand how much we\u2019re giving up if we go for the immediate reward.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s another trick. Diminish the delay by using specific dates: \u201cI could have three wishes on December 31<sup>st<\/sup> or one wish now.\u201d This puts the quantities at the forefront of your mind, instead of how long you\u2019d have to wait between now and then.<\/p>\n<h2>Remember the Future You<\/h2>\n<p>Sometimes you forget that the future you is you.\u00a0That future person feels like a stranger, and we aren\u2019t keen on the idea of skipping our morning donut so that some abstract philosophical concept that resembles you (but doesn\u2019t exist yet) can lose a few pounds and feel healthier. But research shows that when we remember the future you is still going to be you, just a little ways down the temporal road, it\u2019s a lot easier to choose the option that benefits us the most. So, visualize the future you when faced with tough decisions, and make the best long-term decision for you both.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t easy to change your state of mind and choose what you could have tomorrow instead of what you really want today. But with the right state of mind, your choices will shower you with bigger benefits than ever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Now choose your future, so you will be Healthy For Good!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/healthyforgood.heart.org\/be-well\/articles\/how-to-make-healthy-food-and-healthy-lifestyle-choices\" class=\"broken_link\">https:\/\/healthyforgood.heart.org\/be-well\/articles\/how-to-make-healthy-food-and-healthy-lifestyle-choices<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to Make Healthy Food and Healthy Lifestyle Choices Now Learn how to control your impulses and delay gratification to make healthy decisions, avoid temptations, and choose bigger, long-term benefits over small, immediate rewards. Today\u2019s Loss Is Tomorrow\u2019s Gain Picture &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/health-maintenance\/7649\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9193321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[313094],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-maintenance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saB9fc-7649","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9193321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7649"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7653,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7649\/revisions\/7653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}