Helping Wally Eat Less
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Many of life's problems are not single, pure-bred problems. They result from the way two or more issues affect each other. For example, I have a problem with my pants getting tight.
I've figured out (after several decades) that my pants get tight because of three interacting forces. I love to eat. I am married to a marvelous cook who loves to turn out great meals. My mother made me clean my plate.
When I was a boy, we were admonished to "clean your plate" because "children are starving." Many of my friends' mothers were concerned about the children in China. Since my father had organized food relief to German families after WW II, we cleaned our plates for the children "in Europe." My friend Larry's family ate their bit for African children.
Now that I am a full-grown man, this conditioning should be easy to overcome, but it isn't. Normally I have great willpower and discipline. Alas, that's not true when it comes to eating my wife's cooking. Put that great food on my plate and will be gone soon.
I've tried "eat less" goals. They don't work. Delicious food appears on my plate, served by my wife's loving hands. Somewhere in my subconscious my mother is whispering, "Children are starving in Europe." My willpower is no match.
What to do? Clearly, admonishing myself to "eat less" does not work. In fact, it's a recipe (pardon the pun) for frustration.
You may have situations like that. You or one of your team members or someone you love has a problem. It seems like willpower or goal setting will solve it. But somehow it never does.
When that happens it's time to tinker with the system. When willpower and goal setting don't work, check the system.
When I know that I need to eat less, I do two things. I make sure I eat an apple in the late afternoon. I love apples, so it's easy to do. And I'm way less hungry when it's time for supper.
The other part of the systems solution is simplicity itself. Serve Wally using smaller bowls and plates. The plate is full, but there's less food on it. I can eat everything on my plate to the betterment of those European children and my waistline.
Boss's Bottom Line
When you or a team member have a performance problem, it's often not much help to suggest that they "eat less," "run faster," or "sell more." A better course of action is to find a way to set things up so it's easier and more likely for everything to come out the way you want.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Categories: Problem Solving, Personal Development
Tags: Problem Solving
Our mothers must have been related and my wife obviously went to the same cooking school and yes I love apples and my wife serves me dinner on the salad plate. Willpower and discipline is tough when one is up against odds like leaving your plate clean, great meals and they keep coming. Will try the apple thing. Thanks, Al
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Thanks, Al. Sound like you've got the small plate thing working, so the apple is worth a try. Good luck!
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We were also told to clean our plates, which is actually something that my husband and I fight over now. I don't want my kids to think they need to clean their plate, but my husband expects them to. My mother always told me not to "waste" food. But I heard something one day that helps me with this: It's wasting the food whether you throw it out *or* eat food that your body can't use. I try to remember that when I'm feeling like I need to keep eating because there's still food in front of me. Good post.
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Thanks for adding that, Darcy. It's a good way to think about what "waste" means.
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Maybe finding a way to eat less is not the answer. Instead of finding a way to eat less, find a way to exercise more. There are often many problems in life but there are also many solutions to the problems. In fact, since more than one solution exists, you can handle it many different ways as long as the results are close to what you desire. Smaller plates are great but you said that you love to eat. Is there something else that you love to do that would help burn the calories? Is there an activity in which you find ‘flow’ as Daniel Pink and others would say? Start doing that and you’ll get to do two things that you love to do.
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I like that line of thought, Eric. In the post I wanted to address only the eating issue, but there's exercise that's part of the regimen, too. What your comment did was inspire me to look more aggressively for other options. Thanks.
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What a great post. Of all the things I struggle with, this is right up there. The leadership challenge is about discipline and am I undisciplined in other areas of my life. Thanks for the post.
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Thanks, Brian. I think all of us have areas where discipline does the trick and others where it doesn't. I think the best thing is to recognize when discipline isn't working and look for other things that will help.
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Smaller serving sizes is a good idea. Increasing serving sizes over the last few decades is one of the big problems in the USA's size problem. From a problem solving approach another good idea is to look beyond the problem at the larger system (the smaller serving size is a great system solution that is inside the eating problem). In this case for some people a way to deal with an eating problem is to exercise more. By changing the overall system a problem of eating too much can sometimes be changed into not a problem (due to a change outside the system).
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I thought you'd like the system parts of this one, John. Thanks for the comments and stopping by. I think I read that the average US fast-food cheeseburger has more than tripled in size in twenty years. At our house, we've pretty much given up eating fast food because of both serving sizes and ingredients. Thanks for the insight on looking beyond the immediate problem to the larger system.
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This is a great topic because it is something I struggle with on a daily basis. I try to eat 5-6 smaller meals throughout the day to keep me from eating too much at dinner and late at night. Unfortunately my schedule doesn't allow me to do this on a regular basis. When I am able to consume the 5-6 small meals a day I feel much better.
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Thanks Jeffrey. That's another tactic to consider. This is an area where there are lots of right answers. I wrote about it because it was an area where most of my normal "problem solving" behaviors didn't work.
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Wally - Great advice and similar to something our vet suggested about helping the cat lose weight. "just give her a little less food each day for a week. Otherwise, she'll be mad at you." It turned out to be great life advice for many situations. And thanks to you I'm enjoying a smaller bowl of oatmeal this morning.
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Thanks for commenting, Anne. I like the gradual decrease in food tactic. It works in lots of other areas of life, too.
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Hey Wally,
I suffer from the same affliction as you (sans wife).
So, always eat breakfast. Drink your body weight in ounces of water per day. And I know you are a busy guy, but try to exercise.
Lastly, manage your expectations. If you set a modest goal of losing a pound a week, that's only 4 pounds a month, but its 12 pounds in a quarter!
Managing an employees expectations about performance improvement. Small incremental goals are sometimes easier to attain than 1 large one.
Once he or she starts getting some successes, his confidence will improve as well as his performance.
The same is true with weight loss. Once you see a 3 or 4 pounds come off, you confidence will rise and you will try even harder!
Just a thought.
I like the post though, especially with Thanksgiving just around the corner!
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Thanks, Rick. Those are good suggestions. As with many things, they will work well for some people and not for others. For me, the biggest difference from what works for most people is breakfast. If I eat a breakfast, especially a large one, soon after I get up, there are two results. First, my energy drops. Second, I eat more later in the day. So I've had to adapt the breakfast advice to eating a light breakfast later in the morning.
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Wally Wally Wally, you always bring up some great points. Many of us suffer from the good cooking and growing up I got the same speech of "clearing my plate."
I have seen many managers blame the lack of sells or the lack of effort on low numbers when the problem is clearly may be the system being implemented. Good advice I will be sure to share this with my team!
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Phillip, Phillip, Phillip ... thank you
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Eat less and live longer.Anytime you go on a diet, after all, you stand a good chance of lowering your blood pressure, cholesterol level and risk of diabetes and other health woes. All that can translate into extra years.
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Thanks for stopping by and sharing that.
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Hi Wally,
This is a great topic and my mom, too, always told me to clean my plate and to never throw away food. Here's what worked for me:
My dog now takes care of any leftovers and I don't "have to" eat them. He is also my accountability partner when it comes to exercising.
As for portion control: I used an ipad calorie counter app that took all the guesswork out of how much I could eat. The app made losing weight fun – it was like playing a game.
Another trick: I grew up with the metric system and 'pounds' don't really mean anything to me. So when I stepped on the scale everyday and that thing went up or down or moved only a little or not at all, I didn't take it personal and never felt disappointed. Maybe you can set your scale to display kilos?
With the holidays coming up, I should probably be proactive and lose more weight... - a good reminder, thanks!
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Thanks for sharing your experience, Anna. I think there will be a number of people who'll jump on that iPad app. I think everyone has to find their own way and we're getting lots of ideas from people like you.
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