TRADE OFFS
Let’s talk about trade offs
“A trade-off (or tradeoff) is a situational decision that involves diminishing or losing one quality, quantity, or property of a set or design in return for gains in other aspects. In simple terms, a tradeoff is where one thing increases, and another must decrease.”
Some decisions will be really easy/straight forward especially when there is only 1 outcome e.g prepping food to save money.
However this is a luxury and rarely do we only have one desired outcome, usually we are after multiple outcomes or at least a more specific outcome e.g prepping food to stick to your macros / hit your fatloss goals for a period of time,
In the above example we’re going to need to make a wise trade off and use the “even - swap” method basically it’s a framework that lets you focus all your mental focus and energy on deciding the real value to you.
What you want to do is list all the important things to you about the decision you need to make e.g Your outcome is ‘a fatloss phase to achieve the lean and strong, look good naked vibe’ and the decision you needing to make is around your nutrition strategy
You will list all the things you want to ‘tick the box in’ in the left hand column and then the options for strategies Across the row at the top now everyone is going to look different and remember certain strategies may or may not work when you put them into play, nothing changes if nothing changes and trade offs are key but here is an example below:
Tracking as you go
Meal prepping one day per week for the work week
Eating something different everyday but planning in advance
Eating the same thing everyday
Flexibility
yes
yes when planning out all meals
yes
can create flexibility in your day with foods you enjoy, but same foods every day
Time commitment
time consuming
larger in the planning and cooking stage, however time saving during the week when we are more time poor
more time as need to structure 7 different days
less time commitment as can bulk cook, money saving due to less wastage eating similar foods
Ease of cooking
more likely to reach for snacks / convenience
bulk cooking of similar items yes, if cooking multiple different meals for each day more complex
more complex as multiple different meals
easy to bulk prepare or atleast cut things up the night before etc
Taste
yes
planning can tailor to your taste buds
plenty of variety
can plan to fit your taste buds and macros
Adherence / hitting target macros and micors
harder to achieve when new to this method
made easy, split your macros by the amount of meals (how to do this here)
harder to come up with ideas for something different everyday
easy when planned
Excitement (not getting bored)
yes but potential to get overwhelmed
potential to get bored
exciting but potential to overwhelm if targets aren't carefully planned
potential to get bored
Again this is an example and yours may look slightly different.
A more simple way is doing a for and against list for each option
e.g you want variety in all your meals but not feel overwhelmed by not hitting targets, in this example the trade off is you will need to spend more time prepping and planning your week than if you were to eat the same thing each day - write out the strategy at the top and a line down the middle dividing the page, on the-left hand column do a 'for' or positives with this strategy and on the right an 'against' or negatives for this strategy
.
The decision is yours but a trade off must be made. Is there more for or against? If it's in the above example of a fatloss phase do the for's outweigh the against for a short period of time can you commit to this? Remember we shouldn't be dieting year round. Remember is a strategy isn't working and you're always short of time maybe the trade off is you plan to eat the same thing during your work days and take more time to plan your weekends. The great thing about gaining skills and education along the way is that these time trade offs become less and less as you become more experienced.
Making trade offs are key to success, If you want to have variety and achieve your weight-loss goals you’ll need to invest a lot more time planning out your week in advance and what your day will look like in advance to have the variety in your food whilst achieving your body comp goals. Remember the above example is for a fat-loss goal, when you have more calories to play with at maintenance or a building phase your trade-offs might look a little different and tracking as you go may be easier and a more effective method for you psychologically.
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