An assumption is that people are lazy, or that they don’t want to get better. The advocate for them changing might tout all the benefits of the change, but it still does not often happen.
For instance, lets say that changing from a processed foods to a cook from fresh foods diet would make one feel better, give one more energy, help one to think clearer, and end up costing about the same. Why not change? It might take 5% more effort, but if your energy goes up 20% you will have some to spare, right? Lets break it down.
There are three things to look at when it comes to making a change; the effort/energy; the thought and planning; and the money. These three things are somewhat interchangeable. If you have more money, you can spend less effort, such as not shopping around to find the best prices. If you think and plan lots, you can spend less effort, by combining prep time, having good shopping list, and spend less money, buy figuring out the best deals. The amount of energy, knowledge and money each person has is varied but finite. Lets combine the three into one variable and call it energy/thought/expense.
Here is a graph, showing how difficult it is to be on our example processed food plan, and how difficult it is to be on the cook from fresh plan:
Look, not that hard right? If it comes with benefits, like increasing your energy, and eliminating brain fog, and that helps two of our three variables on the axis, increasing the total amount available to you, making eating be a smaller component of your energy/thought/expense total budget, leaving you with more for the rest of your activities, it is a no brainer, right? Lets add the total available to the graph:
Wow, there is more green that you can spend on other things in life!
So why do we not change? It is the missing part of the graph. It is the change itself. That takes a lot of effort, often more then is available, here is a third graph:
So changes in diet (or any other change to one’s health regimen) are not as simple as weighing the outcome, it can be the change itself that is impossible. Why is this? Because, at first when starting a new plan it takes a lot more energy to do it. In our example, one would need to start cooking more things from scratch, this does take more effort, especially if one does not usually cook. There will be a lot more effort then for an experienced cook. More prep time, things like less efficient chopping/stirring/prep work, having a less efficient kitchen set-up and the like will greatly increase the amount of effort it takes to get a meal on the table. Until you know lots of recipes, each dinner will take a lot of thought and planning, like reading and understanding recipes, making sure you have the right ingredients, figuring out how to shop differently and learning the techniques needed. Until you master some of these skills, you will have to put more energy into the meals. And lastly, money, until you have the skill and planning down, you will have a harder time figuring out what is the cheapest way to eat this new way, and there will be wastage, which is expensive.
Why did the green bar go down in the middle? Because changing is often hard on a body. If you read through any diet/lifestyle lists you will see mention of this. In vegetarian circles it is often called ‘detox’ in the low carb community, ‘carb flu,’ when you first start exercising the soreness is more pronounced. This decreases the total budget when the total expense of the change is highest.
There are many other reasons for not making changes, many, many other reasons. but this is one of the big ones. People often can not make the change, they do not have enough of the currency needed to change, even if the change would be better in the long run.
My example was just that, and example. It is true for many other changes. Even something as simple as adding a supplement can be a big change. You usually have to go through a few types/brands to figure out which one works best, have to learn to make it a daily habit and have to remember to keep it in stock. These things might look easy of the surface, but are all factors in any change.
Look at the graphs, what this means is that it is not possible for some people to make the changes, not that they are too lazy to do it.
