Do you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions in your day-to-day life? If so, you’re not alone. It’s becoming increasingly more common for people to live on autopilot, not really stopping to notice how their decisions are affecting their lives. In fact, there was an article published by Forbes entitled “The Hidden Cost Of Operating On Autopilot.” It highlighted an eye-opening study commissioned by the British retailer Marks & Spencer, in which 3,000 Brits were surveyed and 96 per cent of them said they were living on autopilot.
What does this have to do with our diet and lifestyle habits? When we are dealing with mountains of stress each everyday we tend to put on autopilot the decisions that we deem less important. That can be our everyday eating habits. This isn’t uncommon and most people I talk to worry about their daily diet habits. They notice they’re putting on weight, they don’t have the same level of energy, and their brain feels foggy every morning when they wake up. This isn’t a coincidence, it comes down to their nutritional habits but they can’t seem to stop. They’re in autopilot mode, subconsciously making diet decisions that aren’t helping them reach their goals.
The interesting thing is most of us didn’t grow up making decisions this way. As children, most of us were really in tune with our hunger cues and only ever ate when we were hungry and stopped when we were full. We were happy, we had energy, and we could listen to our body and make decisions accordingly.
Fast forward to today, and we’re adults dealing with a lot of day-to-day pressures. The ability to listen to our body’s needs gets drowned out by stress and we end just going through the motions relying on, you guessed it, auto pilot mode. We can start to build a routine where we squeeze breakfast, lunch, and dinner into our day instead of taking a moment to find out when we’re actually hungry and then make a decision based on the feedback we receive. This can put a wrench into our diet and lifestyle goals and may make us feel like we will never succeed in building the healthy life we want.
How do we shut off autopilot mode and get back in the driver’s seat when it comes to our own life? It takes effort, time, and insight. And as I said in my previous article, sometimes it takes everything you’ve got just to think about changing. Once we’re over that hurdle, we have to sit down and examine our daily routine, figure out what we are prioritizing, and start mindfully making decisions to live how we actually want to.
Caitlyn Harbottle is a Peace Region nutrition coach.
