One Big Experiment

A young man has found the woman of his dreams. Beautiful, funny, intelligent...a perfect 10. He decides he is going to win her over, and marry her.

He sets out on his quest. First he brings a dozen red roses to her door. She tosses them aside and closes the door, leaving the young man outside.

He says to himself, maybe she does not like roses. So he tries again. This time with tulips. Different flower. Same result.

He tries again and again with chocolates, letters, teddy bears, and more. Same result.

Exasperated, and about to give up, he brings over his family’s famous homemade soup . Success! She opens the door, takes the soup and invites the young man to eat dinner with her.

We love the persistence of the young man in this parable. We also see how he makes decisions.

Did it work? No? Try something else. Yes? Do more of that.

This leads us to a concept in nutrition, and in life, called Outcome-Based Decision Making.

Simply defined...

Outcome-Based Decision Making means you make a change, see if it works, and make future decision based on the results.

You see, what works for someone else, won’t necessarily work for you. We were each created uniquely. We have what is knowns as bio individuality.

Think of yourself like Frankenstein. One big experiment.

When you view your nutrition journey as an experiment, here are a few guidelines:

1. Focus on ONE change - You can’t change everything at once. If you do, you will never know what is actually working.

2. Focus on that change for enough time - In my coaching, that is usually 2 weeks, but it can vary depending on the change.

3. Be patient. Very patient. Outcome-based decision making takes time, but it works. You will go down paths that don’t work for you. Those are good too. Be patient.

4. Collect data - As you make changes, measure how it is working. This could be physical data, emotional data, energy data, or any other data that is important to you. Pay attention to your body.

5. Make future decisions based on your data - Is this a change to continue, tweak, or remove?

As I write this post, I am about to embark on my own personal experiment. A great friend of mine, and my nutrition mentor Mike Cieszkowski recommended I try the detox he just completed.

While I believe many detoxes are unnecessary and ineffective, his and his clients’ results speak for themselves. I won’t go into why I am excited to try this detox, but I will link to the detox in case you are interested.

As I begin my experiment, it will be the ONE change I focus on for 2 weeks. I will be patient, understanding it is a process, and I will collect data along the way.

At the end I will assess whether it is something I would do again, or not. Either way it is a win.

So how about you? What nutritional change could you try today?

Hint: Choose the one that you think is MOST important.

How could you use outcome-based decision making to determine whether it worked or not?

Let’s experiment on ourselves, one change and one-minute at a time.