On Motivation and Time, Redux

Right after the New Year, it seems like everyone goes from forecasting the next 12 months to focusing on hoping to maintain new lifestyle habits. Many of which are about diet and exercise. To re-use some of a blog I wrote 5 years ago on motivation and time:

When there are lots of ways to do something, probably none of them good. When something really is superior, everyone uses it; when nothing works all that well, there are umpteen ways to do it.

So…just, uh, I am still wondering…why are there so many books about dieting? 

Actually, compared to 20 years ago, the bookstore offerings on diet is much better now with lots of variations on Michael Pollan’s simple truths:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. 

New Year’s is when many people revisit the subject of motivation. As I stated in that prior blog:

As an exercise and lifestyle doctor, the most common response I’ve heard from patients about physical inactivity is:

“Doc, I don’t have time for exercise”.

It’s the same for other aspects of lifestyle – diet, stress coping, tobacco use, etc. – each evoking a unique set of responses, challenges and barriers, but still the most common excuse is not having the time. 

Ben Franklin is credited with saying that time is money. 

Thus, if you’re a health care professional trying to help such a patient, your task is to motivate them sufficiently that they restructure their priorities to make the time, or in other words, spend money. 

Wanting to make the time more about feelings than logic and reason. Health education models teach facts and logic, but behavior change is based on feelings. 

The real emotional work is almost always about a tradeoff between time spent investing in health with something that requires money and that the patient values more deeply. 

For people with education and financial resources (i.e., they can buy the time), lifestyle changes may seem obvious and easy. I mean, it’s only 7 words to get started on the right path:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. 

It’s not so easy for folks who have health (particularly mental health) and socio-economic disparities. Of course, chronic diseases skew towards those persons with adverse social and environmental risk factors. 

Now that we’ve gotten the nitty gritty, here’s a 90 second video - because a picture is worth 1000 words:

Now you’re focused on America’s problem of motivation and time. And money. Franklin was right. 

GEMoore, MD FACSM

References

GE Moore. Health care reform and activating the population. Feb 3, 2015. https://sustainablehealthsystems.com/blog/health-care-reform-and-activating-population

M Pollan. In Defense of Food, An Eater’s Manifesto. Penguin House, 2009. 

“Advice to a Young Tradesman, [21 July 1748],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-03-02-0130. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 3, January 1, 1745, through June 30, 1750, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961, pp. 304–308.]

CDC. United State Diabetes Surveillance System. https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/diabetes/diabetesatlas-analysis.html  Accessed 1/8/2025