How We Can Conquer Our Obsession with Fast Food

Would you undertake a one-month experiment that has the potential to improve your health, save you money, enhance your self-control and build positive life-long habits? It sounds too good to be true, but it’s actually rather simple. It’s all about changing the way you think about one thing: what you buy to eat.

For one month, every time you consider buying fast food, take whatever money you were planning on spending and put it in a safe place to be saved. By doing so, you’ll not only have a physical representation of the amount of money you regularly spend on junk food, but you’ll also be forced to find an alternative meal, which will almost undoubtedly be healthier than anything you can purchase from a fast food joint. You’ll have to sacrifice a bit of time to prepare a meal, but I assure you, it’ll be worth it.

If you frequently eat fast food, this might be a challenging experiment to follow through with. It will be tempting to justify a mishap, but don’t let it happen! Once you slip up, you’re much more prone to giving up completely and reverting to your old habits. Remember: regardless of the extrinsic motivators, you are solely responsible for your own behaviors, decisions, successes and failures.

If you are able to go a month without fast food, then there is a second part of this experiment for you! The second part is considerably more enjoyable and rewarding. You get to take whatever money you saved and spend it! There is a catch though: you are required to pick a local restaurant, retail store or other small business and spend your money there. Why? Because you’ll probably find a shirt, hamburger, necklace, hair salon, coffee shop, etc. that you never knew existed. In addition, the money will be cycled directly back into the community, improving the local economy.

So, do you have the ambition to undertake the challenge? At the end of the month, you’ll feel better, have more money, help the local economy and develop positive life-long habits. Fast food isn’t the enemy – you are responsible for your health and where you decide to spend your money. My hope is that, with enough participation, our nation will begin undoing the years of automated thinking that has characterized America as the most obese country in the world. Even the American dream is in jeopardy. How can small businesses hope to compete against the enormous corporations that dominate this country, without your help? Take some time to address the issue on a personal level, and soon enough, we’ll all get through this together.

Thanks for your time!