Does planning steal freedom? Most people believe it does and therefore avoid planning. What if the opposite is true? Could planning create freedom?

In the first phase of my Heal your Gut program, I give people a Food and Mood Journal to both plan and track all of their eating, drinking, and exercising.

As you can guess many people have massive resistance and sometimes even hate and disdain for this part of the program.

It is true that it is a pain in the ass to document all the data points.

And it is kinda true that it takes a bit of extra time upfront to pause and plan.

But the information that we collect is priceless.

And the idea that planning steals freedom is FALSE.

Planning Creates Freedom

The shift most people find very awkward is going from eating spontaneously to eating plan.

Most clients’ main complaint is they think that planning causes them to lose a sense of freedom and spontaneity.

Why Bother Planning?

When we eat spontaneously, we are often eating for immediate gratification, which sounds good in the moment, which is often on the less healthy end of the spectrum.

When we plan ahead of time, then we use a different part of our brain that is engaged in the future and most often makes choices higher end of the spectrum.

This act alone is a gut health game-changer. Most everyone ups their healthy food instantly, by purely planning.

But what about that loss of freedom and spontaneity?

Does planning steal freedom?

Well, here is what I find.

When we sit down for a focused planning minute then, we free up the background mental chatter and decision-making part of our brain for the remainder of the planned period, resulting in our brain actually feeling lighter and freer.

Counterintuitive, I know.

And when we eat healthier, we have more energy, more life force, more mental clarity, and more hours in the day then we have more freedom to focus on other parts of life besides food.

Food can take up so much energy and time.

What if you consolidated it into a focus few minutes of planning? What other things may you be freed up to engage in?

Planning does the opposite of what most people think; planning actually creates space for freedom and spontaneity.