If you look up the word “negotiate,” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary you will find the following three definitions:

“to confer with another so as to arrive at the settlement of some matter”

“to deal with (some matter or affair that requires ability for its successful handling)”

“to arrange for or bring about through conference, discussion, and compromise”

Hint: Pay attention to the words in bold!

10 years ago (and for many years before that) I allowed my impulses to get the best of me when it came to eating.  I either ate as healthy as possible or I succumbed to the voices screaming at me from the dinner table, restaurant menus, and grocery store aisles.  When I ate unhealthy food, I was never in control.  My body and mind told me to eat something (or more of something) that I didn’t really want to eat. 

10 years ago, I had not discovered how to negotiate my diet.  I had no idea how to control what I ate, and consistency was my downfall.

Today, I am often the healthiest eater someone knows, I rarely lose control when eating, and I use negotiation daily, to keep my diet on track.

Establishing Your Non-Negotiables

Before negotiating your diet, you must establish your non-negotiables.  Non-negotiables can refer to the “rules” that will govern how you eat all of the time, no matter what. Your non-negotiables can inform what will you never eat and what you will never stop eating.

For example, I do not eat gluten because my body attacks itself when I consume gluten, causing uncomfortable, damaging symptoms.  Avoiding gluten, is non-negotiable for me.  Also, I never touch fast-food from big-chain restaurants.  Eating processed, fast foods, made with more chemicals than natural ingredients, disgusts me, so not eating fast-food is a non-negotiable for me.

Non-negotiables can also establish rules for what you are not willing to give up. For example, you may establish a non-negotiable principle for keeping alcohol, dessert, and eating at your favorite barbecue restaurant in your diet, in moderation.  You are not willing to make any deals that completely eliminate your favorite foods and beverages from your diet.

Knowing your non-negotiables before entering a negotiation, makes negotiating easier and more straightforward because you know what is on the table.  Non-negotiables make the boundaries of any negotiation you are willing to accept more clear.

Negotiation Is Key

So why leave room for negotiation in your diet?  Shouldn’t you learn how to eat healthy and stick to that? 

In my experience, negotiation has been critical to my diet success, and I believe it can be critical to yours.  When it comes to establishing healthier eating, we often set goals that we struggle to keep all the time.  But when we relax those goals, we often engage in the extreme opposite behavior of those goals.

Negotiation allows you to settle on a successful solution that considers your healthy eating goals and your desire to loosen those goals sometimes.

For example, I try to observe the Paleo-like diet about five days a week. As I established earlier, I always eat a gluten-free diet (my non-negotiable).  Sometimes, my body craves foods that I try not to eat as much of, such as gluten-free grains. I might crave fish tacos with corn tortillas over a fish salad that is grain-free.  Other times, life gets too busy to plan the perfect Paleo-friendly meals or meal planning becomes too monotonous, and I need to eat foods that do not satisfy my Paleo-like diet.

In these situations, negotiation allows me to compromise and satisfy the part of me that wants to eat my ideal diet and the part of me that says the ideal diet isn’t working for you today.

More importantly, when I leave room for negotiation, I am not a victim to one side or the other.  By allowing space for negotiation, I remain in control and can present a solution that satisfies my two conflicting desires, while not compromising on my non-negotiables,

Finding Low Compromise Solutions

So, who are the two parties when negotiating your diet?  For simplicity sake, let’s establish the two parties as the side of us that wants to eat healthy (party number one) and the side of us that wants to eat unhealthy (party number two).

For example, you won’t please party number one if you decide to engage in an all-day junk-food binge.  At the same time, you won’t please party number two if you don’t give party number two something to satisfy the craving or fulfill the desire.

So, ask yourself, what specifically does party number two need?  Does party number two really need a double cheeseburger with fries, or does party number two need something savory and rich?

If you can identify the root need of party number two, you can position yourself better to propose a low-compromise solution.  You must also identify the root need of party number one.  Perhaps the root need of party number one is to eat something that does not make them feel physically bad afterwards.

In this example, party number two wants something savory and rich and party number one does not want to feel physically bad after eating.  Knowing what will not make you feel physically bad after eating requires some understanding of your body and science.  But assuming you understand the science and your specific dietary needs, here are some possible solutions.   

• Hummus with olives, tomatoes, and avocado with rice crackers

• Burger patty with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and pesto

• Guacamole with bacon crumbles and almond crackers

Notice how different these options sound compared to your standard double cheeseburger and fries.  These options can satisfy both parties, and reflect a negotiation, or deal, that successfully gives both parties what they need. For more options, click here.

Conclusion

So back to the original question, why leave room for negotiation?

Let’s pretend for a moment that we didn’t.  Let’s pretend that we kept saying, “no” to party number two when party number two wanted to eat something different.  Let’s assume that after a while, party number two got so fed up with party number one’s unwillingness to negotiate, that party number two decided to take over and eat whatever they wanted with no consideration for party number one.

Sound familiar?  I have experienced that, and so have many of the people I have helped.  My guess is you have experienced this as well.  Negotiation helps keep party number two in check, while party number one continues to work towards goals for a healthy diet.

Imagine how much better off you will be if you learn to negotiate when you feel like abandoning your goals.  How much less “bad” food will you consume?  How much more balanced will you feel?

Next time you want to cave to the part of you that wants to eat unhealthily, try negotiating, and tell me how it goes!

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