Never Underestimate Your Ability To Adapt
Master of adaptation
One of the core tenants of the financial independence movement is to avoid lifestyle inflation. Investopedia defines lifestyle inflation as “increasing one’s spending when income goes up”.
I don’t think that’s the best definition since many people increase their spending even when their income isn’t going up. They’re still inflating their lifestyle, just without extra money to attempt to fund it.
One of the main reasons most people continue to inflate their lifestyle is adaptation. They pretty quickly become adjusted to the new shiny things in their life like luxury cars and expensive furniture.
So the tendency is to reach for the next shiny thing or upgrade, because that will surely bring more happiness. And it does, for maybe a few weeks. When the pleasure vanishes they seek something new to get it back, and the cycle continues.
This of course is called the hedonic treadmill. It happens because we humans are really good at adapting. If we weren’t we wouldn’t have managed to figure out how to live in every corner of the world and every conceivable hostile climate.
Our ability to adapt is a very powerful sword.
Adaptation, Your Handiest Tool
“Man is a pliant animal, a being who gets accustomed to anything.”
– Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Take these in limited doses to avoid complications
I distinctly remember my first trip to Europe and going to my first really old castle. As a history nerd I couldn’t get over the fact that the castle I was walking in, the walls I was touching, were built in 400 AD. For 10 days we drove around visiting ancient castles, cathedrals, and Roman ruins, and my jaw was agape the whole time.
But trips to Europe became numerous for me after a while, and I saw tons of castles. It got to the point where I would glance out the train window at a passing castle and say “huh, cool…. another castle.”
My amazement diminished. The novelty had largely worn off after castle #127. I experienced lifestyle inflation with castles!
After a number of years of not going to Europe and then finally going back, my enthusiasm for castles was reinvigorated. And they were just as awesome all over again!
My brain adapted to seeing castles, and then it re-adapted to not seeing them by forgetting how incredibly awesome they are.
This ability to adapt, when coupled with discipline, is a weapon of financial freedom.
Adaptable Taste
Do not adapt to these…
Splenda is 600 times sweeter than sugar. Sweet ‘n’ Low is 400-500 times sweeter than sugar. And Aspartame is about 175 times sweeter than sugar. These artificial sweeteners are in countless foods, most commonly sodas and beverages. If you eat processed and packaged foods or fast food it’s almost impossible to avoid them.
More and more research shows these sweeteners are making the obesity epidemic worse, not better. Why?
Adaptation.
Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity and weight-loss specialist at Harvard-affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital says:
“Non-nutritive sweeteners are far more potent than table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. A miniscule amount produces a sweet taste comparable to that of sugar, without comparable calories. Overstimulation of sugar receptors from frequent use of these hyper-intense sweeteners may limit tolerance for more complex tastes,” explains Dr. Ludwig. That means people who routinely use artificial sweeteners may start to find less intensely sweet foods, such as fruit, less appealing and unsweet foods, such as vegetables, downright unpalatable.
Bold emphasis mine. This is my exact experience with these chemicals! I had a period in my 20’s when I was overweight and started drinking diet soda, because I bought into the hype like everyone.
I stopped a few years later after realizing consuming artificial things as food is just a bad idea. After drinking diet soda all those years, a real soda with real sugar tasted bland.
Sugar ain’t so sweet when Splenda is 600 times sweeter. My taste buds had adapted.
Fast forward to now and I haven’t had artificial sweeteners in 15 years. I also don’t drink soda. But when I have a sip of sweet tea or something with real sugar, it blows me away! It’s so ridiculously sweet! Never mind the artificial stuff, that would make my head explode.
My taste buds have adapted back to normal. I can’t even drink Gatorade, which is low sugar compared to soda, without watering it down to half strength. It’s too darn sweet. And vegetables don’t taste bland to me, they taste amazing. Because my taste buds are not adapted to the overstimulation of man made sweeteners.
This one use of adaptation has helped me stay healthy for the past 15 years since we now know that added sugars in our food are probably in the driver’s seat of the runaway car that is the obesity epidemic.
Make Things Special Again
This is more special when you don’t do it 5 times a week
In my journey to financial independence, I’ve learned that once you stop buying something or doing something for a while, you usually want it less and less. You adapt.
Better yet, when you do indulge in those things that you cut down on, it’s the best thing ever! By rationing or creating scarcity of an object or activity, you increase its perceived value and the associated joy that comes comes with it.
Eating out isn’t so special for the Wall St. broker who does it three times a day. It’s her normal. You can make eating out a special occasion and much more pleasurable by eating out less.
Adaptation, when targeted in deliberate ways, is a magic power. But as I discussed in my post on Get Rich Slowly, it takes discipline.
I’ve Adapted To Reject Fast Food
I had fast food this past autumn for the first time in over 12 years. It was a Whopper from Burger King, and I only did it to celebrate with my buddy Jordan who was leaving America to live in South Africa.
He thought he wouldn’t be able to indulge in that junk much anymore, so he wanted one last go. We had just ridden our bikes over 60 miles, so I figured I could let my guard down since I had burned way more calories than even one of those unhealthy franken-burgers has in it.
It was disgusting. It has 12 grams of sugar, and I could taste every gram. Hamburgers are not supposed to have sugar in them.
I’ve adapted to normal, and am not going back.
That is a great tidbit on the sugar adaptation and you are spot on. Your body adapts very ell to every thing thrown at it and your internal thermostat gets reset making other things less impactful the more you get used to something like artificial sweeteners.
I too fell for the “it’s just a diet soda” thing and it is easy to see how you could gain weight if that became your primary intake fluid. I’ve switched to water and it definitely makes everything taste better as my taste buds have adapted back to normal. (I do like using crystal light for drinking water in the evening as a treat, but mainly it’s plain water).
Glad to hear a real doctor concurs with our ability to adapt!
Sorry about the Whopper. That’s why I make hamburgers at home. You know what goes into it. Although, I’m sure the buns have sweetener in them. Pretty much everything you buy does.
I think occasional indulgence is the way to go. That way, you can enjoy it more. Agree 100%.
You can totally buy buns at the store without sugar, as long as you stay away from the more pedestrian grocery stores. Trader Joe’s has some great ones, and they’re way cheaper than Whole Paycheck of course.
Definitely shows we are all different, I’m a diet soda junkie but I’m also a fit runner and tennis player. I love veggies of all kinds and all the diet drinks do for me is to cut the intake of sugar far lower than it would be if I drank non diet soda’s. Can’t tell my palate is at all altered and in fact my ability to discern incredibly faint tastes and smells is nearly superhuman compared to most others I know. I can tell milk is beginning to go bad days ahead of my wife who drinks almost no soda of any kind. As far as lifestyle inflation I think it is unreasonable to eliminate it, doing that will short change you in life. The trick is control it at a pace lower than your income inflation. Living like a starving student on ramen noodles in your fifties when you are a multimillionaire isn’t laudable, it is pathetic. But eating steak and lobster with caviar sprinkled on top every night would be excessive as well. My wife and I have always lived on about half of our income and saved and invested the rest but since my income grew to 24x what it began at my lifestyle also has grown a lot. Even in retirement I could spend two or three times what we do, but we don’t want to. But still, we spend a lot more than we did thirty years ago, even corrected for inflation.
We are different indeed. I agree with your assessment about lifestyle inflation though. My intent in life isn’t to avoid inflating my lifestyle at all, it’s just to do it at a FAR slower pace than income. That’s the key. The simple act of putting a throttle on it is the key to winning, and in the end you still get an inflated lifestyle. So you kind of win twice 🙂
Cool, and I felt that we weren’t far apart on a little inflation being OK. Of course in our society today its the rampant kind that is so prevalent. I had a lot of employees in my old life and half of them drove pick ups and cars that were worth twice or three times what mine was, just to be cool, I guess. And many of them only made half of what I did. Just the difference in what we drove probably was costing them a million dollars over their life, just to have a newer truck or car? I worry about them now. I have plenty and I no longer have to work but many of them are still working 50 hours a week and broke.
Ill-advised vehicles are one of the leading causes of financial stress, I see it all the time.
Another insightful post, Dave. I love the diet soda example. I had no idea the sweeteners were that much more powerful the the real thing. I enjoy a Diet Coke now and again. But as I think about them, once you start you want more. Product producers know how to get us coming back for more. Sugar is the #1 ingredient to do that. Reading labels in stores is telling. Everything has sugar or sweetener in it.
Fortunately I, like you, love vegetables. Always have since I was a kid. I believe it’s one of the reasons I rarely get sick. Unfortunately, I also love my dessert. I’ve had to be really disciplined as I’ve grown older to cut way back on them. As you say, the longer you’re away from them, the more your body adapts. Now when I have an extra sweet treat I go into a food coma. That’s a great deterrent I guess.
A “dessert coma”. I honestly would be lying if I said I’ve never been there. More than a few times. Thankfully most of those were in my 20’s when I had no health discipline.
i don’t think i’ve ever had a diet soda. we get a 12 pack of coke about once a year and i had one with lots of ice as a hangover aid this past sunday after a rare night out. i got excited at the dive bar and had a whiskey. it’s great when adaptation works in your favor. like you, dave, i end up with some fast food crud about once every five years and i feel like hell for a couple of days afterward now. the same positive adaptation works for marketing. every time i see a verizon commercial i hate dumb phones even more and would love to see that actor and the at+t ones all put in a wood chipper. now i gotta go calm down.
Isn’t that from Fargo? Yikes!
Now that you mention it, the last 2 or 3 times I’ve ever had a real soda (not diet) on purpose was when getting either a whiskey/coke or a vodka/sprite. But I don’t do those much. I drink my bourbon neat or on the rocks mostly now.
Our “castle” is a small trailer for our road trips. It is interesting that we adapt to the small space and it’s great. When we arrive home, the house seems ridiculously large and cumbersome to clean, heat and find stuff in. It works both directions.
We also have adapted to living off a smaller income because of Obamacare and now it is the new norm. In fact, listening yesterday to What’s Up Next podcast, I realized we are technically in the “morbidly obese FIRE” category as a result (50X income). I have to get on a diet so I can get back to Fat FIRE.
Great example of adapting and then enjoying what is a luxury (your huge house) but what you’d also probably just get used to if you never left.
Good luck getting “down to” fat!
Susan, I can help you lose that “morbidly obese FIRE”. Send the check in the amount of whatever “weight” class you want to drop down to, Jeff D….!!!
Great post which also led me to think how we are great at adapting to so many other things as well. The long hours at work don’t seem so bad when you’ve been doing it Monday-Friday for 30+ years. They become such a part of you that you forget what it’s like without it. Perhaps that’s also why so many people die shortly after retiring as they’d adapted so well to work life that they can’t manage without it. Interesting stuff to think about.
You are very young to have such an accurate perspective of what it’s like to work 30+ years 😉
Food is a funny thing. My wife is a good chef and she cooks simple, tasty, healthy food. It’s amazing how my tolerance for junk has gone down.
Tasty and healthy is usually simple too. Single ingredients, real food.
It’s crazy how quickly your body can adpot. A good example is how you feel about temperature. When we recently went to Taiwan, I was wearing t shirts and shots because it was around 20C which is summer temperature for me. But all the locals were wearing down jackets because it was cold for them.
Very true Bob…. and when winter comes here in the DC area it usually takes me a few weeks to adapt and not be freezing when running in the cold. Likewise, that first spring day when it’s 80 degrees feels downright hot, but 80 degrees in midsummer would feel like a cool day.
Castles, Splenda and Fast Food. Who, but you, would use them as an analogy for explaining our ability to adapt!? Bravo, my friend. Great post. Another example: Southern Summers. The first summer we lived in Georgia, I thought I was going to die. Now, I hardly notice. Oddly, when I go back North for Christmas, it feels SOO much colder than I remembered as a child. Adaptation.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of super hot so I’m with ya, those first 90+ days of summer are miserable to me. I usually adapt by summers end, but begrudgingly. Thanks for the kudos!
So true! I used to LOVE Skippy and Jif, but that sugary peanut butter tastes awful after eating real peanut butter for years. And I didn’t like real peanut butter at first. Now I can’t imagine going back. The same thing happens when we cut back on salt. At first food tastes very bland, but science says our tastebuds adapt within three months. It’s true. I speak from experience.
Anyway, I’m one of those people who let lifestyle inflation increase a little too much for a few years, but it never resulted in debt or anything. I just wasn’t as frugal as I had been and blew money I otherwise wouldn’t have thrown away. Back on track now!
Same here Katie, I ditched those horrible peanut butters a long time ago. Peanuts are kinda perfect, just make them into butter and leave it alone, no sugar needed.
Speaking of the hedonic treadmill – I love this quote from the book Happy City by Charles Montgomery:
“We are always comparing what we have to something else. But we’re not anticipating that no matter what we have, we will always be comparing it to something else.”
I think it’s from an economist – Luis Rayo I believe. I constantly need to remind myself of this.
Splenda is 600 times sweeter than sugar? No wonder I’m hooked.
I have yet to read Happy City, it’s been on my Amazon book list for a long time now. I should check my library this week when I go to see if they have it. Great quote!
I’m a half waterer too (Gatorade, lemonade, orange juice, and nonfat milk if you ask my husband haha). We saw this most intensely with our food budget and how often we were eating meals we didn’t cook. So much better and more special when it’s an occasional versus everyday thing.
Ha, I’ve never watered down milk, will have to try that!
Oh noooo I mean I get jokes about nonfat milk being watered down 🤣🤣🤣
Well that makes more sense… I was thinking “ok, a little weird, but be open-minded!”
Hahahaha well you never know. Maybe watered down whole milk tastes great! 😉
Breaking free of the treadmill of spending more money when I got raises and earner more was what allowed me to leave work. If I had fallen into the continued trap life would never be what it is today. Much like the sugar I would have never been able to palate the life I have now.
“palate the life I have now”…. nice way with words!
Couldn’t agree more. Mankind’s ability to adapt is a powerful ability that can either be our downfall or a super power.
Knowing how it works is half the battle — using it to our advantage is the other half!
Thanks Tako!
Great post Dave
I eliminated sugar and fast food a long time ago exactly for the reason you mentioned
Food industry goal is to keep us slave (no less that tobacco industry)
The first step is living more ourselves and stop playing their game
There is a certain “keep them hooked” angle to our junk food culture, an it’s disturbing.
I’ve worked to avoid lifestyle inflation when it comes to my budget travel lifestyle. I typically stay in hostels, shared Airbnbs, couchsurfing or the occasional overnight bus. If I’d acclimatised to hotel stays and more expensive accommodation, I wouldn’t be able to afford to travel as far and as long (40 countries and counting!). When I do rarely stay in a hotel, it is a thrilling luxury as the novelty hasn’t worn off. I plan to keep it that way!
40 countries is amazing, that’s about what I have. We’re pretty blessed!
I’m still waiting for chocolate cake to be disgusting for me! In the meantime, I usually indulge in a Hershey’s kiss after dinner to satisfy my sweet tooth.
One Hershey kiss? Now THATS discipline!