Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Have you Engaged an Indulgence Autopilot?


It's something I hear about frequently when I meet new patients,
"....and Friday is Pizza Night",

"Every Thursday the gang at work goes out for Dim Sum at lunch",

"After the kids' hockey on Saturday mornings we do drive thru Tim Horton's and share 20 Timbits
"
Now I'm not knocking any of those choices directly. While certainly they're not healthy choices, and where I might even label them as nutritionally "bad" foods, the fact is they might be great indulgent choices.

What I mean is that we don't just eat food for sustenance.

Whether it's pizza, Chinese food or doughnuts, if those are part of your life's seminal guilty dietary indulgences, well then I think you probably owe it to yourself to continue to have them, because blindly cutting them out? I'm not sure taking away your favourite foods in honour of your health is a great plan because doing so will likely, over time, lead you to fully abandon whatever overly strict healthy living strategy you've adopted.

That said, you might want to take a moment to ask yourself a question like,
"Is the fact that it's Friday a good enough reason to order in pizza"
Ultimately, when it comes to dietary indulgences and hedonistic pleasure, the question isn't, "Are you allowed", but rather, "Is it worth it" and if so, "how much do I need to be satisfied?", where sometimes the answer may be, "No and none", and other times significantly more than that.  To illustrate what I mean - I'm thinking you'll be eating far more indulgent foods on your birthday than you'll be eating on my birthday.

But just because it's Friday? I'm guessing you can do better.

Disengage your indulgence autopilot and thoughtfully navigate your nutritional skies!