Inertia

I've read several blogs in the past few days that have me really thinking about something. Some of them only relate slightly, but part of the point of reading blogs is to share in other people's experiences and see how their mistakes or triumphs can help me along the way.

The hot topic of the moment in the weight-loss blog-o-sphere is quality v. quantity. I, personally am of the quantity camp. Weight-loss is about calories in and calories out. Period. Bottom line. Can you eat 1500 calories of Reese's cup, exercise three times a week and still lose weight? You betcha. Are you wrecking your body? You betcha. But ultimately-- YOU'LL STILL LOSE WEIGHT!

As with anything, there are a lot of people around pushing their opinions on others as the "right" ones and see any flirting with thinking for yourself as preparations for burning in the Lake of Fire (Love you, Nirvana.) For instance, the Breast V. Bottle debate. Heh... that is one hot topic among mommy forums. I don't even go near it. It seems like, by writing about what you ingest on a blog, you're painting a target on your forehead for people to judge you by what you're eating. "You eat processed foods?! Off with your head!" "That canned food has sodium! SOOOOOODIUM!!!! *dies*" "Fuh-fuh-fuh-frozen... meals?? I hope you've made out your will because you're going to get three kinds of cancer!!! Everyone knows they're chock full of aspartame and turpentine!" Ludicrous nonsense.

The way I see it, what I'm putting into my mouth and my body is my business. As long as the number on the scale is going down at this point, I'm doing just fine. I'm a big girl (really.) and I can make my own decisions. I am looking to be healthier, as is everyone, but I can't just wake up one morning, throw all of my food into the trash and start over following someone else's guide book for what's good and what isn't. What I'm doing is known in the medical world as "too much too fast" (It's Latin.) and I know what happens when I jump through a gigantic hoop before I'm ready. Inertia, because I've got a whole lot of forward momentum going and when it happens that I snag my shoe lace on a rusty piece of emotion, I'm not going to be near anything familiar to help me cope. I won't have any sort of familiarity to help me get back up. Baby steps! Now there may be the people out there who can just throw everything off of the table in one big dramatic cloth-pulling event, but I'm not one of them. And I don't expect everyone else to be, either. We are all unique. We all need different things to get us through in this weight-loss journey and if it's a mother-flippin' 100 calorie pack of Goldfish crackers that gets me over the salt craving then kindly "STFU" and let me have my Goldfish! If, at this stage of my journey, I still need crutches, why on earth would someone take that away from me? There are low calorie alternatives to the high calorie foods I'm familiar with that will carry me through a tough emotional time. Why not be happy that I had enough wherewithall to go for the healthier (-er, that's important) choice than the old fall-back? As long as I don't eat the entire box in one sitting, I'd say that I've done a great job. Who cares that it's not whole wheat, unbleached, free range flour soy-cheddar flavored cracker types, baked for two hours in my own oven? I don't care. Why would someone else? Why is someone else wasting their energy projecting their own preferences onto other people?

While I understand there are healthier choices than some that I might make, there are a whole lot worse choices, as well. I choose not to survive on 100 calorie packages of anything. I also choose, however, not to deny myself anything, which I know will eventually end up in a binge during a weak moment. If I choose to work a caramel mocha into my weekly calorie "budget", but eat healthy for every other ingested morsel, why get down on me? I've had enough discipline and motivation to stay on target and the promise of that one mocha just might be the motivation that got me through the week. One mocha doesn't mean that I'm falling off of the wagon. It might just mean that I've brought a pillow to make the wagon less bumpy on my tushy.

There are different levels of what people consider healthy eating. We're all at different places and I think it should be respected that having slightly less healthy diets than the one you might be on doesn't make anyone else less serious or less motivated. It just means that some people are at a different place, going slow, working on the small steps they can manage right then.

Disclaimer: This is, of course, my opinion on the matter. "You" does not mean I'm speaking to any specific "you", but refers to the general "you" of people to whom these points might apply. All conversation has been strictly hypothetical, as no one has said a darn thing about what I, personally, choose to eat. This post is based off of voyeristically watching other people's conversations on their blogs and contemplating how I would feel in certain situations, not as a rebuttal to any one post. In the event of a water landing, your seat may be used as a flotation device. Thank you for flying Air Nicole.