I was asked recently about my favorite healthy guilty pleasures. To start, I learned from a friend that the french version of guilty pleasure is péché mignon which means “cute or darling sins.” Thats a nice way of putting it, don’t you think? 🙂
Regardless of what we call them, mine, I think, are just like everyone else’s. However, one of the main differences that sets me, and some of my RD friends apart is that we look at food in a different way than most. While we very much enjoy it, and all of its varieties, it is also used to FUEL our bodies. Let me illustrate this:
I don’t want to throw diesel fuel in my gasoline car, do an oil change with the wrong type of oil, or put on some brand new tires that are the wrong size. These seem silly, and of course no one would intentionally do that, right? Either your partner would kill you or you know enough yourself that this wouldn’t work out to your benefit….the car will not run smoothly (if at all), the balance will be off, it will be louder when the engine runs, and eventually, it will decrease not only the efficiency of the vehicle, but also the life of it.
You can consider our bodies in the same way. When I have a piece of chocolate after my meal, it is like a fuel booster added with my gasoline, a nice touch, but it isn’t necessarily needed, right? But when I have the whole bag of chocolate, or 3 pieces of decadent chocolate cake, I can compare that to putting several fuel boosters in the tank without the gas!!! It just doesn’t work well for our system.
With this all said, sometimes if everyone is eating ice cream and I have had enough crappy calories for the day, I choose greek yogurt with some strawberries. I make substitutions similar to this on a daily basis. Most of the time, to be honest, I simply say no thank you and enjoy the evening with a tall glass of water, or other no calorie drink, or nothing.
Often, its about discipline and recognizing that the NEED is a WANT and overcoming that behavior. It takes time, it takes practice, and honestly, it is not worth it to some people, and you may be one of those people that you prefer to have SOMEthing. In that case choose well and be okay with the looks, the sighs and people making comments, because my friend, its YOUR life, OWN IT!