Yesterday, I came downstairs to the kitchen to find my extraordinarily health-conscious father en route to the living room with a huge peanut butter and chocolate sundae in his grasp. When I gave him an innocently questioning look, he immediately defended, “Long day at work – I deserve some comfort food.”
It got me thinking…my dad works harder than anyone I know, yet he felt the need to defend his chocolate treat to me. We all know the importance of taking care of our bodies; having a nutritionally-balanced diet should be high on our priority list, because we only get one body in this life, and it has to carry us all the way to the finish line. However, just as we only get one body, we also only get one life, and as stated in Jojo Moyes’s novel Me Before You, it is our duty to live it as fully as possible.
This brings me to today’s main dish – the importance of eating that chocolate sundae. When I eventually reach the final inning of this crazy world, I don’t want to look back on my life with regret that I didn’t enjoy myself more. Similarly to many young people nowadays, I find that I put entirely too much pressure on myself in my day-to-day activities, and ordinarily, if I break down and open that bag of chips or splurge for the extra butter at the movie theater, I tend to feel guilty. But why?
The answer is simple; as we can all attest to, our world is constantly changing, and people are always saying something different about health. With so many personal standards and preferences, it can be hard to decide what the right thing to do is with regards to what we eat. Fats carry a negative connotation, but some types are good? And now yogurt is being made without aspartame, should I try to avoid that, too? A lot of people just aren’t well-versed in ‘health talk’, so it can be stressful trying to decipher the labels at the grocery store, and then suddenly, shopping for food becomes an unpleasant experience. My personal philosophy is as follows: it is okay to eat what you want, just do it in moderation.
So the next time you go to a restaurant, go ahead and order that slice of cheesecake. Life demands a lot of us, so sometimes, it’s okay to reward ourselves. Food can deliver us an experience unlike any other, and while we should strive to achieve a better level of health and fitness, sometimes, it’s okay to just go for comfort.
