Flawed Logic: "If I'm gonna die anyway, I might as well enjoy what I'm eating"

Tell me you haven't heard or thought this before:

If I'm going to die anyway, then I am going to eat whatever I want and enjoy the time I do have. Why would I give up XYZ and be miserable?

That, my friends, is called 'flawed logic'. It's one of the most common responses out there for eating healthy (along with "I don't have the time," "it's too expensive," and "I don't have the willpower."). Why is it flawed logic?  Simple, it ultimately presumes that the only enjoyment in life comes from food. So, if you give up your most loved foods, then your life will be miserable.

How would your significant other feel about that? Your siblings? Kids? Parents? Friends? Pets?

I don't blame those who say things like this. It's what our society programs us to think - food is not fuel to us, it's a source of enjoyment and pleasure. It tastes amazing and makes us feel good. We run (or maybe waddle) to it when we're sad or upset, just like the Golden Girls with their late night cheesecake sessions. So it's no wonder as a society we say things like this.

In reality is that food is ultimately just a fuel. Also, healthy eating can actually be tasty. And it can be done economically, both in terms of cost and time.

But the real reality is that our lives and the enjoyment we experience within them aren't just about food. We take joy from so many other things. Time with loved ones, great movies/shows/games/music/etc, vacations, our jobs (seriously, some people take real enjoyment from their work), time with our pets - and the list goes on.

Why do we think that giving up on some foods we like that literally are killing us somehow wipes out all enjoyment from our lives?

This question came to me after watching a great documentary called Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead by an Aussie named Joe Cross. It follows him over 60 days as he goes on a fresh juice-only diet, and educates you about what our food choices are doing to us, and what healthy living can do instead. It's a fantastic movie (and book), so I highly encourage you to watch it.  It's free for Amazon Prime members, and available on DVD and streaming from most services out there (Amazon, Netflix, etc), and there's also a book version (on Kindle, too). He suffers from an autoimmune disease that has him on several medications (including strong doses of steroids), and yet he's still suffering (and overweight and feeling miserable). He transforms himself, is able to come off his meds, and is happier and healthier. He enjoys his life in a way he didn't before. And he helps another man along the way with the same ailment and even worse health (who then intern helps others, too).

What Joe learns and teaches is that we need to look for all the other sources of joy in our lives beyond food, raise the value those have in our minds, and then make healthier choices to enhance our ability to take in those sources of enjoyment. What we find along the way is that we had a false notion of what our real happiness comes from or, more accurately, just how happy we thought we were.

Whether you want to be as extreme as Joe (and you can't help but feel like you want to be), the message is so clear and valid. Live healthier, get to a place of true enjoyment, and enlighten.your.body.

Podcast Episode 008 - clean14

enlighten.your.body by cleaning your life of the things that you shouldn't be putting in it. clean14 is a challenge we've started on facebook for people to find things they eat, drink or (worse) smoke, and take them out of their life. learn more and join the challenge at http://www.newbodi.es/clean14.

this video ties to a post I did on the clean14 challenge.

If you enjoyed this video, subscribe on YouTube or get the podcast on iTunes and spread the word. It's one more tool I'm giving you to help you enlighten.your.body.

Clean 2014

I like to give myself major, overarching goals for each year (#4 from my 10 Principles is to set goals, both near and far - this covers the 'far' part based upon which you set your 'near' goals).  My first time doing it, my goals were around the makeup of my body (lowering my weight and body fat). The second time, I focused on what my body can do (running a certain number of races of a certain distance within the year).  I used both of those big goals to build a series of steps to get there.  For instance, my second year goal was to run five 5Ks in a year. I setup my training and found races to get me there. I actually didn't technically do it since I did one 5K, one 5.6K, one 10K and a half marathon which was good for 21.1K.  I more than did the distance (41.7 vs 25), but just didn't do it as I had said I would, which I'm more than ok with.  I also did a century ride as I picked up road cycling, and climbed the three tallest peaks in New England in three days.

So the question is what to do next year.  I could set another goal of completing some specific thing, like doing a marathon (on my mind, but I think it'll be 2015, though I have an ultra-marathon relay race and a half marathon planned already).  Rather than continuing the same type of goal as last year, I decided I'd challenge myself differently, and want to invite all of you to join me.

I challenge myself to live cleanly.

I already eat pretty healthily, but I want to take it up a notch, and take a stand publicly.  I've found that going public about things makes it much easier to see you to your goals.

So what do I mean by 'clean'. For me, specifically, it means no coffee, no soda, no processed foods.

I've found myself dependent on coffee, and completely lethargic and grumpy (to put it nicely) when I don't have it. That is not ok at all. I'd love to go the next step and say, "no caffeine," but I don't want to cut out green tea or other things that have caffeine as they have other benefits.  Coffee is definitely the main way I get it, and I don't get relief from feeling run over by a bus if I have other kinds of caffeine, so it's definitely most important to cut out coffee.  No dependence here!

I also find that I feel much worse (physically and emotionally) when I put junk into my body.  Junk doesn't mean treats, but processed foods that are more manufactured than made.  Foods that aren't so much food than a series of chemicals brought together and put in a container by machines. I don't eat much of it, but I do eat it at times, and I never feel good after.

The last thing is no soda.  I actually tried to do this in 2013, but started cutting myself slack on airplanes, and then when driving long distances and then when eating out at a restaurant.  I don't need it, and it isn't good for me, so enough.  No excuses, no exceptions.

As an aside, I would have added "no alcohol" but I've been doing that already.  I was never a big drinker, and decided it was pointless to have a couple of glasses of wine a year (what I had gotten down to), so I might as well just keep it out of my body. I wasn't having enough to get the benefits people talk about from wine, and doing so would concern me about the other things I'd be asking my body to deal with (sugar, toxins, etc).

I am actually going to start this now rather than waiting until 2014 to start. I don't need to put off the health and mental benefits for another couple of months.  Today is the fourth day I've been 'clean' by this definition, and I'm definitely coming out of the dark with the coffee dependency, which is great.

So, will you take up the "clean14" challenge?  What will your challenge be to yourself?  Will you start now, or wait until 1/1/2014? Take a long look at your life and how you fuel it, and find places where you can and will do better for your happiness, your health, and the example you set for your friends and family. Join the "clean14" challenge on Facebook and use the hashtag "#clean2014" on Twitter to share your challenge and how you're doing.  It's a great way to enlighten.your.body.