Diets are definitely NOT my cup of tea. And I’m of the cameleonic sort: I can tailor my taste to any cultural concoction so that I am able to savour whatever is being served on the plate. I have hitherto flirted with, and quite often become intimate, with all the sturdy hunks in the cultural business of the decade. Yoga, feng-shui, organic farming, life-coaching sessions, sports addiction, rehab for sports addiction, arduous volunteering and other alluring trends. Everything that fills the Protract and embellish my stay on Earth’ bill. You name it. Diets, however… Well, I’ve never joined that temple.
If curious about Detox methods, you will love to read Roswitha’s Ohsawa experience!
Just to get it out in the open, I’m an orthorexic. That means I’m almost (yeah, I’m heavily sugarcoating with that ‘almost’) pathologically obsessed with healthy eating. The classic Harvard food pyramid kind of healthy.
Call it obnoxious snobbery or noxious folie, but I actually bring my homemade whole-wheat bread with me almost everywhere I go. You know, so that I feel whole(some) all the time. Self-suggestion might have something to do with it, but that darned bread brings about a voluptuous satisfaction. It’s like eating something spectacularly-healthy-but-yucky like broccoli, only wrapped in Prozac.
D-I-V-I-N-E.
How is this any different from a diet? you might be wondering. To begin with, diets have perverted, almost wicked approaches and goals. One obvious goal is to get you to fit a more or less personal aesthetic paradigm. You wish to get rid of those extra pounds that estrange you from your ideal image of yourself. I get that, I really do. What I dissent is the means by which you try to accomplish that goal. The absurd association of meals, the inappropriate restrictions, the blood-type oriented lists of approved aliments, the large palette of starvation techniques leave my brain dumbfounded.
#1. Be mindful of your lifestyle
Don’t go all Machiavelli on yourself. That end doesn’t justify the means. Not only diets are often bluntly unhealthy, but they’re also disquieting. There’s nothing pleasurable about them. And we’re hedonists by nature, aren’t we? In dire contrast with the above, healthy eating is both psychologically-friendly and less restrictive. You just have to read the manual properly.
Our most read article for healthy lifestyle: 10 Things Successful Women Do Before Breakfast
As with everything in life, moderation should be the governing rule. That old ‘Meden agan‘ (‘Nothing too much‘) dictum is a fact, dearly beloved. Whatever the destination, the wisest route is the one poorest in overindulgence. It’s simple. Don’t overdo it.
Saturation spoils everything and benefits no one. Gluttons are deprived of the one feature that renders life its beauty: finitude. So temper your gluttony. Especially during the holiday when the entire culinary hell seems to break loose. I hate to break it to you like this but Christmas, or any other holiday for that matter, is not a euphemism for ‘eat as much as you can bear‘. Yes, Christ is the redeemer, but let’s not put so heavy a burden on his sacred shoulders.
#2. Eat to nurture your body
While we’re at the Christmas eating behaviour topic, I also advise you not to eat out of boredom. Don’t gulp just because you have a lot of free time on your hands. A chronological void does not need to be filled with food. It’s a different substance you would want to put in there. Like meditation or elaborate self-improvement plans.
#3. Be present
Last but not least, don’t use Christmas binge eating as a fire exit from all your house cleansing endeavours. Let that fire burn you alive rather than extinguish it by eating compulsively. Because eating as a means of escape will only make you bloaty and frustrated while you eventually attend to your Cinderella chores. Soon enough, a dust-free ambiance will seem a dozen of cakes away.
And if the aforementioned still does not convince you, dainty gals, to lay off the extra topping, then I can assure you that no respectable guy out there will fancy mistletoe kissing a girl that has had one too many.
