I am all about moderation in things. Nothing is wholly good, or wholly bad, the middle of the road isn’t a terrible place to be. Sometimes you need a little darkness with your light, whatever it is, moderation isn’t bad. Not in general, anyway. Sometimes, for some people, though, it doesn’t work out. By some people, I mean me specifically. I can do a lot of things in moderation, it’s true. There are some things I just can’t do in moderation, however, and I feel like I have to keep learning this lesson for myself over and over.

One thing I can’t do in moderation, for example, is drink soda. I’ve tried it. I’ve said “I’ll cut back drinking soda. I don’t have to stop, I just have to cut back, you understand. Just go easy on it.”  I had several abortive attempts at drinking less soda with this mentality, the idea that I could not drink as much and control myself. I think it’s because I have an addictive personality. Luckily, the needle of that compass never swung toward drugs or alcohol, but soda, sugar, and fast food are just as compelling.

People chuckle in amusement at the apparent hyperbole in my saying that having soda and fast food is like having drugs. But it is, for me it is. Once I start, I can’t stop. It’s one soda one day, and before I know it I’m passed out in a litter of Super Big Gulp cups, deep in the Pit of Despair. Or perhaps I bop into a fast food joint for a “healthier salad”. Nope, even if I leave with said food that day, I’ll be coming back in for fries and a cheeseburger soon enough.

I didn’t know this about myself for the longest time. Or, I suppose I did, but subconsciously. I told myself “It’s too embarrassing to admit you don’t have the willpower to resist this crap. You can resist it, you can handle it. You totally can. Talking about how you can’t just makes you look weak. So stop it.” Which is silly, when you look at it. Do you tell a drug addict he’s weak because he can’t be around drugs without having them? Or an alcoholic she looks silly because she doesn’t want to go to a bar and be around liquor and temptation? No! But since food is so readily available, and so innocuous, you look ridiculous if you “can’t be around it”.

It gets easier as the days go by, though. The first couple of days were the worst. I think the first or second day I had decided to start on this no fast food road, all of my coworkers got these super tasty breakfast burritos from a local takeout place. My god, they smelled so intoxicatingly good. I just sat and ate my blueberry yogurt and willed myself to Not Look, and got through it. Soon, I hope the craving for fast food will dim down to what my desire for soda is now, just a dull little mumble every now and then that goes away with a “Quiet, you.”

What’s interesting about this whole endeavor I’m undertaking is how many people look to give me a way out. It started back when I gave up soda altogether about three years ago. I had to do it cold turkey, for reasons previously explained. I tried not to be a dick about it. If I let people know I was doing it, it was because they offered me soda, or because they knew of my struggles to give it up in the past. Or because I wanted someone to bitch to when the cravings got bad. Inevitably, people I told would start saying “You can have ONE soda. You don’t have to give it up altogether.” I still to this day can’t decide if that permissive sort of statement is because they wanted to assure me I didn’t have to suffer, or because the thought of someone not drinking soda anymore was just too horrifying.

It’s happening again with this fast food thing. I say “No more fast food for me,” and people are quick to say “What about (healthier fast food chain option), what about getting low carb menu items? What about this? You can go and not be totally unhealthy!” It’s like I’ve announced that I will no longer be able to walk and they need to frantically give me options to live a full life. It makes me think that either I did base most of my life around eating fast food (true), or people somehow feel someone else eating differently inherently threatens the status quo in some way they can’t describe, and I can’t even describe. I think I have an inkling of it, though.

I know in the past when friends have gone healthy, I always felt like it somehow affected me. Like they were stabbing specifically at me and saying “I’m eating healthy. You eat like garbage and I’m silently judging you and your garbage eating”. Silly, right? I mean, I don’t give a crap how other people eat. I used to, but only to the extent that I thought what they ate meant they thought that I ate terribly. Unless they were expressly saying such things , they probably didn’t care. Then again, I have known several people, usually newly converted to the Tribe of Losing Weight, who DO proclaim over everyone’s meals. They never hesitate to remind you that what you’re eating or drinking is loaded with sugar and fat and salt. They love to point out that a salad is not healthy if there’s dressing on it, that even whole wheat bread has carbs, and that fruit is also full of sugar. Even if you didn’t want to know, even if you already did know, there they are. It definitely puts everyone’s guard up. That might be a part of it, though I have definitely come to believe and know that most people adamantly do not care what you’re eating, what you’ve eaten, or what you’re going to eat. So just, y’know, eat food.

Back to the moderation point, though. It’s definitely a good way to approach a lot of angles of this Health Thing I’m doing. Making changes slowly, not crashing my system with a ton of changes all at once. But when it comes to the things I’m changing, I have to be a Sith and deal in absolutes. Absolutely no soda. Absolutely no fast food. No compromising. For this to work for me, that’s how it has to be. For you out there, maybe that’s not how it has to be. Maybe you have iron control and can have a Mickey D’s burger and coke one day and not have it spiral down to a situation where the people at every fast food restaurant in a 20 mile radius know your face and that you don’t like pickles on your burger. That’s awesome! I’m extremely jealous. The nice thing about this is, you don’t have to do it a certain way, you can do it your own way, the way that works for you.

Well, that’s all the meandering I’ve got in my brain today. Until next time, people!