Don’t Touch It, Its Evil!

Offices really are a veritable cornucopia of blog fodder.  It’s like a little microcosm civilization for me to analyze and research on a daily basis.

This week generated further adventures involving my small talk disability:

“You’re eating pizza.”

And also…

“You’re in here by yourself.”

Both of these examples happened while I was, in fact, alone in the lunchroom eating a slice of homemade pizza and reading a book.  Both times my instinct dictated that I respond to these comments with, “I know.”  I consider the fact that I stifled this response and merely smiled in both cases to be progress.

Today when I entered the lunchroom it was stuffed full of treats from Dunkin Donuts.  I don’t personally find their donuts to be very tasty (they’re a bit dry) so I didn’t have much trouble ignoring them.

However, as I sat there eating my corn masa enchilada with salsa verde and Spanish whole grain rice, no less than three people came in, gasped in horror over the donuts and cursed whoever had brought them in for us.  All the while they were either being examined or in some cases eaten they were proclaimed to be: “bad”, “evil”, etc.

It occurred to me that food is not good or bad really, it’s all just fuel.  Some fuel is more efficient than others and what foods are the most efficient for the particular biomechanical device that is your body will vary slightly from person to person.  My husband, for example, can run very efficiently on cheese steak with no apparent ill effects while I cannot.

I imagine it’s a bit like being different types of cars that run better on varying octane gasoline.

My point is the whole time you’re making a HUGE deal over a treat you want and calling it bad bad bad, you’re simply reinforcing the idea that you shouldn’t and couldn’t have it while thinking about it constantly.

You’re creating an obsession.

You’re setting yourself up to eventually gorge on the aforementioned treat when you can no longer stand the torture of denying yourself the thing you’ve decided you want so badly but can’t have because it’s eeeevvillle…

Stop it.

When you consider a food that you know is inefficient fuel, think about it briefly and whether or not you really want it or if the sight is just causing a momentary sugar / fat / salt craving.  Ask yourself if you’re even really hungry right now, chances are you’re not and the moment the fuel is out of sight you’ll stop thinking about it anyway.

And if you decide that you really do want a donut?  Eat it.  Move on.  Life’s too short.

I really want a donut plushie.