I hear excuses from people all the time about how they would like to eat cleaner, but they just don’t feel they can do it. I have one word for those people: ADDICTION.
They are addicted to foods. Either to sugar, or grains, or dairy, or whatever.
Someone recently posted on Facebook that she felt so much better after giving up dairy, but she was unsure whether she could stay off it. There is but one word for that: ADDICTION.
That person is addicted to dairy.
Well, we rationalize, if we even admit that we have an addiction. “At least it’s food I’m addicted to, not some kind of drug.”
And you know what? According to Miriam-Webster online, you’d be right, because a drug is defined as “a substance other than food intended to affect the structure or function of the body.”
The key there, though, is the phrase “other than food”. I would argue that if you are addicted to it, sugar is not really a food. If you are addicted to it, dairy is not really a food. For those of us who are addicted to those substances, they are not foods. They are drugs.
Even if you don’t buy that concept, let’s explore the word “addiction”, which is defined by that same dictionary as “persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be physically, psychologically, or socially harmful”. Hmmmmm….
So you know sugar is harming you physically, by making you fat and generally wreaking havoc on your body, but you continue to consume it? ADDICTION.
You are aware that you feel a lot better without dairy in your system, but you continue to consume it? ADDICTION.
I am not picking on sugar and dairy here. They are just two common examples. Maybe your poison is gluten or alcohol or … you name it.
Many times people feel they cannot give up certain “foods”, so they continue to struggle with their fitness goals. Then they have a heart attack or some other brush with death, and, suddenly, they wake up to the wisdom of a cleaner diet, those “foods” are no longer so important.
Of course, that is assuming they survived their brushes with death. According to AllHeartAttack.com, about 33% of people who have heart attacks in the United States do not survive. That’s 500,000 deaths each year.
Eating cleaner after a brush with death is almost like installing the burglar alarm after the burglary — still effective, but it sure would be nice to never have been burglarized in the first place, right?
One other thing: I am so tired of the “life’s too short” argument. “Life’s too short to stop eating cake.” “Life’s too short to quit eating burgers.”
Life is too short. So I’m going to do whatever I can to make it longer. I may die before you, but it won’t be because I didn’t try.
Don’t let your food addictions stand in the way of your fitness. When you find yourself saying, “I’d eat cleaner, but I just can’t give up [insert ‘food’ item here],” think about what you are saying. Are you struggling with a food addiction?