Is It OK to Pig Out Every Once in a While?

We all want to go a little crazy, a littly nuts, when it comes to what we eat.  I mean, who doesn’t crave a double fudge hot brownie sunday once in a while, right?  I know I certainly do, and believe me, I do indulge it when I have the overwhelming urge.  The key point here though is that if you ever want to hope to have a normal weight, and not be fluctuating constantly, falling off the wagon and getting back on constantly in a viscious circle, then you have to make sure that you climb right back on the wagon as soon as you get off of it instead of letting the occasional slip mount into  weeks or months of bingeing.

The problem is, a lot of us, including myself, fall into the mentality and the viscious circle, of pigging out and eating whatever we want, because it’s simply the easier thing to do and it gives us immediate comfort.  Why do you think they call it “comfort food”.  But the real joke of it all is that you are really not doing yourself any favors.  Sure, crappy food really tastes good in the short term, and many times is much more accessible and convenient than healthy food, but how long does it actually make you “feel good” for?

If you’re like me, it’s only a few minutes.  I mean, the guilt kicks in almost immediately, reducing the pleasure I’ve felt from indulging anyways, which diminishes that carnal pleasure that I felt. Yes, I call it carnal, because I believe the food and sex are very close in that you can get addicted to them because they present you with opportunities for short lived, intense pleasure, but both can be bad for you if you’re doing them the wrong way (ie, multiple partners, unsafe sex = bad for you food, too much of it).

I know it’s a weird analogy, but I often think of food like sex.  It’s great in the right ways, and you can enjoy it in a healthy way, but too much, or too much of a variety of the wrong kinds can be extremely damaging to the health and the psyche in the end.  One of the things I’ve learned to do is to tell myself that I need to stop treating a short term binge as a “give up and wave the flag” situation.  I can’t just go ahead and go all out just because I screwed up for lunch or breakfast, and have an all day food extravaganza.  If you can really get yourself in this mindset, you can definitely pig out and eat bad once in a while – just make it short – you’ll enjoy it a whole lot more that way anyways!