“Live a Little”

Posted By elissa on Dec 23, 2010 | 7 comments

The Xmas/New Year holidays are almost upon us… which means feasting with family and friends. Such times can be trying if your goal is to lose weight or to maintain your healthy eating habits. This isn’t just because there’ll be a lot of rich and tempting food around – it’s also because your food choices are likely to draw the attention of the “behavior police,” if they depart from the approved style. Turn down the pie a la mode, and it’s a near certainty you’ll be chided for it by some busybody seated nearby.

A perfect example of this comes from a friend of mine, who blogs at “Goddess of Fitness“:

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the following phrase:

“Live a little,” supported by the VERY convincing argument that “what If you didn’t eat this cupcake right now and you got hit by a bus?”  This is a true conversation!

She’s being sarcastic about the “convincing” nature of the argument, of course. I’ve occasionally had these “live a little”-style conversations too, and find them just as pointless and irritating as she does. Typically, my interlocutor is someone who – at best – isn’t a regular player in the game of my life, so I have to bite my tongue to avoid saying something “unmutual” like “just what do you know about how I live?”

It’s dumb advice, anyway… Certainly one can “live a little” –  or even one hell of a lot – in ways that don’t involve food, let alone indifferently prepared, generic desserts (like cupcakes). Let’s face it: taste-wise, a lot of the food served on festive occasions is actually pretty underwhelming (and downright awful, when it was prepared by my mother-in-law).

Beyond that, I’ve always been struck by the – nearly always unexamined – assumption underlying these nosy remarks… namely, that “fitness = rigid self-deprivation and sacrifice.” By this equation, to be lean and fit – or to aspire to same – is to be wrapped too tight for your own (let alone anyone else’s) good, so you need to unwind… preferably by following buttinski eating advice from random relatives, colleagues, or even virtual strangers.

Riiiiigght… 

Which takes me back to my “just what do you know about how I live?” reaction, since rigid self-deprivation and sacrifice just ain’t my style. In reality, I’m of the “eat, drink and be merry” persuasion. Unlike the “behavior police,” however, I don’t believe that eating everything I want is synonymous with eating everything. Personally, I feel food should be savored – as with sex, what counts is the sensual quality of the experience, not the quantity. Just as enjoying sex doesn’t equate to doing the horizontal mambo with everyone and anyone who’s got a pulse, enjoying food doesn’t equate to eating everything and anything within reach.

The irony of these remarks isn’t lost on me, either. From where I sit, the folks making them are actually the ones who need to “live a little.” I mean, c’mon… if they had exciting lives, then they wouldn’t care about what I’m putting – or not putting – on my plate, would they? Seriously: I can only imagine the number of lemons my life would have to suck before I’d feel compelled to turn not-taking a cupcake or other meh “treat” into a topic of conversation.

At any rate, if you end up on the receiving end of the “live a little” treatment from one (or more) of your family members/friends, the most sociable thing to do is to smile and… pointedly ignore it. Don’t get lured into defending or justifying your food choices – or giving in just to get along. In the end, these mini-confrontations are part of the terrain of getting and staying in shape, so learning to let them roll off your back is just as much a part of the process as learning about portion control or nutrition.

Best wishes for the holidays (and for your holiday eating)!