Doritos are not meth.

I’m hesitant even as I write this, because I don’t want this to turn into some horrible flame war thread, because I write this with good intentions and not to judge or bully anyone. But it’s been on my mind for some time so I want to write it out…

Everywhere I look on this site I see threads or comments where people are losing their damn mind because someone brought cupcakes into work, or their mother-in-law made pasta for Sunday dinner, or they had to drive past a Taco Bell last Wednesday and it’s been giving them night terrors. They refuse to eat these things in moderation, or fit them somewhere in their daily/weekly/monthly goals and instead spend hours freaking out and obsessing about what they ate, didn’t eat or almost ate.

If someone brings cupcakes into my work, and I decide I’d like one – I eat it, I think “What a delicious cupcake.”, log it as best as I can in my food journal and continue with my day. I never think about it again, I don’t skip dinner or do an extra workout or pray to the Weight Loss God. I don’t shiver and sob on my bathroom floor while rubbing Sensa crystals all over my body. I ate a cupcake, I didn’t hit someone with my car and keep driving, so why should I feel guilty?

I’m not saying I don’t make bad choices some days. The other day I ate an entire bag of tortilla chips and an entire jar of queso dip. And not throughout the day or at a casual social event. I sat on my couch and crammed about 1500 calories into my mouth in 20 minutes. Did I regret it afterwards? Of course I did. Do I now think I have a queso addiction and refuse to have it in my house? No. There is a bag of chips in my cupboard and a jar of dip in my fridge. I like to enjoy a serving of each some nights after work.

The big picture is, food can not own or control us. We have power over our own minds. You are not addicted to chocolate. You are not addicted to carbs. There’s no shifty dudes hanging out in the alley trying to sell you Cheetos. Doritos are not meth. Losing weight to me has nothing to do with looking smokin’ hot in a bikini, one of my biggest goals is to continue to learn and implement my own self control. To learn how to keep things in balance, and make good decisions. I will slip up sometimes and moderation can fly out the window, but I’d rather learn from my mistakes than constantly worry about these “bad foods” and when they’re going to get me. I want to be free from these restrictions we put upon ourselves.

I’m not saying you have to keep eating junk food. If you don’t want to, don’t. If you want to eat clean (whatever that actually means), then go nuts. Just stop giving food more power than it has. I am so sick of people talking about food like it’s a drug. “Oh, I can’t control myself around sweets.” Yes, you can. You just never have. “I can’t have chips in my house!” Sure you can. Sometimes you’ll ration them out serving by serving throughout the week, and sometimes you’ll eat the entire bag at once and regret it afterwards. In my opinion, you will learn more from that than from walking through life with your eyes closed pretending chips don’t exist.

They do exist. And they are delicious.