Moderation

This weekend I took a break from the calorie counting thing.  Partly because we were visiting my in-laws and it's nearly impossible to maintain a diet when you are away from home, and partly because EASTER CANDY.  Need I say more?

I keep clicking on these little internet headlines that say things like, "To Lose Weight, Never Eat These 7 Foods Again."  I've read about 10,000 of them, and they all say the same thing:  If you want to lose weight, don't put anything delicious in your mouth again.  Ever.

Seriously, these lists are like:

No sugar

No dairy

No gluten

No bacon

No happiness

No smiling

No reasons for living

What can you eat?

Tears.  Lots of salty tears.  (Wait... no.  Salt is out too).

The only things I can easily get behind are the prohibitions on coffee and alcohol.  But that's mostly because I've been doing that for 32 years with no problem.  Also because I'm convinced that alcohol drinkers are insane.  ("This is made out of rotten barley and smells like death.  I think I'll drink it!")

Yeah... no.

Other people who are insane?  Marathon runners.  I mean, I respect anyone who can run for 26 miles without stopping to have a heart attack, but you do know where this ridiculous tradition originated, don't you?  That Greek guy Phillipedes who spent days running back and forth as Battle Messenger Boy and then had to tack on an additional 26.2 miles to say "We won!"?  And he did.  Only it was more like "We wooooo...." because he keeled over dead.

So I'm not sure how it is that we got from "Guy runs 26 miles and dies" to "Ooohhh, good idea!  Let's try it!"  But seriously, I do not understand you people who like to run for hours.  Three miles on the treadmill is plenty for me.  And by "plenty" I mean "so much more than humanly necessary."  

But maybe that's because I believe in moderation and pithy phrases like "less is more."  Unless we're talking about candy.

When it comes to candy, less is never more.