Forget the Baloney

I don't watch much TV, so I see very few commercials (which is a good thing!).  One commercial I did catch a couple of days ago made me wonder, however.

The commercial showed a woman eating what we would call "off-plan" food while the voiceover said, "Sometimes I have no choice but to eat things that don't agree with my digestive system . . . ", then she went on to talk about the product and how it would help.  I've seen this commercial a couple of times and I have to be honest, I somehow missed that this woman was tied down and being force-fed the food.  What I saw when I watched the commercial was an attractive woman who was laughing and smiling as she stuck her fork into food that she knew wouldn't agree with her digestive system.  No choice?  What's with THAT?

That commercial irritates me because it conveys a victim mentality - that somehow, sometimes we just have no choice about what we put in our mouths.  It send the erroneous message that despite our best intentions, there are times when we simply have no control over what we put in our mouths. 

Like much of what is hawked in commercials, it just isn't so!  The message is dangerous, however, because it feeds (pardon the pun) our notion that we are somehow at the mercy of whatever is around us and whatever is put in front of us.  As long as we avoid the particular temptation, we're OK, but watch out . . . if this food or that food is put in front of us, well, we can't help ourselves, we have no choice.

In a word, baloney.

I don't want to sound harsh or judgmental, and those of you who have been kind enough to read my blogs for a while hopefully know that I have nothing but compassion for everyone who struggles - my struggle was far too great and far too long for me to ever NOT be compassionate.  However, the idea that we are powerless victims is not only not true, but it's incredibly dangerous.

If we view ourselves as victims, powerless against sugar, carbs and fats, we are destined to be stuck in a miserable, self-defeating cycle of fat.  If we view ourselves as helpless victims, we might as well throw in the towel right now and quit torturing ourselves with empty promises and dreams of life at a healthy weight.

The truth is that we have 100% control over what we put into our mouths, and we have 100% control 100% of the time.  Unless we are tied down and force-fed, nobody can make us eat something we don't want to eat and there are no circumstances that force us to eat things that we don't want to eat.

The decision to eat or not eat off-plan is always ours, and it will be driven by our desires.  If what we desire is immediate gratification, it's clear what we'll do.  If we desire to get to a healthy weight, then we'll make different choices.

I really encourage you to redefine how you think about food and the choices you face.  They are truly choices and we have to make them throughout the day, every day.  They are YOUR choices, so choose wisely :-)