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May 13, 2006
CR and Sin
"So the real sin on this diet," said the CNN reporter as he interviewed me in our living room, "Is eating too much, not eating any particular food."
"I don't find terms like 'sin' helpful," I said, and then went on to expound upon my aversion to seeing food in moral terms. Food is a means to an end. First and foremost, food keeps us from starving to death or dying of malnutrition. Food gives our bodies the building blocks upon which we build the rest of our lives. Food can also be a powerful social glue, a way that people connect with each other. We can use food to reward ourselves or to punish ourselves. But food, in itself, has no morals. I firmly believe that there are no "bad" foods. There are only foods that get you closer to your goals, and foods that move you farther away from your goals.
I was unwilling to allow the CNN reporter to label any behavior towards food as a "sin." I find that kind of terminology and the thinking that underlies it to be singularly unhelpful in the quest to improve one's life and health. If you view eating a cookie as a sin, you're likely to eat a cookie just because you get sick of being a good little girl. However, if you remove the moralism from your language and your thinking, you might choose to eat the cookie because you enjoy the chocolate taste, or the experience of bonding with your friends over dessert. Or you might choose *not* to eat the cookie, because you have already had the number of calories you had planned to eat in the meal, and you know that if you eat the cookie you'll be tempted to skimp on more nutritious fare later in the day in an effort to make up for the calories. You might decide that the goal of enjoying chocolate bonding with friends is not as important as the goal of slowing your biological aging process. Or you might decide that splitting a cookie with a friend is fine, but that you'll skip your evening glass of wine to make up for the calories.
When you eliminate the idea of sin from your relationship with food, you suddenly have a whole lot more choices. You can have "sometimes foods" -- foods that aren't nutritious enough to make it into your quotidian diet but are still fun to have on occasion -- without feeling the slightest amount of guilt. Food is no longer a moral issue: it's all about pursuing your own personal goals in the more efficient and effective manner you can find.
People are always asking me, "Can you eat that on your diet?" when they see me bite into a chocolate chip cookie or sip a German wheat beer with a lemon at a neighborhood bar on a Friday night. I try to explain that CR isn't a "diet" in the traditional sense that some foods are off-limits. I can enjoy a beer or a chocolate chip cookie once or twice a week because my quotidian diet is so high nutrient, low calorie that I actually have room for "sometimes foods." I don't choose my foods in an effort to prove that I'm a good little girl -- experience has shown that I am not! -- but in order to meet as many of my goals as possible. I want to age as slowly as I can, and I also want to enjoy the tastes, experiences, and relationships that are pleasurable to me. Sometimes these goals fit perfectly together, such as when I'm eating a dinner with my Orange One that I've cooked to our nutritional specifications over candlelight on Saturday night. Other times, like when my friends are all eating gak and I'm hungry so I indulge, my goals seem to contradict each other.
People who do CR tend to have a very utilitarian, very non-judgmental attitude towards food. We don't eat to be "good" -- we eat to live as long and as healthy as possible. Sometimes I eat because it's fun, yummy, and I'm out with fun people, but for the most part I eat because I enjoy the foods that nourish my body. Many of the people who do CR have always been thin, and therefore have no motivation to lose weight. But they want to live as long as possible, and weight loss is a side-effect. A scientific mindset, where self-experimentation is the order of the day, rules in the CR Society. It's far beyond the moralism of "good" foods and "bad" foods --- it's about finding out what's the more life-giving, life-sustaining lifestyle we can live now so that we keep living, and feeling great, as long as possible.
Posted by april at May 13, 2006 8:24 PM
Comments
That CNN person was or was raised to be a Catholic is all I can say. Who else can associate food with sin except for Catholics who associate everything with sin?
Posted by: zeynep at May 13, 2006 7:43 PM
I agree. Weight Watchers long ago stopped calling any food "illegal." Your term, "sometime foods" is great. It's harder to have to make decisions, but it's worth it. So glad you were born.
Posted by: Marti at May 14, 2006 6:26 AM
So true. What's great about CR is that food loses its emotional stranglehold on you. It's nourishment and taste.
Once you are as thin or thinner than you ever really wanted to be, you can eat for health.
Posted by: Little MR at May 15, 2006 3:43 PM