Thursday, January 31, 2013

When any indulgence can hurt

This post is not written to elicit sympathy or pity. It is written to give an insight into why some people can seem" annoyingly health oriented" or unable to just indulge a little.

I've been very interested in real food and healthy living for years, but tempered with moderate treats. However, for the past year and a half I've had to keep tighter and tighter control on my habits. Most of my readers will know that I have undiagnosed /untreated symptoms that as far as I can tell, are immune related: digestive,pain in the spleen area, food and chemical sensitivities. It used to be I could eat reasonably well and exercise all week, have dessert and a few drinks on the weekend, and all would be well.
Not so now. Sugar? Raging yeast infections. Drink? One maybe, but more than that and I'll be up half the night with a racing heart and feel ill the next day. Skip a workout? More than one day in a  row and my body will let me know about that too. Wear hand me down clothes without washing them myself because the previous owner washed them before passing them on? Usually helps to have an inhaler handy.
It is what it is and most days, I do pretty well at viewing my challenges as a blessing rather than a burden. It can be hard, though when people encourage me not to be "too good", to practice moderation, to INDULGE. Really, do people not think that if I could eat a big slab of chocolate cake every week and wash it down with a nice red and suffer no ill effects, I'd do that? Really, if you can the worst you'll need is an extra workout. But the key phrase here is suffer no ill effects. I've slowly had to give up my reasonable indulgences over the years because it's simply NOT worth the aftermath.

Now, while you all probably know how I feel about things like fake foods and not exercising, but unless you live in my house (if I may be involved in paying your medical bills and/ or may see you naked, I DO get to voice an opinion) , or unless you ask my opinion, I generally don't say anything to people. It makes me wonder sometimes if the simple act of having good habits can feel like judgement to some people, and they feel a need to encourage vice for their own reasons ( "Why we are uncomfortable with Virtue" may be another blog post all it's own!) In either case, it may be that the person who doesn't let go and have that slice of cake or that beer has his or her reasons. She doesn't need your pity, but needs her "no" to be respected. Aren't we trying to teach our kids that anyway?


1 Comments:

At 3:17 PM, Blogger Rebecca K. said...

Wow, Jenna, that sucks! And i'm glad you posted, its a great reminder that we DO need to respect other's "No"s and not undermine or disrespect others even by accident! I'm sorry you can't just have a treat when you want though :(
R

 

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