Here We Go Again …

This week, I’ve seen numerous friends post on Facebook about dreading the New Year’s Resolution crowd at their gyms.  Yesterday, I was in Burbank for work and the salad bar had way more people than it normally does.  At Safeway this morning, the Lean Cuisine (and the like) frozen meals were prominently displayed on the endcap of the frozen foods aisle, on sale of course.  Within a few weeks, the gyms will be back to their late 2009 levels, the salad bar crowd will be back to normal, and the Lean Cuisine will be back to regular price.

I get the impulse, really, I do.  A New Year’s Resolution to change your fitness or eating habits seems like such a good thing (and I certainly understand the desire of businesses to capitalize on that impulse).  Heck, I even (quietly) set resolutions last year.  But rather than turning to what I like to call the “diet-industrial complex,” I tried something that I hadn’t tried before in my (then) 38 years.  I got a trainer.  I did one thing.  That one thing turned into a lot more, but to start, I just said “I will get a personal trainer so that maybe I’ll enjoy working out again.”

That one thing led to an increased focus on what I was eating (but not a diet – never, ever, ever, a diet).  A few months later it led to a larger revamp of my workout routine – from 2x/week with a trainer and some occasional workouts on my own, to joining a different (and much better) gym and working out every day, either with a trainer or on my own.  The fact that I was investing in myself with training created a desire to maximize my return on that investment by making other changes to support the work I was doing (and the money I was spending!).

What I didn’t do (and won’t do) is buy into a quick fix mentality. I didn’t buy into the diet-industrial complex and start buying Lean Cuisine or join Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers or whatever the trendy diet program is now.  If anything, I went in the opposite direction – I simplified.  Gradually, I started eating more whole foods and making my own “convenience foods.”  I paid more attention to what I was buying and where it was sourced.  Throughout the year I found that I was buying more locally-grown produce (much of it organic or organic in all but certification).  I switched to cage-free eggs at some point.  I started getting produce deliveries from a local farm.  At the end of the year I started buying organic milk and half-and-half.  This year I’m exploring local and sustainable sources of meat and am looking for ways to support local and sustainable agriculture in a more holistic and cost-effective way (for example, I’m strongly considering buying a quarter beef and sharing it – the price per pound is much lower than buying meat here and there).

But this post is not so much to talk about what I’ve done, and is more about how I’ve done it.  I didn’t set out on January 1, 2009 with any “all-or-nothing” rules (well, with one exception – I was determined to develop a daily flossing habit, and I’m happy to say it paid off with another problem-free dentist checkup this morning!).  I made one change – and gradually made more.  I’ve slipped up – I’ve had days where I revert to old habits of stress eating and eat HFCS-laden treats till I’m almost sick.  I still eat “junk food” from time to time, but I try to make it worthwhile – instead of a burger from Burger King because it’s there, I’d rather indulge in my favorite burger – Five Guys – when I happen to be traveling somewhere with a Five Guys.  The Burger King burger is just food; the Five Guys burger is a burger I truly enjoy.

I don’t get all my food from the “right” sources.  I still have some meat in my freezer from Costco that came from a non-sustainable CAFO-type environment.  I don’t pay all that much attention to where restaurant food is sourced – I’ll eat somewhere if I like what they’re making, or if it’s convenient, not to make a political/social statement.  But maybe, gradually, I’ll shift more of my business to the types of places that put a high value on sourcing locally and sustainably.  Gradually.

Although I enjoy my locally-sourced produce, I’ll still go to Safeway or Trader Joe’s and buy a banana or a non-organic apple or something else that might have come from far, far away.  I don’t read every single label.  I’ve eliminated most high fructose corn syrup from my diet but it slips in occasionally.  I don’t beat myself up for any of this; I just try to make good choices most of the time.

And that’s where my problem is with the typical “resolution” crowd, with the diet-industrial complex.  It fosters this “all or nothing” mentality that says “either you’re doing it all right, or you’re doing it all wrong.”  You hear similar things from the uber-political foodie crowd, trying to make people feel like unless they shop exclusively at Berkeley Bowl or Whole Foods, they’re somehow destroying the planet with every bite.

Again, it’s a matter of choices.  Life is a series of choices, every single day, and every day we wake up we have a whole bunch of them we can make.  I’m all for encouraging people to figure out what’s important to them, and then put themselves on a path to make choices that reflect those values, gradually.  All or nothing is usually doomed to failure, but some change is better than none, if that’s what you want.

Forgive yourself when you make choices that disappoint you, and move on to the next set of choices.