Approaching what’s usually a sunny long weekend filled with food and family, I wanna take aim at some “health advice” I truly hate:
“Don’t celebrate special occasions with food. You’ll just build unhealthy associations between the day and eating too many calories.”
Yeah, cause that’s such a horrible thing. Nothing worse than occasionally relaxing and having fun and enjoying simple pleasures like food with people you love. What an awful memory to trigger for whenever you grill up a burger!
There oughtta be a law. Sarcasm aside, a small but vocal segment of the health industry actually pushes this line of pretentious crap.
If a coach, trainer, or even doctor says “never celebrate special occasions with food” just walk away. They’re clueless.
Every culture on Earth celebrates with food in some way. It can easily be part of a healthy lifestyle.
Note: celebrating is not rewarding. Big difference.
— Bryan Krahn (@BryanKrahn) May 28, 2021
Look, special occasions happen OCCASIONALLY, like birthdays or graduations or Christmas or Memorial Day.
Otherwise, they’re not special occasions — they’re typical or habitual occurrences. No one says, “It’s a day that ends with a Y, woohoo, let’s order pizza.” If they do, well, let’s just say they don’t have food issues, they’ve got food subscriptions.
I’ve even read, “Don’t have cake on your wedding day, it’s unhealthy and high in calories.”
Um, just how often are you getting married? Does your soon-to-be-spouse know your track record?
If you’re saying I do so much that the cake is killing your diet then perhaps holy matrimony ain’t in your DNA. Now, if you say, “I hate wedding cake so I don’t wanna eat it,” or “I hate BBQs,” or even, “I hate family get togethers,” then that’s fine. #YouDoYou is probably the most important message of all and one I happen to love living by.
But it applies to everybody. So if folks wanna enjoy special times with people they love and the comfort foods they crave, then perhaps keep your lame-duck opinions to yourself.
Coach Bryan