Eat Cookies and Love It

So I was on Pinterest the other day and I saw this picture:

 

A few of my friends had "repinned" the picture, supporting this idea that to be a healthy individual, you can never eat cookies or sweets and you should instead spend that time running. It's possible that the friends who posted this picture didn't really think of the implications; maybe this just seems like a good motivational poster that will help them keep their fitness goals in sight. To me, however, I find this picture discouraging and misleading.

Not many people outside my immediate family know this, but several months ago I joined Weight Watchers. One thing I absolutely love about WW is that they don't want anyone to feel deprived. If you want to lose weight, that's awesome! But you don't have to give up everything you love--you should probably just have less. [Basically the way WW works is that everyone has gets a certain number of points each day. Every food item has an assigned point value, so you simply eat your allotted amount of points every day and you lose weight. You can eat whatever you want as long as you figure out the points for your food and take it out of your daily allotment. (If you want to learn more, you can get more extensive information at www.weightwatchers.com and Jennifer Hudson can sing to you about it.)]

I have had a LOT of roommates within the last few years, and a lot of those roommates have been on diets or have been extremely obsessed with staying thin. These beautiful girls would completely deprive themselves of any food that actually tasted good in an effort to be more attractive. The problem, however, was that about once a week, these girls would binge on cookies, brownies, cakes, or anything else they could get their hands on. I don't know if it was psychological (since they suddenly couldn't have chocolate, they wanted it all the time!) or if it was physical. Maybe if they had one very small treat every day, they wouldn't have to rely on these binges to get their fix. These binges led them to feel terrible about themselves. "Oh my gosh, I'm awful. I ate like half a pan of brownies!" Well yeah, that probably wasn't smart... But the way I see it, if you'd let yourself eat one brownie every day instead of eating half a pan in half an hour, you'd feel much better about yourself.

I have a big problem with diets that insist you completely cut out anything. It's alright to eat a cookie every once in a while. I'm not saying you should binge on tons of cookies every day and feel great about it. I am saying that you should never feel guilty about eating one freaking cookie.

I'm not trying to diss exercise, either. Exercising is great, but running isn't the only type of exercise that can get you into shape. If you love running, that is awesome for you! I loathe it. Walking, however, and doing silly DVD workouts are much more fun for me. Why do something you hate just so you can be skinny? Instead, I suggest we all try to find an activity we enjoy so we can be healthy.

Being skinny doesn't make you happy and it doesn't mean you're healthy. Obviously I'm not an expert and there is a reason I'm a member of Weight Watchers... but I've known a lot of people, I've taken college courses in nutrition, and I've learned a ton from WW. If you are going to feel terrible about yourself for eating a cookie, then don't eat it. But man, I feel sorry for you. Cookies are great.