Are you really enjoying that? (And is it worth it?)

A thought recently occurred to me. How much time do you spend "enjoying" the unhealthy food you eat?

Before you answer that, please keep in mind, as anyone who works with me knows, I am not against ever enjoying yourself with unhealthy food. On the contrary, I try to work with people to help them understand the trade offs and how to work it into their diet successfully.

Okay, with that out of the way, how much time do you spend "enjoying" the unhealthy food. I put "enjoy" in quotations to draw attention to it. Because I believe that we all tend to over estimate how much enjoyment we get out of certain foods. I want to focus on actual quality time spent enjoying the flavor.

Let's say you have a bowl of ice cream. Setting aside the vastly different sized bowls you could serve yourself, how long does it take to eat? Two maybe three minutes?

And after you finish your last bite, how long does the flavor stay in your mouth? One, maybe two minutes tops.

An Aside:

All too often, many of us eat in front of screens, be it our TV or phone. We rush through a meal and don't even think about what we are eating. I must add, if you are going to have empty calories then I strongly encourage you to at least enjoy them!

Enjoying your food is called mindful eating (or in the article I linked to, "slow eating") and it leads to better digestion and smaller portions. It is something you should practice even when you are making healthier choices, but also works very well by helping you to not overeat when consuming less healthy options.

Have you ever tried to slow down? Truly savoring your food, relishing each bite, being conscious of the flavors in your mouth?

You should try, it is worth it simply for the digestion improvement alone! The rest of what I have to say is going to sound like I am knocking eating unhealthy food at all (even if savored) and that's not my intent. I intend to educate and help people make their own informed decisions.

In this case by drawing a mathematical comparison.

Aside over!

Let's go back to the bowl of ice cream, how long can you truly savor it? 5 minutes tops before it melts? Unfair you may say, pick something that doesn't melt. Okay, a piece of pie or cake. Typically scarfed down in 3 to 5 minutes, let's savor each bite and take 15 minutes to eat the dessert.

If you eat well 95% of the time, this next part isn't for you, but if you have that unhealthy option daily, you are experiencing 15 minutes daily x 7 days = 105 minutes of enjoyment weekly.

Think about that, less time than you may spend watching one movie! If someone said you could experience many health benefits by giving up one movie per week would you do it?

Plus, how long do you experience the results of that enjoyment? How long do you look in the mirror frustrated at what you see? How long are you upset because you get out of breath going up the stairs or cannot fit into your old favorite pair of pants? I would bet most people spend FAR more than 105 minutes per week frustrated at some element of their fitness.

However, much worse than the time spent THINKING about their fitness level, is the time spent BEING unfit. You may only spend a few minutes a day frustrated that your waist sized has increased and you've gained 15 pounds, but your body spends the entire day in that condition.

I am not trying to be overly bleak, I am only trying to be realistic. I wrote many times before about the costs of poor health, here and here to reference a few.

To quote one of my earlier statements:

"Increased body fat puts a person at increased risk of high blood pressure, increased LDL, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, mental illness, body pain and more"

You decide. You weigh the two sides. Is 105 minutes per week worth the extensive list of health concerns and mental stress you may face?

I know my verdict.