Why Bother?

I had a really unhealthy, mentally bad weekend. Robert Kennedy, the voice behind clean eating and healthy living, the man who really motivated me to start living healthier than ever, died from lung cancer last week. I didn't know him, obviously, and only knew of him for a few months. Personally, I'm unaffected by his death. Death is always sad and cancer is always horrible. Still, I wonder, if this man who is the picture of health and who never smoked a cigarette could perish in horrible pain from lung cancer, what is the point to being healthy? We're all going to die. I will die. My children will die. We will all die. Why not eat Twinkies?

I don't have an answer for it. I really don't. So, this weekend, I abandoned clean eating again and I ate frozen custard. I had pizza. I ate :gasp: a slice of garlic bread.

I was rewarded for my lack of clean eating with terrible stomach cramps. I felt like I'd been knifed in the gut for about two hours last night. I didn't overeat. I didn't gorge myself on cookies and candy and biscuits and gravy. I simply ate like I did a few weeks ago. I had brussel sprouts, because I love them. I had brown rice because it's healthier than white. I had half of a frozen custard because that's all I wanted. I had a piece of garlic bread because it's delicious. And yet, my body rejected some of this food. My body knows what it wants - and it does not want sugar or refined flour - not after just 10+ days of going without it completely.

So, maybe I'm eating clean for good, with a few treats here and there. I have a very "all or nothing" attitude about everything I do and it's difficult for me to say that I will allow myself to stray, but this time, I will. Because when I am faced with the thought that everything I do, all the workouts, all the eating right, may not be enough, I tend to spiral downwards. When I try so, so, so hard to do something well, I expect results that will last. But nothing lasts forever. On a long enough time line, the survival rate of everyone drops to zero. I guess what's important is that while on that time line, we make the best of it that we can.