Yesterday, joking around, I said that my best advice was to lie on the couch and eat cake. There are, however, times when that might actually be the best advice.
As a fitness professional, it is my job to get people to move and to make general suggestions about healthy diet (specific suggestions and menu planning are the province of dieticians and nutritionists, who have a whole bunch more education than I do on the topic and a different scope of practice). While I admit that I have The Very Best Clients Ever, who may not be a representative sample of folks in general, I have to say that sometimes they could use a bit of a break. I love exercise, but, like everything else, too much is too much.
This is a bit of a digression, but only a bit: if I had been consulted about the fitness app for the Apple Watch, I would have explained about rest days. We do not need to work out seven days a week. That seventh day is for resting. As we get more fit, resting might mean a gentle walk or a couple of stretches rather than straight-on couch time, but the point remains: we all need to rest.
Similarly, I don’t see the point of life without cake. OK: slight exaggeration. Life is better with cake and other festive foods. We need celebration as well as rigor in our lives. I’m not advocating for diving face first into the chocolate cake on a daily basis, but maybe we can step away from the danger of orthorexia (yes that’s a real thing, an eating disorder in which people get obsessed with eating only healthy foods).
Work hard. Eat right. And sometimes take a break.
