Moderation

You won’t believe it, I turned my television on last night! I was asked by someone who I work with how it was going not watching television and I told them it was great and also got on my soap-box about the crud on television. They said something which struck me, “You get to pick what you watch.”

That is true. So, I wondered what would happen if I turned the TV on and watched some cooking shows – which is what I did instead of blogging last night. I watched 2 and a half cooking shows. And you know what, I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t feel like, “I have been missing this!” or “I am calling to cancel my cable right now!” Instead, I felt nothing too interesting. I did turn the television off for dinner and it didn’t go back on. The only things that interested me were cooking shows and I had seen them all already.

This whole experiment has been really interesting for me. I don’t want to be on my high-horse about television, preaching against it, because we do get to choose what we watch. But at the same time, I wasn’t thrilled. I was much more interested in finishing my latest book last night than continuing to watch. But what I did decide is I need to be less strict with myself. I have been all about restriction lately, setting routines, holding back, trying to reign in my life. And that is all well and good, but it should not be a mean to an end. It should be done not because I “should” but because I “want.” Rather than swearing things off completely, what I need to learn is moderation.

The same goes with my weight loss. I am approaching the “maintenance” period, meaning I will have lost the weight I set out to loose but then need to keep it off. That is the time when people usually begin to fail. I have been restricting only, but now I need to learn moderation. And maybe I can begin with TV. I really don’t want to watch much, and I like not watching the news in the morning or evening, too negative or over-sensationalized. But my friend is right, I can pick what I want to watch. I can pick to turn the TV on and off, it is not just one or the other.

And the more I think about it, the more I am excited to watch my morning of cooking shows on Saturday. That is something which makes me exceedingly happy and I have been missing that. But then I can turn the TV off and do something productive – which this Saturday will no doubt be writing a sermon.

And when I must re-learn my entire eating patterns, again, to maintain my weight loss, I will have had some practice in moderation – something I never learned before.