Ed. note: This entry is about working toward lifelong dietary goals. It is Not a guide on how to avoid good food at special occasions, in fact, it’s the opposite. If this is your first time here and you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing via RSS. Thanks.

When you are dieting, if you take a vacation, encounter holidays, or attend just about any social event, it generally means 1 of 2 things:

1. You are going to be hungry while missing out on some food that may be swooningly decadent and is definitely in gross violation of your diet regime), Or
2. You are headed for the dreaded 4 D’s of dieting: Disaster, Denial, Depression, and Doubt.

I’ve been both 1 and 2, sometimes even in the same evening.

Here’s how a perfectly cooked social event (like a wedding) wrapped in a meager dried out Diet usually goes for me:

I start out the evening saying, “Oh thank you but no…I’m not really a chocolate truffle dipped in gold dust and creamy exotic wisps of delight kind of guy,” or, “You know I have eaten SO much in my lifetime that I think I’ve lost my sense of taste, so those goat cheese medallions wrapped in savory bacon and topped with a light drizzle of olive oil would really be wasted on me.”

That resolve typically lasts all the way through the “good food” portion of the evening, where the guests are plied with decadent delights in order to be duly impressed with the hostess’s taste (and lavish budget). I can often survive that round. But by the time everyone else has now had their fill of the individual bottomless chocolate fountains spilling over onto the raspberry white truffle cake topped with a light creamy frosting, I’m grabbing Andre the Giant-sized handfuls of the leftover wedding mints and shoving them in my pockets for the starvation march (or drive) home.

Social events are one thing, but what about vacation, where it may include day after day of abundance? How does this kind of thing work when you are trying to lose weight, as I am, using simple moderation?

In other words, what happens to my little house on the slow eating prairie when Life Strikes?

Here’s the simple premise for what I’m about to say:

Don’t worry about it. If you’re on vacation, enjoy yourself. If you’re passing through the holiday season, eat. Life is too short to miss the good stuff, and that includes chocolate.

This vacation was no visit to the Fat Farm

Yesterday we returned from a wonderful trip to California visiting some of our closest friends and relatives, which was perfect timing considering the weather here is abysmal (winter doldrums in Portland), and the weather there is sheer perfection (winter bliss in So. Cal.). On this trip, Had I been dieting, those 4 D’s could have been lurking at every turn. Disaster would have hit the first night with too much dinner and dessert, followed by Denying that I even wanted the food (and then Denying that it was that good/worth it when I gave in), then being Depressed about it the next day or two, followed closely by Doubting that I have the strength of character to pull this off yet again. All leading to a big heap of F-A-I-L-U-R-E.

So what happened this time, being that I was not dieting at all? Well let me just say, the trip wasn’t exactly a visit to Fat Camp. Unless Fat Camp is where they store and cook things in deep fryers and butter.

Here’s a sampling of the food that we took in: In Eagle Rock we ate some fabulous Indian cuisine followed by chocolate cake; In Palm Springs we ate a dinner of Sushi and Mexican food (which sounds rather bizarre and could describe a potentially deadly combination, but it actually worked). We also ate a seafood dinner including crab, shrimp, and scallops over large mounds of perfectly cooked pasta. In Pasadena we ate 3 kinds of pizza, fresh sweet corn tamales, a large Caesar salad with extra dressing, and much, much more. W also drank sugar-laden drinks like Margaritas and Vodka tonics - and lots of wine. All of the drinks by the way, were fat free (because that’s what’s important, right?)!

Unfortunately for me, as I was working in the west side of Los Angeles (which meant hours commuting across town), I also partook of some no-holds-barred fast food. And we’re not talking the grilled rubber chicken alternatives either. Breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, soda - the works. I may have had some M and M’s here and there too. As a friend used to say: “I’m serious - Serious as a heart attack.”

Not my best hour, choice-wise.

So what was the result? Was this total disaster for me? Am I back at ground zero, as I feared on the plane ride home?

Much to my astonishment, when I stepped on the scale, it did not break in half or sink an inch into the tiled bathroom floor.

In fact, I only gained back 1 lb in the span of 10 days of near complete disregard for my mantra of moderation, including the bad choices of fast food, soda, and all, a result for which I am thrilled.

Why does that make me do the dance of joy?

Lose fast, gain fast

In the past, the diets that I’ve tried have focused on rapid weight loss and total deprivation. This approach was an emotional killer for me, as I have come to realize that food and I have some serious relationship problems.

Typically, my former diet routines involved starving and drowning myself in water to try to feel fuller; eating low-fat/non-fat processed foods to try to squeeze out a little more volume than their unprocessed counterparts; occasional blood sugar panic, wherein I reach a point where I’m shaking, starving, and emotionally desperate, and am willing to eat almost anything to make it stop, but spiraling into disappointment and frustration because I lack the willpower to stop myself from downing a bag or two of Doritos.

The worst part? With those starvation diets, I would gain back multiple pounds in a matter of a few short days when I lost focus and went off of the diet. And that was always the tipping point for eventual failure, and gaining additional weight.

This time however, has been different, and I am really excited about it.

Moderation is power

Making the mental change from dieting to lifelong moderation, here are the immediate benefits that I noticed:

• No emotional ebbs and flows over the food I’m NOT eating.
• No being the “No Thanks, I’m trying to cut back” guy at the party, turning down the decadent hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and desserts in favor of a stick of dry celery coated in crystal light powder.
• No desperate searching for food alternatives when dining with friends.
• The occasional Vodka tonic didn’t destroy any “hard work” diet-wise, since a) I didn’t gain much back and b) it hasn’t been that hard!

I simply lived life and enjoyed myself, with very little disaster as a result.

Next time I’m gonna’…

What would I have done differently, in retrospect? Here’s a short list that I think I can easily do next time, with very little emotional difficulty:

• Be a little more moderate in some of the meals. I know this sounds obvious, but I really did throw caution to the wind here. I could easily have done with a little less here and there, particularly to avoid that bloated, overfull sensation.
• Avoid the fast food! This is just a bad habit that I developed as a driving commuter. The truth is when I’m at working at home I rarely eat in the first few hours of being awake - so why do I justify that I need to eat junk just to wake up in the car?
• Avoid the soda! This one is really growing on me quickly. I am training myself out of even wanting it through education on its bad effects and avoiding it in favor of alternatives, or nothing at all (because if I tune in a little, I’m generally less thirsty than I think I am). These days I really just want the caffeine. An espresso shot would easily accomplish the same thing.
• Avoid the Venti sugary goodness in the fru-fru lattes I had. Again, just a habit that I can do without. And an expensive one at that.
• More wine less mixed drinks. Vodka tonics and whiskey sours are some of my favorite stiff drinks, followed by margaritas in the right context. The problem is, those mixed drinks often contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). I think I’m going to try to limit it to one per night if possible for social events, followed by HFCS-free wine. Which has no calories at all. (Just kidding.)
• Don’t look for a scale. I spent several mornings wishing I had access to a scale, just to check. In the end, the worry was for nothing and was ultimately a waste of time. a pound in 10 days of culinary indulgence. Big Deal.

Bottom line - I learned something

Had I not swallowed that fast food, I think my weight gain would have been negated. Particularly the soda. And in fact, when I ate those things, I felt “yucky” (to use the medical term) afterward, generally speaking. So my biggest regret is that my habits regarding fast food are not squelched yet (though this sense of regret is not the panicked, defeated feeling I am used to when indulgence constitutes utter failure), but I’m working on it, over the long haul, and that knowledge is empowering.

And that’s really the point, isn’t it? My short-term goals have a shelf life of a year or so; my long-term goals are for a lifetime. With that approach, I can afford to be indulgent on vacation, and make the occasional bad choice, and still be on the right path.

The best part? Having returned from a wonderful vacation where I ate everything I wanted to eat with very little conscious moderation, I am not struggling with guilt at all. In fact, its the opposite. I am ready to resume where I left off, creating new habits and changing my health for the better. I am really excited to get back to my routine of practicing moderate skills.

In short, my eating life should not be about larger quantities of horrible fat-free dressing on iceburg lettuce, with an indulgence of a manufactured low-fat crouton. It should be about Margaritas and sushi. With some Chocolate cake here and there.

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