Make no mistake, the role of the gym, your physical training in general, and your healthy dietary and lifestyle choices is not to act as a magic eraser or permission slip for unhealthy decisions. A salad and a jog the day after a night of drinking 10 beers and putting away a few plates of nachos does not undo the beer and nachos. A dozen jogs and a dozen salads won’t either. Of course, eating a salad and going for a jog is better than doing nothing at all; but your health and wellness does not rest on some made up math game of balancing the healthy vs. unhealthy, or of “undoing” unhealthy decisions with equally weighted healthy decisions.

All of your choices contribute to the system. At its simplest, it’s like adding marbles of two different colors into a jar. Adding a blue marble doesn’t erase the orange marble that’s already in the jar.

Let’s be clear: I am not saying that you ought to reject anything that may fall in the broad and amorphous “unhealthy” category. Our intention is wellness, not an ascetic life, and enjoyment and selective indulgence are very much a part of wellness. All of our jars will have both blue and orange marbles. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you can undo decisions or relinquish responsibility for your choices. Every decision adds something, good or bad. Consider accordingly.

- PS

7/19/19

• 5k run time trial