I am a paleo-dieter. I went on this after veganism and vegetarianism left me over a hundred pounds overweight (which sounds like a wonderful subject to write about later, actually). So far I have lost fifty pounds on it, still trying to knock off the next fifty. There was a period during this diet that I decided paleo wasn't inherently better for me and went on a brief "all things in moderation" 1,800 calorie diet rich in whole grains and vegetables and eating lean meat rather than the fatty meat I eat on paleo... and promptly gained weight. So let's just say, I do not believe moderation is a virtue.
I'm marginally active in the online paleo community, and today found one of my comments about how moderation isn't the best policy being responded to with an "in my opinion" sort of comment about how we all need to be happy and sometimes eating pizza once a month is just fine and dandy.
I don't actually disagree with this person. If "moderation" means pizza once a month or eating Apfelkuchen on Christmas then by all means do so. I cheat, too. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving, specifically... largely because by the time I finish eating the hunk of dead animal they always serve, I don't have that much room left for sugar. Not even Jell-O.
Anything other than that, though, is a recipe for disaster. Yesterday I ate three bear claws from a vending machine at work. I usually fast during the work day, but had a thought process that went something like "Well, just one isn't going to hurt me." Upon eating it, something clicked in my head, I promptly went and bought two more, and scarfed them down. It resulted in a headache, the urge to vomit, and gastrointestinal problems that continue today.
Did it sidetrack my diet? Probably not. One binge eating episode probably isn't going to kill me. But the fact of the matter is, when I cheat, I binge eat. Psychologically I just can't handle the flour and the sugar in moderation. It won't work. I'll be triggered into eating more of it. And if I'd had more money, it'd probably have been worse. I have been known to sit down and eat a whole box of Bismarcks just because I had them and decided one wouldn't kill me. There's a reason I don't even drink soda on cheat days... a soda today for me will mean a soda tomorrow, if not a twelve pack of them.
The thing is, I at least recognize that this isn't moderation. There are plenty of people out there who absolutely don't understand what moderation is. The biggest culprit is that insufferably "80/20" rule. 80/20 is fine if 80% of your diet is pure paleo and 20% isn't 100% paleo but a relatively close equivalent... apple pie made with almond flour instead of wheat, a good dark chocolate bar, some storebought jerky, green beans, stuff like that... that's the original spirit of 80/20. A diet made up 20% of shitty, sugary, wheat-laden food is not a proper diet. It's not "moderation." That's 1/5th of your diet, people.
The amounts people propose when they say "in moderation" are just... laughable. There was one guy who asked if it was OK to drink an energy drink once a day considering it gives him vitamins and said it was natural. A can of energy drink is often two or even three servings big!
I mean, just think about all the people you've known who aren't paleo dieters and who say "all things in moderation." My dad will talk about moderation while eating an entire bag of chocolate covered peanuts, and he'll do things like this every day. And it isn't because we're stupid, it's because we are experts at deluding ourselves in order to facilitate our unhealthy behavior.
Deluding ourselves is something that is probably going to continue, but let's not delude others by bringing up moderation when people eat shitty food. Tell them it's shitty food.
