Binge and Regret

I started off with good intentions. I bet you did too. Last week at Thanksgiving, how many of you started off with good intentions to behave yourself and not overindulge. But by the end of the day, you felt like Fatty McButterpants.

There’s nothing wrong with yummy food. You want to eat yummy food. You tell yourself, “It’s the holidays, I’ll take a piece of pie.” A half piece actually. Well technically, it was two half pieces from two different pies. You don’t want to insult the cooks now, do you? Fifteen minutes later you decide which piece you like best and you go back for your first ‘official’ piece of pie. The other ones didn’t count.

If a little is good, then more is better and a lot is the best. Before you know it, you’re drinking out of the gravy bowl and putting whipped cream on the broccoli. But it’s okay! It’s Thanksgiving! And, you thought ahead. You wore your fat pants. But after awhile, that isn’t cutting it, so you have to undo the top snap off your fat pants. But past that you’re out of luck. Past wearing fat pants and undoing the top snap, then you’re wearing no pants and that’s just awkward for the nieces and nephews.

Know what the craziest part of Thanksgiving is? Four hours later, you’re hungry again! And you always feel guilty. “Why did I eat so much? I’m going to have to run a marathon to work this off.”

Whenever we binge or overindulge, we regret it later. It’s not just with food. If you stay up to 3 am playing video games, “just one more game, one more game,” you’ll look at the time and regret it. Maybe you waste an afternoon on Facebook, 2-3 hours, and look up and realize you’ve wasted a day. Worse, you’re at work and the boss just walked in!

And yes, sometimes we spend money we don’t have on Christmas gifts that others don’t need (or sometimes even want), and when we open up the credit card statement in January, we’ll say, “What were we thinking?”

This Christmas, celebrate the holidays a little differently. Join the Advent Conspiracy.