My Platonic Ramblings on Weight-loss

So, interesting fact about me: I minored in philosophy in university.
For whatever reason, people devoted to this field to have this tendency to filter everything through the historical lineage of philosophy (it would have been even worse if I had been a major, rather than a minor). Anyways, starting from the beginning, with the father of western philosophy, I hereby give you some of my delightful - at least I like to think so - insights into the world of weight loss through the eyes of one of my favs: Plato.

Anyways, something quite pertinent to platonic philosophy is Plato's concept of the four essential virtues. For Plato, these virtues were prudence, fortitude, moderation, and - once all three had culminated - justice (the final virtue) could exist. Now, if one thinks about it, these virtues can also be applied to the realm of weight loss and good heath.

First of all, Prudence.
Pretty self explanatory, one does need to be able to think wisely about what foods are best. One also needs to understand the way in which their body works in order to know how to best feed it for weight loss. Basically, if we just eat without thinking, we don't gain weight (unless of course we suck - at least in my opinion), being healthy is all about making the right choices; choices that will only be made if the correct knowledge is in place, enabling one to separate the good choices from the bad.

next, Fortitude
Losing weight of course takes courage. Every week, walking into that meeting and stepping on that scale is a feet of bravery. Learning how to deal with peer presure and saying no to people handing you food is also something rather couragous. Finally, having fortitude to stick with something, no matter how difficult, is extremely essential to losing weight. Clearly, courage is necessary.

Moderation
Oh moderation. This is the virtue that one cannot say enough about about regarding lossing weight. We all know how big a factor moderation plays: learning how to control portion size, eating one chip instead of 20, looking our younger brother's bag of halloween treats straight one and only stealing our very favouritest mini chocolate bar. And to be quite honest, this is what I love most about WW: moderation is allowed to reign supreme. Instead of being cut off entirely from one food group, being forced to depend solely on another (Atkins…) we have the luxury to select whatever from wherever, just so long as moderation dictates what, and how much, we choose. Personally, I would not last a minute if I had to give up lattes, but fortunately I don’t. Rather, instead of going with a grande white chocolate mocha with whip, a tall non fat vanilla latte suffices. As long as moderation is there, deprivation is alluded.

Finally, my friends, we reach Justice.
Sadly, this is where Plato gets it wrong regarding weight loss. I’m pretty sure we can all relate. We’ve all had those weeks where we feel we’ve done everything right – fully incorporating prudence, fortitude, and moderation – only to be mocked by the scale come weigh in time. Worst still, we all have those friends who can eat whatever they so please and still be too small to shop at the Gap. So, sadly, it appears that justice doesn’t always hold up in this example that I have attempted to establish. However, this doesn’t mean we need to be down. After all, often the correlation exists. Often, a perfect week will result in the perfect result. So I suppose that is just what we have to keep in mind: not those bad, frustrating weeks, but the good ones, wherein justice does seem to come in to play.

So, just remember: always let the head rule the belly through the chest. Use wisdom and courage to practice moderation, and hopefully the scale will demonstrate justice. (and ps, on those weeks when prudence, fortitude and moderation go out the window, well let’s just count on mercy)


Sarah

sorry for the length, but let no one say I didn’t warn in advance.