Beyond Fitness Pitfalls: Avoiding Vanity

The 17 Day Diet has served its purpose. I achieved my goal and, for the most part, kept off the 16 pounds that I wanted to lose. I can tell you that this diet works if it’s not seen as a fad but as a stepping stone to changing your eating habits.

The Diet is also about seasons and cycles—like life. Times of intensity are often followed by rest or reflection. One thing that has bothered me about the intensity of this blog is the near-sighted focus on health and the physical aspect of our well being. To an extent we have control over it—but to a larger extent, whatever we have is a gift.

Both age and disease happen and there is nothing we can do about it. We can only adapt. In a society that places so much value on youth and beauty, we are in danger of becoming like Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray (thanks for thoughts from your book report, Laura!). His problem was vanity—vanity causes an implosive destruction upon the soul, wrought by per-occupation with self. The antidote is to remember that we are (including our bodies) finite and temporary. There is a greater end. Whatever breath and strength I have is really only on loan. What I do with my body today, as I am, will potentially be an incredible waste of a life, or make an eternal difference in the lives of others around me. That’s a choice I have, no matter what the scale says.