I watch what I eat. I really do. I watch it sit on a shelf, and then I eat it. Like this Oreo.

Not exactly the Paleo diet, now is it? I couldn’t help it. The guts were too tasty. I licked them out like the blubber from a dead seal on a platter.

Paleolithic vs. Paleolickit

Back when the Paleo diet was all the rage, human beings had little time for leisure activities and literally had to run for their dinner. That meant there was no time for exercise as we think of it. You exercised or you died. That was that.

The Oreo diet

Now instead of the Paleo diet, many of us are on the Oreo diet. We eat processed foods because they are convenient and we don’t have to chase them down to eat them.

That’s the big difference between runners now and runners then. Back in the Paleolithic era, they ran in bare feet or sandals, carried spears as they ran and did not think much about “watching their weight” or even “watching their diet.” If you felt like chomping your teeth into the fat of an elk or ingesting 5 lbs of seal blubber in a single sitting, you did it. No questions asked. Paleo decisions were simple.

It’s all a process

Now we process our opinions and ideas just like we process our foods. Nothing is simple anymore. Unless you make it simple.

Like, today. I made a simple decision. I ate the rest of the bag of Cheetos I purchased when I ran to Walgreen’s early this morning to buy my wife some of those hot packs for her back. I don’t know why… those Cheetos just needed to be in my belly. There’s not a thing about them that’s good for me except that they’re comfort food. And that’s the modern version of the Paleo diet.

We eat our anxiety before it eats us. 

Comfort food everywhere you look 

Which is also why I stopped into a gas station on the way home from doing an interview with a band for my next article on Yahoo! I didn’t eat lunch before going so I got hungry on the way home and the gas station was on my way and something about that place said “OREOS” and I popped in to buy a 6-pack of Oreo (yes, you heard what I said) for $1.79 and a Diet Coke, which is basically bubbly sewer water in a poison bottle.

Not on the Paleo menu

There is nothing in either of those “food items” that is anywhere on the Paleo diet. I was not being a good little cave boy today, as you can tell.

I didn’t run a step, except with the dog.

I didn’t cycle either, even though the weather was close to 70 degrees here in Illinois. In December. Who does not go out on a day like that? A busy, modern man, that’s who. No wonder we get uptight.

I could have run I suppose. But I biked 20 yesterday, ran 6.2 the day before, biked another 30 the day before that, and ran the day before that.

Listening to God

So Sunday became a day of rest. I went to church. Listened to a beautiful Cantata. And then ate some Cheetos. And Oreos. And a Diet Coke. How comforting. Salvation and comfort food. They go together.

But none of that made me a better athlete, I know. Except the praying maybe.

I mean, what the hell…

Perhaps it was my way of saying, for one day: Screw it. I’d rather relax and eat junk.

Don’t tell me you never do that.

I had a cup of yogurt too. So I ate something healthy today. And two Cutie oranges. So sweet and juicy.

Tomorrow I’ll get back to real eating, like the salad I had the day before, and the pulled pork and whatever I ate last night out at dinner.

We can’t be all Paleo, all the time. There’s a little bit of Oreo in all of us. Once in a while you gotta go with it.