So what is moderation?

You've heard it before. "Everything in moderation, nothing in deprivation." But what does moderation really mean when it comes to a healthy lifestyle?

To be quite honest, I don't think I've figured it out quite yet. But there was someone I knew who achieved a lot of success on the "moderation" diet, and she provided me with a lot of insight on what it means to find a balance between losing and maintaining weight while you still enjoy life and don't deprive yourself. She was my boss at Disability Resources and Services, Beth Dudley, and I'm sad to say that she passed away tragically and unexpectedly sometime between Thursday evening and Friday morning of last week of what appears to be natural causes.

I always knew Beth when she was petite, but she told me that she grew up a lot heavier. She used to go to Qdoba every day in the summer, she once told me. Coming from someone who drank a broccoli and cauliflower or carrot smoothie every day, I had a hard time believing her. That is until she showed me old pictures, and I saw what looked like a possible 30 pound weight loss that had occurred since the time they were taken.

Before her death, I believe Beth had achieved a near perfect level of moderation. Beth went out to dinner every Friday night with her friends, but watched what she ate earlier that day. She enjoyed Dozen cupcakes and Dave and Andy's birthday cake ice cream and McDonald's sausage egg McMuffins on special occasions, because these things were "splurge-worthy" she would say. She added an extra hour of exercise to her routine during the holiday party season. And she brought her own lunch and snacks from home to work to avoid giving in to her old Qdoba habits.

But it's far too easy to take the idea of moderation and make excuses for why you should be able to eat whatever you want. Being healthy during the week and completely splurging on the weekends is still only being healthy about 50% of the time. Think of the things that are "splurge-worthy," as Beth would say, in your mind and incorporate them rather than banishing them from your diet.

And remember that achieving this kind of balance takes time. Like I said, I haven't quite figured it out yet, and even Beth caved and oversplurged whenever potato chips and french onion dip were around. But I've learned that one binge session isn't going to completely derail your attempt at a healthy lifestyle. What derails it is giving up after that binge.

I'm very appreciative of the lessons in moderation that Beth passed on to me. Moderation is truly the key, I believe, to having what you want and also the body you want. Diets that deprive are only temporary and backfire, because you are most likely only going to be able to deprive yourself for so long.

And so I dedicate this post in loving memory to the Queen of Moderation, Beth Ann Dudley.