This has taken me a while to write about, but I wanted to give my thoughts on what treats really are and how we should healthfully handle them.

I firmly believe that we as humans need treats, need little indulgences and good things that aren’t everyday things in our lives so that we continue to enjoy life and stay motivated to do whatever it is we do (work/business/fitness/eating right/writing/training for anything/what have you). Why else would we do anything at all, if not for some sense of avoidance of pain or seeking of pleasure? This is basic human psychology (though certainly we’re more complex than that, it’s still an essential part of being human to avoid pain and seek pleasure).

Without little strokes of positivity along the journey (and all of the best things in life are journeys, not overnight sensations!), it’s nearly impossible to stay focused on any long-term task. If it weren’t for our kids’ silly grins and koala bear hugs, the diapers and messes and other not-so-fun stuff would often be hard to take along the very lengthy task of raising a child to adulthood. But as it is, I’ll certainly take a kiddo hug whenever it’s offered. :) Likewise, it’s helpful to eat foods we enjoy as often as possible.

But let’s consider this a bit more before it sounds like I’m advocating eating junk just because we enjoy it.

A true treat is something good for us — something that makes us smile, lets us know we’re doing something good for ourselves, feels good, spurs us onward to do more good things for ourselves and others.

So there’s nothing wrong, I feel, with having something delicious that you really enjoy as a treat. I personally love about 98% of everything I eat on any given day (and usually 100%!), and I pretty much never eat anything that isn’t a whole food, that isn’t completely good for me. Sometimes I come across a recipe I’ve forgotten about, so that can be a special treat because I occasionally get in a rut about making the same foods over and over again — particularly when I’m short on time. I’m talking a yummy entree or soup or a fruit sorbet or a smoothie. In other words, stuff that’s good for my body.

But SAD (Standard American Diet) foods considered treats generally aren’t good for our bodies. Take one of my old standby treats, for example — the ubiquitous M&Ms. Here are the ingredients:

Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Chocolate, Cocoa Butter, Skim Milk, Milkfat, Lactose, Soy Lecithin, Salt, Artificial Flavors), Sugar, Cornstarch, Less than 1% Corn Syrup, Dextrin, Coloring (Includes Blue 1 Lake, Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Red 40, Blue 1, Blue 2 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake, Blue 2), Gum Acacia.

Now first of all, there’s no food in that food, and that’s a rant I often go off on elsewhere and will refrain from here. (OK, I can’t hold back. So here goes …)

Seriously, look at the ingredients, and you’ll see that there’s nothing food-like (a.k.a. nourishing) about M&Ms using my criteria of whole food ingredients, nothing harmful and containing nutritious ingredients. Artificial flavors and colors aren’t good for you in the slightest. Sugar is the number one ingredient. We don’t *need* dairy to be healthy. There’s just nothing good there.

Yep, I used to eat a few packs of them a week myself, and you could see it literally on my face (chocolate happens to make my skin break out — and yes, contrary to what your dermatologist tells you while trying to sell you hundreds of dollars of creams to clear up your skin, I’m 110% certain it’s the chocolate because I tested cocoa in my diet  long after turning to a very healthy diet, and I personally break out with cocoa/chocolate and don’t often without it in my diet) and in the 50+ lbs. I had on my body that were completely needless.

I remember the rush I’d get from eating them — from the sugar, the caffeine. I thought that was some sort of divine pleasure at the time, in fact. In retrospect, though, there are a few different factors going on:

1) I didn’t have a lot else that was giving me much pleasure in my life at the time, so I focused on food. Enough said, for now at least.

2) Once I had one bag of M&Ms, I wanted another bag the next day, and the day after that, and so on. And the pleasure I derived from them diminished over time, until I wanted 2 bags instead, or in addition to the bag of M&Ms I’d grab late afternoon at work, I’d want ice cream after dinner (or occasionally for dinner, though that was rare).

Sugar and caffeine are both physically addictive, and unnutritious food also leaves your body begging for actual, bona-fide nutrition, so you often will overeat just from your body needing real, actual nutrients. If our bodies don’t get enough actual nutrition from our food, it will continue to crave it, and that leaves us hungry and miserable all the time. Life shouldn’t have to be about chasing the next meal so that we can get rid of serious physical discomfort.

3) My definition of “treat” was way off. Waaaayyyyyy off.

Treats are things that are good for us. Treats are things that do GOOD things for us, give us mental energy, give us physical energy, allow us to feel like we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives.

In no way are junky “treats” actually good for us. They set us up for cravings and being overweight and being ill and focusing on food as our source of pleasure in a life otherwise so rich and full of things we could stop and wonder about that we’d never get anything done if we did.

Unhealthy food, no matter how it tastes there in the fleeting moment it’s being consumed, is never the right answer.

But since I’ve now said I don’t believe that eating unhealthy food as a treat is actually following the definition of the word “treat,” let me follow and say how I recommend handling this:

I feel that we deserve better than SAD junk.

My body doesn’t even remotely come close to thriving on junk. (In fact, if you read my story [click on About above], you’ll get a better picture of just how ill I was when I ate junk.)

Your body doesn’t thrive on junk either, even if right now you are reading this thinking, “Hmmm, I’ve never gotten sick from M&Ms” or whichever SAD “treat” is your favorite.

I highly recommend reframing what you consider to be an actual treat:

Is it good for your body?

Is it something that will deliver more than fleeting pleasure? (As in, does it have enough healthy stuff in it to fuel your body’s health?)

Is it something that isn’t trying to mask fear/loneliness/boredom/any other powerful emotion?

Is it something that you just happen to want to eat preferentially over other healthy food, and it’s a mealtime?

If it hurts your body, it’s not something that actually needs to go into your mouth. If it hurts your soul, it shouldn’t be eaten. But if it’s truly good for you, truly a gift you’re giving yourself, go for it!

One last thought: If you need a little catchphrase to help you figure out whether you should have a particular something as a treat (not a “treat” but a real treat that’s good for your body and soul!), consider asking yourself this: “Does my body deserve to be treated this way?” When in doubt, the answer is always no.