Delicious!

The old conundrum, "Can delicious be good for you?" invokes a common paradox. Like all paradoxes, it is easily resolved by looking closely and context and semantic overload.

There are two kinds of delicious. (Just like there are two kinds of beautiful. Well, more than two in both cases, but I'm going to cast a really broad cloth today.)

One kind is easy-to-eat and easy-to-turn-into-energy, sugar being the most notorious representative.

The other kind is harder to pin down, because it varies from person to person and from time to time. If your taste recognition circuitry has not been totally burned out by an overload of sweets and meats, food that is truly good for you is usually perceived by you as delicious.

And if you think about it, you know the difference. One excites, inducing -- not coincidentally -- an excited, somewhat uncomfortable feeling in your stomach. The other tends to make you feel comfortable, when you smell it, when you eat it, and when you think about it.

Are there foods that are both kinds of delicious? Well, yes, of course. Most foods are a bit of both. Bill Cosby's chocolate cake routine speaks to that somewhat poignantly.

Work is a bit like food, too.

So, what am I trying to say here? Next time you wonder whether you should go on a weight-control diet, think about how you've defined delicious in your conscious mind.

Think about the foods that are supposed to be good for you. Among those, you'll recognize foods that you enjoy eating, or foods that you kind of really would like to eat now, even though they aren't the most popular foods. Those foods will provide clues to what your body is really needing. Give your body the food it really needs, and you won't find yourself nearly as subject to the uncontrollable cravings that make your diet go haywire.

If you get into the habit of figuring out what your body really needs and eating that first, you'll general find that you don't really need to think that much about weight control. Your body will naturally gravitate to the healthy weight range.

Exercise also helps, of course. And the same principle operates here, too. There are kinds of exercise that seem exciting, others that seem easy, and those that you actually enjoy. Do the exercises that you can enjoy at some level, and you will find that your health improves naturally. Not without effort, but naturally.

I mentioned that work is similar, so is study.