My friends and I threw this phrase around like it was a Frisbee, but when was the last time you heard an adult say this? Kids aren’t afraid to call each other out; yet adults rarely call each other liars, and they without a doubt do a lot more of it.
A wise man (Dr. Phil) said something along the lines that everyone lies, we just differ on what we lie about or how often we do it. Part of my job as a nutritionist is to play the role of wellness sleuth-to figure out what the truth really is in what people are saying about what they eat, drink or their exercise. Please don’t think I’m writing this with a furrowed brow or with an aura of judgement-quite the opposite, I have a sly smile on my face because I am an enormous liar when it comes to what I eat and drink. I can’t tell you how often I ask my fiancé “how can these pants feel this tight or why do I feel so sluggish” when I know good and well exactly what the answer is. We lie to ourselves maybe more than we lie to others. I’m not here to psychoanalyze why we do this, but I know part of it is shame and part of it is fear. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge right? So if we avoid the truth, we don’t have to change.
Ok, so we are all liars. Now what?
Admit you lie from time to time about your wellness -at least to yourself. As your nutritionist, I can figure out where the truth is, and the only thing that it really will effect is your bank account because we probably could have come up with a more successful plan more more efficiently; these aren’t malicious lies, but they are fabrications that will get in the way of you feeling your healthiest and happiest. Find comfort in the fact that we all do this on some level, whether its telling your doctor you only drink one glass of wine with dinner, conveniently forgetting you ate a Cadbury cream egg daily for a week (oops), or exaggerated the length of time you went for a run. The only person that this affects truly is you.
