Yes, I’m a fitness freak. Yes, I’m super lean. Yet for most of my life I’ve been an extreme OVER-EATER.

It is a common pitfall for hard-working athletes, who often embrace a (flawed) mindset of, “I exercise a lot, therefore I can eat whatver I want.”

In our teens and 20s, we often get away with careless eating … but at some point bad eating habits — especially over-indulgence — usually smash us upside the head with a steel chair.

As I’ve become a more Enlightened Eater, I’m much more aware and attuned to the psychological and physiological factors fueling my urge to eat.

I often ask myself:

— Why am I eating right now? Is it because I’m bored? Stressed?

— Is it because my mother drilled into my head and insisted that I eat every last thing on my plate because ‘There are starving kids in (name the country) and because I was not permitted to rise from the dinner table until nothing remained on my plate?

— Is it because I’m a food addict, a sugar addict (which is true of nearly every person in the developed world)?

As we learn to rethink our relationship with food, we inevitably realize that most of us are over-eaters — and, on top of that, we are eating too much gook and too little goodness.

Pictured in this post is my lunch for the day: A tiny salad with kale, spinach, balsamic vinagrette, black beans, onions, garlic, oregano, sesame seeds and sauteed mushrooms. A few fig fruits to top it off.

Did I go gangbusters with a massive grub session? Nope. I could have eaten three times that amount, but I’ve learned that most of the time… Less > More. 

Minimalistic, simple and spartan rule the day.

Overindulgence is a form of weakness, a form of self-sabotage, a lack of discipline. My brain’s job, as Commander-in-Chief of my body, is to draw up the map of where we’re going and point the way.

On the road to peak performance, to age defiance, disease defense… many sacrifices must be made. For every great achievement there is always a price to be paid.

Do I looooove food? You bet? My history overflows with over-eating and over-indulgence. Now it’s time to be an enlightened and mindful eater. It’s time to raise the bar and balance the scales. A vital lesson: Less is usually More.