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Health & Fitness

Why Do Guilty Pleasures Make Us Feel Guilty?

It's time to give up the guilt and bring on the pleasures...

Chocolate milkshakes. Oreos. No, Double-stuffed Oreos! Sitting up in the middle of the night finding great bad movies on cable! Vampire Diaries! Tosh.O! Perez Hilton! Fashion websites! Facebook! 

My list of guilty pleasures is longer than I care to admit. But here I am, admitting it. My name is Nina and I have many guilty pleasures. I am tired and sick of feeling guilty about them. They are pleasurable, after all. But then they aren't. They have layers of shame around them that are begging to be discarded like a Northface on a spring day. Said spring day in Florida, perhaps. I digress....

How can all these 'activities'  feel so good while simultaneously making me feel guilty? Easily - none of them are particularly good for me. None of them promote a healthy lifestyle. Especially eating double stuffed oreos at two in the morning while watching my recorded Vampire Diaries. OH MY!!  My heart be still. But isn't it healthy to feed into our cravings every now and then? Yes. Sometimes it just feels good to act naughty.

I understand the guilt. Oreos undermine weight-loss and my workouts, as does staying up late. Bad movies and CW television do absolutely nothing for my aging mind but perhaps keep it stagnate - maybe watching Bravo actually kills brain cells. Who knows? Internet browsing and Facebooking certainly wastes my time and keeps my productivity at bay. 

I wear guilt like a second skin. I grew up a Catholic school girl with a Jewish father. Guilt and I are fantastic companions. But, I'm done. I'm breaking up with guilt when it comes to these said pleasures. Guilt can take a hike and look me up on Facebook in 20 years! I don't engage in the naughty all the time. Everything in moderation will be my mantra. I can indulge and buy expensive make up and skin care products from time to time. I can dance to 80s house music without embarrassing myself on occasion! I can listen to Gaga in the car and sing so loud I can't hear trains coming once in a while. Okay, maybe I shouldn't do the latter.

My point here is I am giving up the guilt and bringing on the pleasure - sometimes. I'm declaring a boycott to the phrase 'guilty pleasure'  and encourage What Not To Wear marathons everywhere! I've earned the right to slack every now and then, trade in Newsweek for People and NPR for AltNation. Now, if you see me driving, singing and swerving while leaving a trail of cookies in my wake, I most certainly will feel shamed. And guilty....

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