Vachon Imagined

There’s a woman in a meeting thinking about food.

Nobody knows.

She’s nodding, taking notes, looking completely engaged while thinking:

I wonder if I can get a cookie after this.

Then she goes to the gym.

Still thinking about food.

Counting reps.

Counting calories.

Eventually, every successful dieter becomes a mathematician.

How many calories? How much protein? How many carbs?

All for what?

To be better.

Because somewhere underneath it is the belief:

Who I am right now isn’t enough.

Then she sees a cookie.

Oh no. That’ll go straight to my thighs.

And now the cookie is the enemy.

The thighs are the enemy.

And somehow, she has become the enemy too.

But take a bite.

Really taste it.

The chocolate. The butter. The crunch.

That moment when you stop thinking about calories, thighs, protein, or whether you’ve been “good” and simply think:

Shit. This is why cookies exist.

Or, more accurately:

Shit. This is why I exist.

And then there’s the influencer.

She’s standing in her perfect kitchen holding up something called Protein Bark Mint Cookie Crunch.

“You guys. This is SO delicious.”

Really?

Have you actually tasted a cookie?

I mean really tasted one?

Because I promise you, if you’ve tasted a real cookie, you might put that bark down.

Look at me.

Come on.

Join me on the dark side.

Oh yes, ladies.

We’re doing this.

We’re eating the cookie.

And look, if you love the bark, enjoy the bark.

Eat the bark!

But it doesn’t matter.

Because this was never really about the cookie.

It’s about what we believe the cookie means.

Good.

Bad.

Healthy.

Unhealthy.

Disciplined.

Weak.

Better.

Worse.

And underneath all of it:

I must become something better because who I am right now isn’t enough.

That is where eating stops being peaceful.

Food becomes the torturer and the savior.

We eat to feel good.

Then feel guilty for eating.

We restrict to feel in control.

Then obsess about what we’re going to eat next.

We turn food into a reward, a punishment, a calculation, a test of our character.

And somehow a cookie ends up carrying the weight of our entire self-worth.

Enough.

Eat the cookie if you want the cookie.

Have the beer if you want the beer.

Eat the bark if you actually like the bark.

Taste it.

Enjoy it.

And when you’re full, stop.

If you want to change your body, change it.

Lose weight.

Gain weight.

Build muscle.

Get healthier.

Do whatever you want.

Just don’t make the change proof that you weren’t enough before it happened.

Because you were.

You are.