The average cupcake with frosting has somewhere between 300 and 400 calories.

Depending on how many calories your body requires to be successful at fat loss, you may or may not have room for that cupcake.

But the problem I find with many people’s diets isn’t about the cupcake.

It’s the mental gymnastics that come just before, during and afterwards.

It’s the feeling that if you eat the cupcake, the cupcake is “bad” because the cupcake may have more carbs, sugar and fat than what you planned for.

That if you eat the “bad” cupcake, it makes you a “bad” person, someone without discipline or willpower, someone who is not deserving or worthy of reaching their goals.

And if you eat the bad cupcake because you’re an undisciplined person, then you let the rest of the day, and maybe the next day and the day after go to pot because that little cupcake shat all over your perfectly planned diet.

The thing is, maybe that cupcake set you over your calories for the day. It has basically no effect on your calories for the week. You can still be in a weekly deficit and be one step closer to your goals.

The problem isn’t the cupcake, the chips, the crackers, the dip, the cookies or the pie.

It’s that case of the “fuck-its” you fell into because the cupcake led to more emotional damage than physical.

If your diet has flexibility, you have room for a cupcake.

Food has many attributes: it is love, it is fuel, it is therapeutic, it is comforting, it is delicious, it is energizing.

Demonizing food is where you start fighting a losing battle.

Depending on your goals, your relationship with food, how your body reacts to the food you eat, etc., maybe you have room for the cupcake (or any other dietary indulgence) or maybe you don’t.

But if you want to be more successful in efforts towards your goals, don’t let something as insignificant as a cupcake turn into a snowball of decisions fueled by guilt and shame.

Find the places in your diet where pleasure and joy can exist…cupcakes and all.

(Photo by Brooke Lark)