I enjoy being in the sun. I feel energized by it. But my days of spending hours in the sun are over. This is magnified by the fact that I really hate wearing sunscreen. Maybe it’s because I grew up on a tropical island and used very little of it. Maybe it’s just the oily feel of it, but I just don’t like putting it on and having it on my skin all day.

So, I sit in the sun for 15-20 minutes with no protection, then I move to the shade. I get a nice dose of Vitamin D but I don’t overdo it, and I don’t need to layer on the sunscreen. Sun exposure has become one of many places where I practice the idea of ‘everything in moderation’.

Everything in moderation works so well on many fronts. Food and alcohol are other great examples. I eat very little treats and don’t eat a lot of sugary items in general. I don’t stuff myself even with my favourite foods. I usually only have one cup of coffee in a day, but if I’m at a breakfast meeting I might splurge and have 3. I rarely have 3 alcoholic drinks in a night and very seldom have a drink two nights in a row. In fact I can go a week or two without alcohol without realizing it or missing it.

Still, an occasional drink is nice to have, and so is a piece of chocolate cake, or some well seasoned potato chips. Moderation takes a lot less discipline than hard restrictions and I think generally leads to a more balanced and happier life. I think that’s why many diets don’t work, because they are about forced abstinence from foods you love and this is hard to continue over any extended time.

The way I cut down my sugar intake years ago was to try time restricted eating. I realized that I never ate anything healthy after dinner do I simply stopped having anything to eat after dinner, and would break-(my)-fast with something healthy in the morning… usually a protein shake with berries (natural sugars) in it. Delicious and enjoyable as well as healthy.

All this to say that it’s easy to find balance when balance is important to you. It feels healthy and enjoyable to moderate when moderation doesn’t feel like a hard restriction. I could spend longer in the sun but I then need to put sunscreen on or feel the pain of a sunburn. I could have a third drink in a night, but then I feel the pain of a hangover (because that’s all it takes to make me feel like crap).

Even exercising is something I do in moderation. Sure, I try to be active every day, but a full cardio work out for me is 20 minutes, and only ever an hour when I go for walks with my wife or a friend… not runs, walks. And recovering from a herniated disc, which I think might have been initiated from shovelling snow, not from working out, has led me to moderate my strength workouts even more. I have no desire to put myself back into pain under the guise of getting stronger.

Everything in moderation seems like such a good way to balance living a healthy life, and still enjoying life.