I had a run in with some chocolate chips last night. I was the running back just trying to make it into the end zone, and out of nowhere these chocolate chips tackled me. Can you even believe that?  I'll admit, it was a clean tackle. There were no penalties. I wasn’t running quite fast enough, and the other people on my team weren’t blocking for me. Then once I had been hit the chocolate chips, I figured I was already knocked down, and in my weak state the honey roasted peanuts finished me off (Ok, seriously honey roasted peanuts and chocolate chips taste amazing together, but I digress). This was NOT a dream, unfortunately - True Story.


Do you ever feel like that? You are doing great - running into the end zone for your touchdown and then bam out of nowhere you get hit. Maybe it is some trigger food calling you from the cupboard, or maybe your husband/wife/kids leaves an open bag of your favorite chips on the counter, or maybe its bigger than that - your kid is sick or in the hospital, or you are feeling sad because you can’t get a job, have a baby, get a date, fill in the blank with your own “tragedy of the moment”. Then since you are already down…you figure well… I just as well finish myself off, and you keep going, because what's the point anymore now?. Maybe you finish yourself off for a day, or a week… maybe a couple of months, or maybe just maybe a couple of years. Some might call this “falling off the wagon”. Why do we do this to ourselves? I mean the only person we are hurting is ourselves.

It’s funny… we’d never stumble on one step and because of that throw our entire body head first down the stairs, would we? But yet we do this over and over in weight loss. We screw up one meal; just as well throw the day out, right? We screw up one day and just as well throw the whole week out, and once the week’s gone, just throw the whole month out. On and on it goes until we are back to where we started from, or worse… higher than where we started from. I’ve been there… and done that. I spent between 2000 and 2008 doing that. I have 8 good years of practice, so I think I actually qualify as an expert, right?

How can we reverse this cycle?
Well… I’ll tell you what I did. I determined that I would only focus on ONE meal at a time. I wouldn’t group my day together as a whole. At any time during the day I could “start over” if I wanted to. There was always the next meal to make better choices. I would never ever “wait until Monday” again. Admit it… how many of you have said, “I’ll start over again next Monday?”

STOP IT and Start today… Start right now this minute!

Think about where you might be one year from now if you started today.

You could be 50 pounds or even maybe 100 pounds down!

You could be at goal.

Your life could be changed.

Don’t you want that for yourself? Don’t you deserve it?

So what did I do after the chocolate chips tackled me last night and the honey roasted peanuts hit me while I was still down? I took my vitamins, drank a glass of water, forgave myself, and went to bed. This morning I woke up and ate a sensible breakfast and had an appropriate lunch. I’m planning on a healthy soup for dinner. Even if the chocolate chips attack me again tonight or the next day, I know that I’ve learned enough in the past 2 years to know that I will never “wait until next Monday” again.