Opus 2012-332, Healthy Insights: The Three Strikes Season

There is a phrase that was used of people trying to deal with their drunkenness.  When they would have a relapse and hit the bottle again they would say they had “fallen off the wagon.”  I don’t drink but I do eat and there are similarities to abuse of alcohol and abuse of food.

We have come through Thanksgiving and Christmas.  New Years day is still ahead.  This is like the three strikes and you’re out law.  It is a time when people struggling with weight issues throw up their hands and give up.

I made it through Thanksgiving just fine.  I overdid a little, but that is life.  On the whole, I was a good little boy. 

Then Christmas approached.  One of the things that my wife does it bake before and during Christmas.  She doesn’t just bake, she BAKES.  We have creations and concoctions that started out as good recipes and get tweaked into celestial realms.  They have become part of the bribery that is supposed to bring the kids home.  So they get placed around the house in mixed piles.  Cookies with caramel and white chocolate chips.  Cookies with all kinds of nuts.  Layered things that have multiple colors and flavors with sprinkles of goodness on top.  Pretzels dipped in chocolate and who knows what else.  She even goes so far as to put out boxes of See’s Candy.

I pigged out.  That is not the problem.  It happens.  The problem is that I almost allowed a momentary relapse to grab hold of me and take me back to my old habits.  I was this close to giving up.  (Show fingers a quarter of an inch apart.)

This is the danger moment.  I made it past.  I thank the Lord.  I pray that you will also make it past.  To be healthy in your eating is a pattern and an attitude.  It is not perfection, it is a lifestyle.  If you had a bad day, I am sorry to say that New Years is still coming.  Don’t worry about it.  Don’t let it defeat you. 

Pick yourself up.  Dust yourself off.  Get back on the wagon.  If you need one more cookie before you climb aboard, go for it but be honest with yourself and make it one.  It isn’t the one cookie that brings back the obesity and diabetes, it is the package that comes after it.

Blessings as you grow in life.

Happy New Year.

homo unius libri