You are hurrying along — your mind on the next thing on your to-do list.  Your toe meets the raised edge of the sidewalk, and you trip.  What happens next?  Automatically your body goes into recovery mode.  Every muscle responds and you do all you can to stay upright.  Most of the time you make it, recover your balance, and move on without another thought.  Sometimes you have to pick yourself off the ground and dust yourself off, but it is certainly less painful if you can regain your balance without landing on the pavement and skinning your knees.

Yesterday was going well until I tried a new recipe at lunch time.  It was a low calorie chocolate mousse made from coconut milk.  It was REALLY good — and it caused a major stumble. In fact, I ate all four servings by myself. At one sitting.  At that point it became NOT low glycemic and certainly not low calorie.

My typical response on days like that is “Oh well, I’ve blown it now.  I might as well give up for today and start again tomorrow.”  But sometimes tomorrow turns into next week, and then into “when things are not so stressful.”  That thinking is like tripping, falling, and deciding to spend the next month lying on the sidewalk.

Yesterday I thought, “Okay, I blew it, so I’m going to compensate.”  I put on my walking shoes and went out for a brisk walk. At supper that night while the rest of my family enjoyed a cookout and then birthday cake and ice cream, I fed the grandbaby his bottle.  I ate a small piece of grilled chicken and some raw vegetables.

This morning my weight was up a tiny bit — but not nearly what it would be if I had given up and pigged out on hot dogs, chips, cake and ice cream.  I felt good about myself. I stumbled, but I did everything in my power to make up for it.

I think I “stumbled” on a key to lifelong healthy habits.  If you are going to be at a healthy weight the rest of your life, you need a more positive way to deal with the setbacks that will inevitable come. When you fall, pick yourself up. But even better, when you are teetering on the brink of diet disaster, put everything you have into staying upright.  Get out of the “Oh, well, I might as well….” mentality and think “What can I do to fix this?”

In the morning, you’ll be glad you did.

Eating to live and l living for Christ,

Susan Jordan Brown