Live for now...

Okay, so I fell off the wagon last night and this morning. Which got me to thinking...

You know how when you fall off the wagon, eat something REALLY horrible which you KNOW is just going to add at least a pound to the scale? Well, after that, we have two choices:

• #1. Get back on the wagon. Like my WW leader always says, quoting the Duchess of York, "You're only one meal away from being back on plan." (Great philosophy.)
• #2. Keep on back sliding. Because after all, this totally wrecked any plans you had of losing weight this week, right? So why not just keep enjoying the splurges until after weigh in. If you're gonna gain, you might as well have fun doing it, right?

Okay, so #2 is the most helpful advice, I know. But these are the thoughts running through my head this morning when I didn't have a thing to eat in the house for breakfast. I had meant to go to the store last night but got waylaid by that enormous indulgence (steak restaurant—need I say more?). I was in too much pain (from completely overeating) to go to the store and get stuff for breakfast.

So there I stood, in the grocery store, 15 minutes before I needed to be at work, staring at the pastry counter. Sure, what I should have done is gone to the cereal isle and picked up a box of instant oatmeal to heat up once I get to work. But did I do that? Nooooo.

I added 3 donuts to my atrocities of last night.

I just couldn't get option #1 to kick in. For the life of me, I couldn't!

Now here I sit, eating my lunch as I'm typing and what am I eating? Hot dog, coleslaw and a bag of lays chips. Nothing healthy about this meal at all. Unless you could consider the coleslaw as a vegetable. Aw, come on, you won't give me that one???

Okay, so what I need to do now is write down option #1 and keep repeating it to myself for the rest of the afternoon. Then eat something healthy and sensible for dinner.

So that's what I'll do.

"I'm only one meal away from being back on plan!"

There, that was a good start, right?

But seriously, wouldn't we all be much better off if we could just keep option #1 in the forefront of our brains? How many times have we said "I'm starting my diet tomorrow" or "I'll start back on my exercise regiment tomorrow morning"? We would all be so much better off—even our nation as a whole—if we'd just start that diet or that exercise plan or adopt that better spending plan, or whatever, now.

Make the option of that next meal or next run or next whatever become a present action rather than a future action. After all, who knows what's going to happen in the future, right? But right now... right now we know what's happening. And we can make a difference right now.

Start right now. Not tomorrow morning and not at the next meal, but now.

I am.

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