Yesterday I made a bad food choice.  I ate an entire bag of candy while at a movie.  Now, I could get discouraged and quit… again.  OR I could keep going on the diet.  But how do I make sure it won’t happen again?  The truth is, I don’t know – but here is how I plan to handle it today: document, understand, learn, then move on.

Document:

Yesterday I knew I shouldn’t eat the entire bag, or any of the candy for that matter, but I justified it by counting the calories and skipping dinner – that was the wrong choice and skipping dinner didn’t fix the bad choice, it compounded it.  Now my calorie count for the day might be ok, but I didn’t get the protein I needed and my sugars are way over.  After I finished my transgression, I felt guilt for doing it.  A few hours later I wished I had made a different choice altogether.  I know what I did was wrong and now so do you.

Understand:

This wasn’t a random accident; this didn’t happen to me, this was done by me.  I had a pastor once that said people don’t fall into sin, they “dig the swimming pool with a spoon, fill it using a thimble, build the diving board out of toothpicks and jump in”.  I planned to get skittles when I headed to the movie.  I skipped dinner knowing I would need the calories and could use that as justification.  I am guilty as charged.  I went to the movies and for me the movies are a place to eat skittles (for you it might be popcorn, but not me).

Learn:

What have I learned?  For starters, I learned that as with almost any transgression, it was fun for a season… but in the end destruction.  I truly regret the decision.  I also learned that I need to break the association of food with activities.  In this case, movies and candy.  I plan to avoid going to the movies unless my food accountability partner is with me and agrees to help me resist.

Move On:

Now I move on.  This is the part of the diet plan where I normally quit.  I mess up, then mess up again, then say things like “I’m just taking a break for a day or two”.  I quit alot.  That’s hard to admit because I don’t think of myself as a quiter – but when it comes to losing weight, I’m a quiter.  But not this time.  I am going to move on.  Tomorrow the skittles are behind me, but my gut is still right there infront of me, as it always will be if I quit again.