“Its your son’s birthday party – you can make an exception… you can take this one night off… RIGHT?  Surely you don’t think you will have to go the rest of your life without ever having a piece of pizza or a slice of cake, do you?” said the snake.  The snake was the most cunning of all of the animals in the garden salad.

Dale replied, “But I’m a food addict and OA told me that those foods can be triggers to binge eating and even total relapse.”

“You aren’t a drug addict, Dale.  You have to eat to live – besides surely they didn’t mean you would never EVER have another piece of pizza.  The truth is that you need to learn moderation – so having JUST ONE PIECE is a healthy sign of your progress” said the snake.

And Dale did eat the piece of pizza and the slice of cake and two large plates of salad and seeing that it was tasty food, only felt a little bad for his food choice.  After all, he did only have one piece of the pizza and only one small slice of the cake.  It was his son’s birthday party…

But the snake knew.  Saturday morning weigh in – almost 2lbs heavier than what he was a week ago, Dale updated his webstats and that beautiful big red 21 now reads 19.  The snake had invited his old friend, Discouragement to the house knowing the results would warrant the need for comfort.  So Discouragement came.

Discouragement had an idea and shared it with Dale – “Listen, you’ve had a rough week – and you have been doing sooo good lately that maybe your body just needs to reset – take a day off.  You deserve it for all of your efforts so far!”

“What a great idea!”, Dale replied.  So Saturday was filled with all of the foods that Dale had said no to for so many weeks – starting with oatmeal as a good food choice but quickly moving on to pancakes with blueberry syrup, hash browns with ketchup, and eggs as part of a complete breakfast!  Later it was a bowl of sugary cereal and after that was bottomless french fries from Red Robin with dipping sauces.  The snake and disappointment continued to keep Dale company throughout the day and at one point Dale repeated disappointments words to his wife, “who knows, I might even find that my body needed the day off – and lose weight tomorrow”.  At the movie that night it was pop corn with butter and salt… but “a diet dr pepper, I mean lets not go crazy” the snake said to Dale as he ordered.

His wife was worried.  And for good reason.  Sunday morning the scale waited down stairs having heard of Dale’s day off, knowing he would have to give him bad news that day – and bad news he did give.  Six and one half pounds.  “What!” Dale exclaimed… “how is that even possible!”  But it was not only possible, it happened.  In that one day off, Dale had put on six and one half pounds of weight.

“Don’t worry about it, its all water weight and besides, you don’t have to tell anyone because you only update your webstats on Saturday’s – they don’t have to know” said Disappointment with Snake nodding his head in agreement.  All morning Dale was thinking about six and one half pounds; through the church sermon and into lunch.  Lunch.  Dale tried to make a good choice by ordering the grilled chicken sandwich, but Disappointment and Snake both said “and an order of fries”, and the cashier put fries on the order without even a word to Dale about how fat he was getting.

But… Snake and Disappointment were not the only ones interested in Dale over this weekend.  Resolve had been trying to get Dale’s attention since Friday night without success and when he saw Disappointment had joined the Snake, he went to get Redemption.  Redemption and Resolve had a long talk with Dale on Sunday night.  They were not going to give up on Dale.  Resolve had a friend of Dale’s send him an email with this statement:

While writing this journal I had the thought come to me, “every time I told myself NO today, I was saying YES to my breakthrough”. I’m sure tomorrow will provided my chances to say “Yes” to my breakthrough.

Redemption convinced Dale that each day is new and that he can face the day without shame from yesterday – “Dale, face this day anew.  Forget yesterday, its over and done with.  Today you will have chances to say Yes to your breakthrough.”

Resolve piped in – “It won’t be easy and you will have to say No to yourself, but together we can do it!”

What great friends Dale has found in the midst of his crisis.  With Redemption by his side for his Yesterday, and Resolve by his side for his Today – Dale will not quit… He will move forward!

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