GO DOWN THREE,COME UP FOUR!

I went to the bakery this morning.



Sounds ominous doesn’t it?


Now I know how a recovering alcoholic fresh out of treatment feels the first time he walks into a bar to order a coke.


I had some relatives coming over to help me do some work around the house that required their expertise.


Handy I’m not.


So the least I could do is offer them rolls and coffee after getting them out of bed so early on a Saturday morning.


The bakery had what all bakeries have except for one thing.

It really didn’t offer too much temptation to me.

Yes, it’s an excellent bakery and the goodies were all on display…it was 7 am and they had the full complement of rolls, doughnuts, cookies and cakes ready for a busy Saturday.


They didn’t really bother me. I had thought this thru in advance and I had told myself that they would not tempt me…(hey it was worth a shot!) I thought about where eating uncontrollably had gotten me and for right now, that was enough motivation to see these pastry delicacies…(read that “death carbs”) as something for someone else to enjoy, as I am enjoying my new healthy lifestyle too much to let that derail me.


I only bought four rolls which was enough for two each…I didn’t want an extra half-dozen skulking around the kitchen to taunt me later. Only one roll got eaten, but the other three got sent home with one of them for “the kids”

Another bullet dodged.


And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, for the rest of the story:

I was headed for bed last night, walking thru the kitchen and without thinking; I opened the cupboard, pulled out the Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and finished off what was left in the box!


I started walking into the kitchen with no thought of eating anything else before I went to bed…then Bam!...I’m snarfing down 400 plus calories of a cereal I’ve only ever eaten 2 or 3 bowls of my entire life!


This is about the first completely uncontrolled eating I’ve experienced in almost 6 months. The cereal tasted OK I guess, but that experience reminded me that I’m only one bowl of cereal away from the fall back into eating hell.

The guilt and sense of failure is lasting far longer than the little bit of enjoyment that inhaling those “death carbs” brought me.


Well, I can’t take the eating back, I can only move forward.

There’s a Chinese proverb that says: “If you get up one more time than you fall you will make it through.”

My continuing mantra: Fall down three times, get up four!


These are the experiences of one determined to not let morbid obesity and heavy thoughts do anything but compel him forward to lighter living.

Sigh.