Hopping Back Into It

Back from my little mini-vacation, and I was halfway done with a post about a morbidly obese couple and their family that seemed to be stalking me in St. Louis, but it occurred to me that I was writing about them to avoid writing about myself.

Sundays are my traditional weigh-in day, but I’m steering clear this week. Nine or ten straight restaurant meals, topped by some salty car snacking can’t spell good news on the losing front. Next Sunday will be soon enough to settle up with Señor Scale.

The troubling thing though, is how time away from my everyday routine seems to chip away at my resolve and the good habits I’ve been working so hard to build up. I didn’t have any major setbacks while I was away, but each day seemed to be a little further off plan than the day before. It was as if I was testing the water in a pool, going a little deeper, a little farther out each time.

“But you’re on vacation,” you’ll say. “Enjoy yourself.”

I did enjoy myself, and that enjoyment isn’t what’s troubling me, per se. It’s the idea that bad habits can creep back up on you so quickly. You can turn around twice and be doing things that you wouldn’t have even considered a short while back.

Do you know how to boil a live frog? (and no, this isn’t a low-fat recipe I’m sharing with you, thank you very much). If you throw Mister Toad in a pot of boiling water, he’ll just jump right out, hopping indignantly across the stovetop and kitchen counter. However, if you put him in and slowly heat the pan up, he’ll just sit there and cook, never realizing the serious trouble he’s hopped into.

I have an active imagination, and I can easily conjure up how this deal would go for me if I just dropped this blog and decided I was at my goal weight right now. I’d go for a bit thinking that I was on top of things, working out three times a week and snacking a little more than before.

Then the exercise would slack off and the eating would pick up.

The skinny jeans I’m so proud of now would quietly get folded away onto a higher shelf.

The snowball would start rolling.

The water would start boiling, and I wouldn’t even notice...

I don’t know what you see when you look at this blog. I don’t know if you see a funhouse mirror, an abstract sketch or a window into your own soul. I don’t know if you see me as a clown, a kook, a fellow traveler or a kindred spirit. While some may view this blog as a hodgepodge of quirky oddities and oddball sensibilities, I see it was a life-saving raft in a sea of boiling water.

And I’m glad to be back.

The water was gettin’ a bit warm.