By Glynis Salmon, Contributor
SOMETIMES YOU'RE up...sometimes you're down...and sometimes, even when you are half way up, you are neither up nor down.
Some days, that's just how it is and you have to be really careful with your diet on those days. Your "up and down" and totally confused emotions can lead you onto a path of "unrighteous" gormandising, followed by the most excruciating and soul-destroying guilt trip.
I know, 'cause I have gone astray on that wayward path many times before on the Big Escape journey to wellness and well-being - even now that I am on the Atkins Diet which makes it so easy for us to avoid sweet temptations.
Let me share with you what happened to me the other day. My emotional psyche went all out of sync (PMS and all) and I lost all equilibrium. One minute the great wall of discontent within my soul would come crashing down on me, threatening total annihilation of the positives, and I would feel so burdened. So down. So totally swamped with the cares of this world. I would feel like crying, and indeed water would come a me eye.
But in the next minute, just when I had begun to believe that all hope was gone, a ray of sunshine set of positives would suffuse my being and force its way through my veil of sadness. Tears, joy, glad smiles and happy laughter would be mine to claim again, and all would be right with the world.
Sometimes too, in the confusing war of emotions, the lips would smile, but the heart would be sad. Or the heart would be glad, but not quite glad enough to reach the eyes and touch the lips.
TOTALLY COMMITTED
It is those times, my friend, that you find yourself totally committed and strong-willed enough to follow through on your diet programme. Those are the times that you are convinced that nothing, absolutely nothing, can stop your show, block your flow, and get in the way of losing the almighty pounds that you want to lose. No dumplings, doughnuts, potato pudding -- not even ice cream with the cherry on top, could blur you vision of your slim nymph self, for a few moments of sugary, high-carb (dubious) pleasure.
But just when you have convinced yourself that no way, no how, you are going to break your diet, up come a flood of bad feelings, out goes your good vibes self, and into your soul waltzes a bout of depression that leads you straight to a plate of curry chicken with a whole heapa white rice, followed by the double-layered cheesecake, doused with strawberries and syrup, washed down with no less than quart of sweet, fizzy soda -- all at one sitting.
After such a craven, weak-willed repast, you feel so shame. You feel so bad that you've betrayed your resolve, and the figure you've imagined. If you don't mind sharp, you reach for a bar -- nay, several bars -- of chocolate and for days wallow in depression and increasing fatness before you find yourself and your senses again.
Don't make that happen to you. Guard against your emotions. Don't lose yourself in food temptations. Protect your desire to be slim, happy and well. When bad feelings tek yu, an' yu feel fi jus' give up, remember: Love God. Love yourself. Love others. Be Happy. PEACE.
Glynis Salmon is a publishing executive and communications specialist. e-mail thebigescape@yahoo.com, lifestyle@gleanerjm.com.
