Get Back On That Horse, Cowboy!

Making healthy food choices is good. Choosing well gives you the energy to get up and get going instead of feeling tired and drained from empty calories. You’re shedding those extra pounds and moving toward your weight loss goal. Then the worst thing happens – you start cheating!

Cheating is exactly what it sounds like. As defined by the Oxford Dictionary, cheating is “to trick or deceive.” This is what you’re doing when you eat ‘slider’ foods or drink during meals. By no longer honouring a commitment to healthy eating, you are cheating the band and yourself.

At this point you have two choices – abandon your commitment altogether, the easy way out, or renew your original commitment that you made when you decided to have the Slimband procedure.

The first choice takes no effort whatsoever. All it involves is sliding back into one’s old habits. It is no trouble at all to increase portion sizes, return to foods on the ‘No’ list, and live it up at the dinner table. Even with the benefits of the Slimband, it might be possible to put the extra weight back on. The result is that you will end up right back where you started on this journey.

The second option makes more sense. It is sometimes hard to renew the original commitment once it has been broken, but it is certainly possible. It does require willpower, and the love and encouragement of the people in one’s life, but it is possible. It helps to remember that, with the Slimband, half the work is being done for you. The Slimband makes it very difficult to overeat, so the first thing you need to do is reconnect, and recommit, to your band.

The other thing you need to do is get back on that horse.

The phrase ‘get back on that horse’ is a metaphor. People use it to describe the need to recommit to a plan, and eating for your band is no different. Choosing the right foods and eating according to the ‘Slimband cup of food’ rule requires both self-discipline and mindfulness, but you know that nothing is better than shedding fat and finding one’s true shape underneath it all.

So if you’ve been doing great, but then one night, in a mad moment of abandon find yourself devouring two huge pieces of chocolate cake, don’t use this as an opportunity to give up. Look in the mirror and remember who you are and why you are doing this, and recommit to your band. Get back on that horse. You deserve it.