I'll be good... tomorrow.

Those words are the death knell to any good diet. 

I confess, I spoke them on Sunday.  I sat down to make  my to-do list for the week.  To clear it, I have to actually accomplish (accomplish) at least three items each day.  Not work on, actually complete.  I could feel the blood draining from my head.  The immediate thought?  I need some hot chocolate.  Something warm, as our living room (and much of the house, on our new energy regimen) is a bit chilly.  Something comforting, before my blood pressure rises and I start to stress.  Of course: hot chocolate, as there's no chai to be had in the house.  And of course, there must needs be marshmallows....  As I pulled the bin of hot chocolate mix from the pantry, I thought to myself, "I'll be good tomorrow."

Granted, "tomorrow" was the date on which I had intended to start converting our current diet (which isn't bad, but a little carb heavy), slowly and surely, over to a more P90X-friendly/get-in-shape/healthier-eating diet.  Our monthly budget starts over this week, so there is a fresh well of cash to go towards perishable salad stuffs, veggies to fill the crispers (and confound my cooking skills...) and other such items.  We started the program on a Monday; it made sense to me that our diet would start on a Monday.  We'll begin with more protein-packed breakfasts.  I will move up to compose salads in jars for lunches: the kind with the vinaigrette on the bottom, the veggies layered next, a lean protein, the lettuce on top to keep it dry and crisp.  Shake to coat, upend in a bowl, and enjoy.  But that was all "tomorrow".  I had today to be bad, right?

The problem is, there's always tomorrow.  Much like the song the red-haired orphan sings, much like Scarlett O'Hara's desperate (and likely unrealistic) reassurance to herself against another blood-red sky, it's only a day away, and it's a new one.  There's always tomorrow. 

It should really be: today.   If I wait for tomorrow, "tomorrow" never technically, actually comes. I need to start now.  Today, I'll be good. Today, I'll have tea with only a small drizzle of honey and lemon, instead of that cup of hot chocolate.  Today, I'll eat the ham-cheese-spinach quinoa cups for breakfast and not the oatmeal chocolate chip pancakes I made for the kids.  I'll start gathering salad ideas and making vinaigrette today so that it's ready if I don't have the lettuce for salad right now.  I'll be good.  Today.  Today is just one day.  I can take things one day at a time.  And maybe by the end of P90X, or even a second round of P90X (Lord willing), I won't have to tell myself to take it one day at a time.  New habits will be formed, new tastebuds tingling, and hot chocolate will be nice once in a while.  But for now, let's just start with today.

Not tomorrow.