Labor Day weekend is always a tough one for me. On the Thursday just prior, 1998, Matthew woke up and said, “Mama, I’m going out in the backyard to say ‘good morning’ to the dogs.”

A few moments later, he yelled for me. “Mama, Lady won’t wake up.”

My heart sank.

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Here’s a blast from my high school past: A newspaper advertisement for a musical, “Rough and Ready,” presented by our A Cappella Choir. Check out my long hair! And don’t I wish I could zip that skirt now. I thought I was grotesquely overweight in high school. Hard to believe, when I look at this photo, taken in the fall of 1973, that my self-image was already that decimated by the time I was a senior in high school.

Note that they called me “Jane.”

Here’s the blessing: We only have to survive high school once!

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It is going to happen. You are going to “fall off the wagon” occasionally due to special events, vacations, lack of motivation, someone or something in your life sabotaging your efforts . . . When it does happen, there are a number of things you can do to get back on track with your health and fitness program. Here are thirteen tips for us all to keep in mind:

1. Be kind to yourself.

You are not perfect. You are never going to achieve perfection. So there is no point in beating yourself up psychologically when you occasionally demonstrate your own humanity.

2. Keep it in perspective.

Consider your slip-up. How does it compare to your old habits? Did you fall right back into your old destructive habits or was this different?

These days, when I “fall off the wagon,” the scenery around me as I’m picking myself up and dusting myself off looks quite different that it used to.

So when it happens, I stop and compare my lifestyle before I developed this program for myself and what the program looks like when I am conscientiously following it. Inevitably, I find that my deviation is minor when compared with how I used to live and what my eating habits used to be.

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My friend, Joyce, snapped this photo of me when we visited Snoqualmie Falls Park in Washington this past Saturday.

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