It's Sunday morning. I've been awake at least 75 seconds, and I've already had breakfast. This is the way dieting works. You might not think about food when you don't care how much you eat, but once you start deliberately cutting back, it's the only thing on your mind.

I did, however, make what I consider to be a decent breakfast choice: Kashi U 7 Grain & Granola with Black Currants & Walnuts. It sounds healthy, and the box is made of recycled paper that was manufactured entirely by wind power. I'm sure it's at least marginally healthier than my first choice of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch.

Today I need to grade at least 30 papers, drive 75 miles to Brookhaven for a family dinner, and update the TYCA-SE website. I've already determined I'm not going to fit church into that plan. I'm trying to figure out how I might include exercise considering that none of my must-dos can be accomplished on a treadmill. I also have to factor in that I'm still operating on low battery with everything hurting and the cough threatening to erupt.

This whole getting healthy plan is about so much more than will power. My life is out of balance. I'm devoting too much to work and not enough to health and happiness. Somewhere in all of this I need to prioritize, but there's really nothing I'm doing right now that I want to give up. I keep thinking if I get healthier, I'll be able to handle it all. Then again, it was not being able to handle it all that got me into the shape I'm in now. Here's to balance. Here's to hoping we all find our inner alignment points.

Actually, I don't think will power has as much to do with dieting as people give it credit for. I'd say it's more about mindfulness. If you eat a cookie whenever you pass by the bag of Oreos, you aren't paying attention to what you are eating and how much. A diet just demands that you pay attention, and honestly who would stuff unseemly amounts of simple carbohydrates down the throat while actually thinking about what it was doing? Okay, maybe I would on one of those days when I was willing to fool myself into believing I'd spend three hours in the gym, but on most days I probably wouldn't.

Mindfulness and balance are my words of the day. With luck, they will grade my papers.