I think I've suffered writer's block for a while. So much has been going on lately, much of which could have written here, but I just couldn't seem to get it out! But today's topic I think will come out just fine: my weight-loss journey update.
If you've read my blog before (say...any time in the past couple of years), then you know this has been a battle I have faced my entire adult life. When I graduated high school, I was overweight, but lost 35 pounds in Marine Corps boot camp. I loved it! I weighed 136lbs, wore a size 7, and felt strong, confident and healthy! However, over the past 13 years, I have steadily gained weight each and every year. After leaving the Marine Corp, I packed on over 30 lbs in my first year in Texas. By 2002, I weighed in at 192 with little impact from occasional dieting. Then I got pregnant with my son and gained another 60 pounds during my pregnancy. Thankfully I lost all of that pregnancy weight within 6 months of giving birth, but that still put me at about 195. Then I went back to gaining weight each and every year - topping out at 240 lbs.
In the past few years, I have tried almost everything out there: Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, soup diets, bible studies, fasting, juice-fasting, liquid diets, SlimFast, power foods, pills and a few others. If I lost any weight during the "diet", it was minimal and came back within six months. The emotional roller coaster has been exhausting and unbelievably discouraging. Then came the Biggest Loser TV show.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the Biggest Loser TV show has changed my life. But I have learned a few things that have contributed to putting me on the right road. One of the most important reinforced ideas is that there is a spiritual and emotional element to being obese that I cannot ignore. People as heavy as me don't get here without some serious underlying, and more than likely unacknowledged, issues. I have had to begin working through levels of pain, spiritual depravity and maturity in order to really get to a place where weight-loss is even possible. In that endeavor, I discovered a deeply rooted self-destructive motivation that undermines all of my life goals, including weight loss. I found selfishness, pride and idolatry had erected mansions in my heart. But the most startling realization was a fear of success. Yes, I said fear of success. Not fear of failure. Let's face it...I'm good at the failing part. Success means so much to me, but fear is a blockade that I have to understand in order to experience healing. And understanding that is where I am now.
So what am I afraid of you might ask? Well, first off, it is important to know what success equals. To succeed means to lose all this added, unhealthy weight and return to a slim, healthy, energetic me. My ultimate goal is 135. I remember what it was like to come home from boot camp and the reactions people gave to my physical changes. People showered me with accolades, but some of those accolades were hard to take. People who hurt me emotionally in the deepest of ways as a child, now had cause to send their attention my way again. Add that to my shipping off to the Marine Corps school where I was outnumbered 500 to 1 by men in my battalion alone (and almost all other battalions were male-only on that base), I found that the attention that at first seemed nice, flattering and affirming, really created a very deep, but strongly ignored, fear that perhaps there was nothing more to me as a person than my body. It seemed that although I ran from home to the military, I still couldn't escape that the only way I mattered to this world was because someone, somewhere wanted to use my body for their own purposes. Self-loathing and an unexplained anger took root and grew like cancer.
But that was more than 10 years ago, right? Yes, and I'm a very different person than I was back then. The Lord has redeemed me from the pit of hell and I am His now. Realizing what all that means in my life is a lifelong process though. I figured out recently that I still fear feeling what I felt back then if I were to become the healthy individual I desire to be. My skin crawls at the possibility that the attention from men that left with my waistline and muscle definition, might return. Then there is the prideful and selfish part of me that hopes it does anyway. In the end, I have to battle all of those lines of thinking. Fear puts me in bondage and pride and selfishness bar me from experiencing the depths of my God the way I am intended to experience Him. So where does that leave me with regard to the goal of losing this very unhealthy weight?
It leaves me depending on His grace and mercy.
Each and every day I have choices to make about exercise and food. If I make them out of fear or pride and selfishness, I defeat the overall journey I desire which is a journey to know the Lord and be known by Him and serve Him from now to all of eternity. I can't say I have a handle on making these choices without these negative motivations, but that is where grace comes in. When I make the choice to eat smaller portions of healthier foods and go to the gym and work out as hard as I can, I have to consciously make the effort to give glory to God. Yet, knowing my heart is deceitful above all else, I am left with nothing else but to know that God's grace covers me anyway. Being healthy is a matter of stewardship. I have been a horrible steward of this gift of a body that the Lord has given me. I have put junk into it, abused it, and failed to exercise it and keep it in tip-top shape because I had other agendas than taking care of/using all the gifts God gave me for His plan, purpose and glory. I'm never going to be perfect this side of heaven. But somehow, some way, I am seeking to discover what it means to be motivated by grace.
I began by making a small goal; I joined the 20lbs for $20 challenge my friend put out there. Endeavoring to lose 20 pounds by December 4th has had its ups and downs, but grace has kept me moving forward. Grace kept me from quitting when I gained weight in week 2. Grace kept me from quitting when I overate one day, so that I could make better choices the next day. Grace pushed me out of bed at 3:30 several times a week over the past three weeks, when all I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep. Grace kept me from quitting when I stayed in bed and slept. Grace pushed me in the gym to keep trying when things were difficult. Grace kept me from mentally and emotionally battering myself when I didn't do as well in the gym. Grace reminds me that I am loved - not for my body, not because I worked hard or made the right food choices, not because I fit into a certain size, and not because I do or don't attract attention from others, but I am loved...just because God chose to love me! This grace keeps me focused that this is a long-term lifestyle change that I am trying to make, and one tiny step after one tiny step, I move toward the person I desire to be. A person who can let go of the past, be healed of her hearts iniquities, and live for Jesus Christ with wild abandonment.
I gain a little more of that person every day...but only by His grace!
0 comments:
Post a Comment