When the four Pevensie's exited the wardrobe back into the old mansion after their first adventures in Narnia, they came back looking exactly like they did when they went in, but they were most certainly not who they were when they went in. Hidden and buried in the wardrobe lay their true identity. If you read the stories you know that everyone who went into that "hidden" land and came back out were never the same. Inside that place they were confronted with who they really were, both the good and the bad, and found the courage and strength to no longer hide either.
I said I never "hid" my weight problem. I talked about trying and failing to lose weight on this very blog. What I revealed, however, was basically like cracking the door of the wardrobe and seeing the fur of a few coats. Finding the truth would require someone pushing their way back through the rows of coats until you hit the prickly trees. In this case however, I stood on the inside of the door furiously guarding what was inside. Then something changed. I don't know if it was one thing or a series of things that led to it. A conversation with my dad about how his dad died of a heart attack in his early fifties, after losing a lot of weight, was certainly a sobering, sit down and rethink type moment. You see, I never knew that grandpa, but he was big and built like me, or, I am built like him. When he finally lost weight, the damage was done, he waited too long. That and other things were certainly eye opening "aha" type things, but I also believe that something outside of me had to draw me. The way something drew Lucy to open the door in the first place.
The result was this, my version of flinging open the wardrobe doors and saying "this is it, here I am, no more hiding." Something changed. I knew it then, I know it even more so now, this time is different. I'm not sure if I could've explained it at that moment. In fact, in having a discussion with one of my pastor's and best friend's he pointed out that somehow no longer hiding was a very significant thing for me. I reread that post and found something I had written then but it didn't hit me: "I haven't found it yet, but for all that is a warrior in me I will not hide, at all, anymore".
I think most of us would acknowledge that naming and facing your problem is the first and most important step to overcoming it, I've said that lots of times. I'm certain, though, that I never really understood what that meant, what it means to face and see it for what it really is. That's what I mean by hiding. Can I encourage you and challenge you a little? Find out what it means for you to throw the doors open to your own wardrobe. If it means posting a picture, do it. Don't post a picture if that's not what it means for you, because then the picture just becomes a decoy, but DO something. Post it on your blog, or if you want, I'll post it here and we can struggle together.
Edmund was a traitor, sure enough. I think we feel like if we throw open the doors we'll be found out as well. Uhhm, yeah, actually, you will be found out. It is what it is.
Something else was found out, Edmund was a King, and a hero, and his actions were a pivot point to victory for an entire "nation" of "people".
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
First Steps
Here are a few things that are playing really important roles in my journey to this point.
Remember the bottom line (gotta be a joke there). No matter how you go about it, there's really only one rule in terms of losing weight. Burn more calories than you take in. Low fat, low carb, South Beach, Weight Watchers, doesn't matter, they work, regardless of all other claims, because they lower your overall intake of calories. I'm not saying there are not provable health and medical benefits of a low fat diet. All research makes it clear that a healthier heart and cardiovascular system result when you lower bad cholesterol. There's no doubt that restricting your carbohydrate intake, especially of specific kinds of carbohydrate, levels your blood sugar and helps you get a better read on your appetite. I'm not saying all the provable researched facts are worthless, it's also proven and you can ask any doctor that regardless of how healthy your food choices are, eat more than you burn and you will gain weight. Remembering this helps me with my second thing:
Pick your battles. I am following for the most part "The Biggest Loser" diet. There are some things it asks that I cannot do. One is the switch to only whole grain breads, pastas, and cereals. I've switched tons of those choices to whole grain, but some things, like the whole grain pastas I've tried, nope, can't do it. So, if I make choices that are outside of this particular diet's "OK" list, I remember the basics, track the calories, and move on. I do have some things that I'm simply training myself to eat. Like veggies. In general, I don't really like anything but corn and green beans. That's it. So I'm learning to enjoy asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, and the like. Long term health depends on that, so it's a battle worth fighting. Pasta's not. Neither is low fat cheese. See, I need to make permanent change. The easiest way to set myself up for failure is to force myself to choke down stuff I can't stand in the name of losing weight. So I have a few chips now and then, and though I will rarely have it (and haven't since I started), I'll eat regular bacon, not turkey bacon. When I do this, however, I meticulously right down and track the calories. Righting stuff down, that leads me to my last thing.
I have several diverse forms of accountability. My wife beautiful wife is following this with me. I've survived at least two moments when I was ready to pick up fast food simply because she reminded me to ask if it was really worth it. I also right down everything I eat and it's caloric content religiously. I can't tell you how much impact it has to see it in black and white, what you've had, where you stand in terms of calories, and types of foods you've eaten. It also is a good deterrent, Jenni and I decided not to eat Mexican food out one night last week just because it would kill us to have to right down the exhorbatant calories we'd just packed in. I have this blog and a decision to post a picture of myself (brave? insane? not sure which) and to continue posting them. I have a bet with a couple of buddies in which we will weigh in six months and the person with the highest percentage of weight loss will collect from the other two. Then we're gonna weigh again in a year, with more on the line.
It just seems that the more I have in place the better. My life and struggles are not just a neat scripted diet to follow. Sometimes I need to pray and cry out to God, sometimes its a perfectly timed word from my wife, sometimes it's seeing my food log, or thinking of the next picture I promised to post here, or just losing to my boys when I want to spank em. My life is filled with different kinds of struggles and moments of weakness, and giving myself the freedom to be moved and motivated by a variety of people/things is something that I haven't incorporated before, and neither is a no nonsense remember the basics of weight loss.
I'm truly starting to believe that I'm gonna do this. I know some of you are struggling and trying as well. I'm clearly not a weight loss guru, but I've learned some from, oh, 12 years or more of trying and failing. You can do this. I hope any of my thoughts are helpful. I'd love to hear from those who are fighting this fight or other fights.
Remember the bottom line (gotta be a joke there). No matter how you go about it, there's really only one rule in terms of losing weight. Burn more calories than you take in. Low fat, low carb, South Beach, Weight Watchers, doesn't matter, they work, regardless of all other claims, because they lower your overall intake of calories. I'm not saying there are not provable health and medical benefits of a low fat diet. All research makes it clear that a healthier heart and cardiovascular system result when you lower bad cholesterol. There's no doubt that restricting your carbohydrate intake, especially of specific kinds of carbohydrate, levels your blood sugar and helps you get a better read on your appetite. I'm not saying all the provable researched facts are worthless, it's also proven and you can ask any doctor that regardless of how healthy your food choices are, eat more than you burn and you will gain weight. Remembering this helps me with my second thing:
Pick your battles. I am following for the most part "The Biggest Loser" diet. There are some things it asks that I cannot do. One is the switch to only whole grain breads, pastas, and cereals. I've switched tons of those choices to whole grain, but some things, like the whole grain pastas I've tried, nope, can't do it. So, if I make choices that are outside of this particular diet's "OK" list, I remember the basics, track the calories, and move on. I do have some things that I'm simply training myself to eat. Like veggies. In general, I don't really like anything but corn and green beans. That's it. So I'm learning to enjoy asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, and the like. Long term health depends on that, so it's a battle worth fighting. Pasta's not. Neither is low fat cheese. See, I need to make permanent change. The easiest way to set myself up for failure is to force myself to choke down stuff I can't stand in the name of losing weight. So I have a few chips now and then, and though I will rarely have it (and haven't since I started), I'll eat regular bacon, not turkey bacon. When I do this, however, I meticulously right down and track the calories. Righting stuff down, that leads me to my last thing.
I have several diverse forms of accountability. My wife beautiful wife is following this with me. I've survived at least two moments when I was ready to pick up fast food simply because she reminded me to ask if it was really worth it. I also right down everything I eat and it's caloric content religiously. I can't tell you how much impact it has to see it in black and white, what you've had, where you stand in terms of calories, and types of foods you've eaten. It also is a good deterrent, Jenni and I decided not to eat Mexican food out one night last week just because it would kill us to have to right down the exhorbatant calories we'd just packed in. I have this blog and a decision to post a picture of myself (brave? insane? not sure which) and to continue posting them. I have a bet with a couple of buddies in which we will weigh in six months and the person with the highest percentage of weight loss will collect from the other two. Then we're gonna weigh again in a year, with more on the line.
It just seems that the more I have in place the better. My life and struggles are not just a neat scripted diet to follow. Sometimes I need to pray and cry out to God, sometimes its a perfectly timed word from my wife, sometimes it's seeing my food log, or thinking of the next picture I promised to post here, or just losing to my boys when I want to spank em. My life is filled with different kinds of struggles and moments of weakness, and giving myself the freedom to be moved and motivated by a variety of people/things is something that I haven't incorporated before, and neither is a no nonsense remember the basics of weight loss.
I'm truly starting to believe that I'm gonna do this. I know some of you are struggling and trying as well. I'm clearly not a weight loss guru, but I've learned some from, oh, 12 years or more of trying and failing. You can do this. I hope any of my thoughts are helpful. I'd love to hear from those who are fighting this fight or other fights.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
The journey of a thousand miles begins with...
So, a bit of promised info from the last post:
Starting Weight: 325
I would argue that surely I'm not that big, but, uh, did you catch the picture on the last post? Uhm, yeah.
An interesting thing has been happening this last week. I think I know how to do this. I've been doing a lot of reflecting on past failures and realizing that though they have given birth to discouragement, hopelessness, frustration, and the like, in the midst of that have come some valuable insights to seeing victory. So, I'm gonna post about it. I need to get these thoughts down, see how they read, if you know what I mean.
This post I'm thinking about the seeing the big picture. That's realizing that this problem is physical, spiritual, and emotional. It's happening on more than one level. Now, let me just say this, I'm going to focus on these seperately, but we all know that in real life they don't divide all nice and neat like.
What I have to remember physically is that I'm broken. I've heard it said that "my body knows what it needs if I would just listen to it". While that is true to some extent, I have to acknowledge that I have cravings and desires that my body simply doesn't need at best, and are dangerous and life sucking at worst. That means an intentional plan for how and what and when you will eat is incredibly important. It is practically important to have options within the plan of attack, but the plan needs to be in place. Written, tracked, and followed.
Spiritually I had to realize that I just didn't have bad eating habits alone, but I had placed a value on food that had become an object of worship. If you just see singing or praying as worship, that may sound weird to you. If you see the process of valuing and serving and yielding to as worship, it probably begins to clear up. Honest confession and repentance of raising up an idol needs to be a daily and sometimes meal by meal process.
The emotional part is strongly connected to the spiritual part. The difficulty is at times realizing that God has given us so much to give us joy and a lift, and sometimes a good meal is what He gives. He gives relationships, wine, music, film, and so much more. Being able to let the gift of good food be something that is from God and turning to the food as the Source of emotional healing and soothing and fulfillment are at times foggy lines, but I have to engage and recognize the difference.
I'm off to a really good start, and I see these as things I've not included at some point in my past attempts, or attempted to leave out one or two. I'll post more specifically about my plan and how I'm dealing with the daily temptations next.
Starting Weight: 325
I would argue that surely I'm not that big, but, uh, did you catch the picture on the last post? Uhm, yeah.
An interesting thing has been happening this last week. I think I know how to do this. I've been doing a lot of reflecting on past failures and realizing that though they have given birth to discouragement, hopelessness, frustration, and the like, in the midst of that have come some valuable insights to seeing victory. So, I'm gonna post about it. I need to get these thoughts down, see how they read, if you know what I mean.
This post I'm thinking about the seeing the big picture. That's realizing that this problem is physical, spiritual, and emotional. It's happening on more than one level. Now, let me just say this, I'm going to focus on these seperately, but we all know that in real life they don't divide all nice and neat like.
What I have to remember physically is that I'm broken. I've heard it said that "my body knows what it needs if I would just listen to it". While that is true to some extent, I have to acknowledge that I have cravings and desires that my body simply doesn't need at best, and are dangerous and life sucking at worst. That means an intentional plan for how and what and when you will eat is incredibly important. It is practically important to have options within the plan of attack, but the plan needs to be in place. Written, tracked, and followed.
Spiritually I had to realize that I just didn't have bad eating habits alone, but I had placed a value on food that had become an object of worship. If you just see singing or praying as worship, that may sound weird to you. If you see the process of valuing and serving and yielding to as worship, it probably begins to clear up. Honest confession and repentance of raising up an idol needs to be a daily and sometimes meal by meal process.
The emotional part is strongly connected to the spiritual part. The difficulty is at times realizing that God has given us so much to give us joy and a lift, and sometimes a good meal is what He gives. He gives relationships, wine, music, film, and so much more. Being able to let the gift of good food be something that is from God and turning to the food as the Source of emotional healing and soothing and fulfillment are at times foggy lines, but I have to engage and recognize the difference.
I'm off to a really good start, and I see these as things I've not included at some point in my past attempts, or attempted to leave out one or two. I'll post more specifically about my plan and how I'm dealing with the daily temptations next.
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