Peace

I need to start by quoting the first few paragraphs of this next chapter in Lysa's book because they just make me laugh out of the sheer truth and shame of it all! Read on...

"I roll over and look at the clock. Another day. Beyond all reason and rationality, I slide out of bed and strip off everything that might weigh even the slightest ounce as I head to the scale. Maybe today will be the day the scale will be my friend and not reveal my secrets. Maybe somehow overnight the molecular structure of my body shifted and today I will magically weigh less. 

But no. I yank out my ponytail holder - hey, it's gotta weigh something - and decide to try again. But the scale doesn't change its mind the second time. It is not my friend this day. 

Vowing to do better, eat healthier, make good choices, I head to the kitchen only to have my resolve melt like the icing on the cinnamon rolls my daughter just pulled from the oven. Yum. Oh, who cares what the scale says when this roll speaks such love and deliciousness.

Two and a half cinnamon rolls later, I decide tomorrow will be a much better day to keep my promises to eat healthier. And since this is my last day to eat what I want, I better live it up. Another cinnamon roll, please. (p27)"

HAHAHAHA!!! Ok so it's funny, but really, how many of us struggling with losing weight can completely relate to this vicious cycle?? I know I can and still do a lot of days. I have definitely done the "well, let's take out the ponytail holder and try again" bit and have also taken off my glasses, my wedding rings, blown my nose, cleared my throat, brushed my teeth (hey, doesn't plaque have weight??) - you get the jist - it's a rather pathetic routine.

With that cycle driving a person insane, Lysa talks about cravings being the weakness that talks us into "later" "tomorrow" "next week" "after the holidays" and sometimes just finally giving up instead of making the choice to permanently change. Cravings are powerful, but prayer is more powerful. Thus, the main message of this chapter is to replace cravings with prayer. Reaching a goal weight - looking great, fitting into smaller clothes, receiving compliments from others - is awesome; however, since the point is to make a permanent lifestyle change, the incentive should be just as permanent and more fulfilling than anything. This brings back the point that this is about a journey with Jesus. Replacing cravings with prayer will strengthen my relationship with God and that is more fulfilling and long-lasting than smaller clothes or compliments.

In addition to replacing my cravings with prayer, I also want to replace them with peace. I guess these things go together automatically, because as I'm praying for God to satisfy me beyond my cravings He will take them away and replace them with peace. BUT I want to make a point to pray specifically for that peace. This has been a serious focus of mine this last week because I've realized that I'm just not at peace with a lot of things in life right now. As much as I thought I had accepted certain things, I haven't, and I have been convicted of living in discontent lately.

Lord, grant me peace in all circumstances and in every decision that I make. Guide my eating habits and my thinking habits - may they all please and bring glory to YOU and YOU ALONE! Amen.

Peace, friends! :)

Detour

I'm taking a hiatus from the book this week, because I need another week to really keep focusing on last week's lesson. I was doing well for about 3 days and then I took a major dive - in my eating habits, in my emotional state, in everything. Thursday through Sunday was a rough 4 day stretch and I've had to seriously reexamine my priorities and remind myself (over and over and over and over) that I don't need to worry as much as I think I do. This has been a long weekend of self examination and lots of prayer. I am purposing this week to talk to God a lot - not just about my eating habits, but about everything. I am a worrier, always have been, it goes along with my desire to control everything. Lately I have allowed worry to consume me and it has literally made me sick. This is not the way to live life. My mom reminded me of three verses this morning that I'm going to focus on this week:

Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

Philippians 4:6-7 "...do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

2 Corinthians 4:7 "...for we walk by faith, not by sight"

So, I'm continuing to focus on the lesson of quoting scripture when I'm tempted. Not just when I'm tempted to eat junk food, but also when I'm tempted to worry, when I'm feeling scared, when life is completely out of my control... "in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God"... that's my focus this week.

Practically, starting today, I'm going to make lists. One each day for things I need to do that day, then one for things that need to get done each week (but not necessarily on a particular day), then one for each month. This was a suggestion from my parents and will ideally help me to get my thoughts out of my head and onto paper, giving me a tangible, visible thing that I can cross off and get rid of when it's finished. I am hoping this will help me to worry less when I can "see" things getting done; I'm also going to make sure I ask God to give me peace and strength in every single moment that I feel the "need" to worry.

In happier news, I weighed myself this morning and apparently I lost 1.5lbs this weekend. Guess the stressing wasn't ALL bad. ;) (j/k)

Made to Crave

"We consume what we think about. And what we think about can consume us if we're not careful. (p23)"

It's true! Whatever our mind/body/spirit desires is what we tend to fill our time with - our thoughts, our time, our lives are consumed by what consumes the deepest longings of our souls. Considering that, why on earth would we want to consume and be consumed by anything other than our God?? Well, because we're sinful humans of course. God created us to crave, but he wants us to crave Him.

"Truth is powerful. The more saturated we are with truth, the more powerful we'll be in resisting our temptations. (p24)."

Also true! Lysa reemphasizes the idea of praying for God to accompany us on this life changing journey of becoming healthier individuals and she also introduces the idea that quoting scripture (just like Jesus did when he was tempted) can help us battle those moments when we feel overcome by our desires. While this can apply to any temptation a person has, my focus here is my temptation with food, so I'll bring it back there.

I was a bit ahead of myself this week - since I had already read through the book once, I knew that one of Lysa's key verses is 1 Corinthians 10:23. The version she includes in her book reads, "'Everything is permissible' - but not everything is beneficial." So, as an encouragement to myself and a reminder of the truth that I am to follow, I put this verse on a bright pink post-it note on our pantry door. Our pantry houses most of our snack foods, and those are what I venture toward when I'm craving something unhealthy. Reading this first chapter tonight has just reminded me of how necessary it is for me to continue to quote scripture and call on Jesus to help me through those tough moments. I definitely noticed a change in my desires and attitude this week. It wasn't an easy first week, but I made it through and I feel a strong sense of accomplishment today.  :)

One of the practical things I've started doing is making all of my lunches for the whole week on Sunday afternoons. I make all the sandwiches and put them in baggies, I also divide up all of my healthy snacks into accurate portion sizes and put those into baggies as well. Now all I have to do in the morning when I'm gathering up food for lunch is grab a baggie or two of each thing and throw it in my lunch tote. It's easy and I already know I'm choosing healthy foods with the accurate amount of calories allotted for my lunch meal. I have also cut back to eating 5 smaller "meals" throughout the day, instead of 3 big ones and lots of snacks. I like this schedule because eating more often helps me to feel like I'm not depriving myself, but at the same time I'm eating filling foods at all of these "meals," so that I'm not actually getting hungry later.

During the day, when I think I'm feeling hungry, I'll chew some gum or have a large glass of water - this was a trick I learned back when I was doing Weight Watchers. If I'm truly hungry, the feeling won't go away after a few minutes of chewing gum or finishing a large glass of water. If the feeling does go away after doing such things, that is a sign that it was just a craving or a "mental hunger" and I needed a distraction. What Weight Watchers won't advise its members to do is to pray in those moments. So this week, in view of the fact that this is a spiritual/mental battle as much as physical, and desiring to change my focus on the issue, I took it upon myself to pray MANY times this week in those moments of weakness. And you know what I realized? Most of the times I felt like I was hungry, it wasn't real. Know what else I realized? Jesus was listening to me and caring about what I was going through and then seeing Him help me get through those trying moments was so amazing!

The last thought I want to share with you is from the sermon we heard this morning. I was again amazed at my Lord's amazing ability to hit me with the truth I need when I need it most. Our pastor was preaching on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. He (pastor) said, "Most people focus on the miracle of Lazarus coming back to life, but I want to focus on the lessons learned in the preceding passages." He went on to show us that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus' other friends and family learned how much Jesus empathized with them and cared about them in their circumstance. Even though Jesus knew he was about to raise Lazarus back to life, He was deeply moved and wept with them! (John 11:32-35) How incredible is that?! Jesus LOVE us SO much - He desires us as much as He wants us to desire HIM! I witnessed this in my own life this week - what an empowering truth!

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

Finding my "Want To"

(Warning: long post ahead)

I'm back to 151. I'm going to ask you to take my word for it because posting another failed scale picture is just humiliating. I'm not having health problems, I don't have any injuries preventing me from working out, I'm just not trying.

The introduction to Made to Crave is titled "Finding Your Want To." In this section (pages 11-18), Lysa talks about the parable of the rich man in Matthew 19. She explains how most Christians interpret the meaning of this passage as related to the love of money more than God, so those of us who don't have that problem with money tend to brush it off - "Good thing I'm not rich. Good thing this doesn't apply to me. Good thing Jesus doesn't ask me to sacrifice in this way." Then she says, "Or does He?" and goes on to explain that she interprets this passage as Jesus' way of telling us, "I want you to give up the one thing you crave more than me" - WHATEVER that may be - money, drugs, sex, career....food?! Re-reading this section of the book, more and more statements she makes are really convicting me:

"When Jesus says, 'Follow Me,' it's not an invitation to drag our divided heart alongside us as we attempt to follow hard after God."

"If we want to conquer our cravings, we'll have to redirect them to God. God made us capable of craving so we'd have an unquenchable desire for more of Him, and Him alone."

"I had to ask God to give me the desire to be healthy." 

That last one makes me want to crawl into a hole and cry, because in all of my endeavors to lose weight and be permanently healthy, I've never asked God to give me the desire. I've never asked Him to change my thought process, my heart, my cravings, any of it! This is the part where being brutally honest stings a lot, but it's true. As a Christian, it's easy to quote the verses about taking care of your body and doing all the right things, but honestly coming before my Lord and Savior and admitting failure, asking for forgiveness, and asking for help is one of the hardest things to do... and I'm ashamed that I haven't done it. I know I can't ever make this permanent change in my life unless I ask God to help me, and unless I wholly devote myself to yearning after Him more than I yearn after food and the earthly comfort that it brings.

In view of this reality, I'm not going to hold my sponsors to their pledges to my weight loss. I desire the "want to" to make this lifestyle change, but I know it's going to take a lot longer than just a couple of months. I don't want to hold myself to a time pressured number change - I want to hold myself to a lifelong heart and mind change. When I've reached my weight goal (whenever that may be), I will personally send my own pledge for every pound I've lost to FMSC; however, I'm not going to ask my sponsors to wait that long, because I honestly don't know how long that will be.

I am going to re-read this book, slowly, one chapter per week. I want to spend time soaking in all aspects of this journey and everything that is required of me to succeed. I am going to try to blog at the end of each week. This will take me to the middle of August. I will continue to weigh myself weekly, but I'm going to keep track of this privately. At the end of my study of this book, I will post stats of where I'm at physically; but, I don't want this journey to be a focus on the physical. While I will hopefully see changes in my physical self, I want to focus more on the spiritual changes that are going to take place. These are much more important.

What I need from you, my readers, is prayer. Prayer that I will earnestly and continuously ask my Savior to come alongside me in this journey and change me in more ways than I could ever change myself on my own accord. Prayer that I will pray to Him without ceasing - on the bad days AND the good days. Prayer that I will humbly sacrifice anything and everything for His glory and for the work that He will do in my life.

Journey to a healthier me, take two! ten!