flings and thorns

I remember watching this movie Outsourced, and there is a subplot where the main guy sleeps with a girl who is betrothed. She says that many of her married friends had a "holiday in Goa" (a fling) before their nuptials. Well, I've just finished my Holiday affair with carbohydrates... It's been at least a month since I tracked, and SHOCKER, I've put back all the weight I lost on WW plus some. I use the term "affair" because I willfully overate and made poor food choices. I stared sin in its chocolatey face and said "Get in my belly!" I failed the test, multiple times and it's showing on the scale. This sinfest comes at an interesting time, when I'm dealing with a friend who has chosen to pursue a lifestyle of sin. This friend loves Jesus, but has decided that their struggle is not against sin, but against their identity. And since it's "not healthy to struggle against who you are", my friend has decided to pursue how they believe they were made. Genetically, I have a predisposition to diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. My genes *make* me struggle with food addiction... But my genes don't make me fat. Eating a bag of kettle corn and sitting on my ass make me fat. I'm not here to argue about the nature of sin, but I believe that we are made in God's image. Anything that is in us that is not of God (sin), is a result of the Fall. Yes, we may be born with specific struggles, thorns in our sides, but those should not define us. What defines us is the grace we receive when we fall into the traps set by our human nature. But the danger comes in looking at the thorn and saying "You've been here as long as I can remember, so you must belong." This is simply not true, and I personally can't wait to have my thorn(s) removed!

more beautiful

On the way to work today, I find myself   listening to the song "more beautiful you". I am struck by the line "there could never be a more beautiful you" because I immediately object. A thinner me would be more beautiful... Or would she? That's certainly not the reason I am called to this journey. God wants more for me in this life and my weight is in the way.. Losing weight does not make me more beautiful. I am beautiful because of what I do, not what I look like. I think the only way to be more beautiful is to be more like Jesus... and that's way harder than getting on the treadmill.

helpless

Right now I feel pretty helpless about this whole weight loss thing. I joined WW two weeks ago, and I've actually gained weight... But I don't think it is related to WW. It's more that things have been stressful at work AND home, and changes in my meds are having negative side effects. For example, I've been having mood swings and a strong desire to medicate with food when I swing low (ex: right now I want nothing more than to cry into a burrito).  Some days are better than others, but nights are pretty much always bad for a different reason. The medicine that helps me sleep also turns me into a carb zombie, and I stumble into the kitchen to consume cereal and sandwiches galore... and I am only partially conscious. The next morning I wake up and see the destruction, and I get so mad that any good day on WW is ruined by my nighttime binges!!  I emailed my doctor and he suggested some changes to the time I take my medicine, but I think something bigger needs to happen before I run my car off the road into a pizza shop, with my mouth wide open.

mileage

It's been approximately 18 days since Easter, and last time I checked, I had gained back 4 lbs... So much for breaking my patterns of unhealthy eating! Looking back on the Daniel fast, I think the major thing I learned is that I live to eat, not vice versa. When I was eating a seriously restricted diet, eating was not all that enjoyable, so I only did it when I was hungry... you know, like we're supposed to. After Easter, I thought that maybe I could keep that going but continuing to abstain from certain food groups. But somehow the spell of the fast had been broken, and every forbidden food found its way in. I stopped tracking when I was on the fast, and I have done MFP maybe twice since it ended. I am still not sure if that app is the way to go, but I am thinking about weight watchers. I feel like the points program would be better than just calorie counting. Maybe I can get my mom to go with me. I've also found an interesting parallel between my driving and eating habits. Recently I have been using a hybrid car that gives me a running estimate of my mpg. I like to keep it above 60 mpg, but sometimes that means going slower than I want to. So often I end up choosing speed over mileage, thinking "Oh, I'll make it up later by driving more conservatively". I'm the same way with eating. I want to be healthier, but sometimes that means saying "no" to food and "yes" to exercise. Yet, I often find myself saying "I'll eat _____ now and make it up with exercise [later/tomorrow]." And I almost NEVER follow through. So I end up with too many calories in and not enough burned, and that affects my mpg. Lastly, I'm realizing that my goals are too vague. Most people have a goal weight or size, but I have a hard time with that because those numbers don't convey what I can do. I want to have a fitness goal (e.g. running a marathon) that I can train for. But I don't want to run a marathon, biking hurts my knees, and I can't swim well. So that leaves... hiking? Maybe I can train to climb a mountain...

daniel

“Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” Daniel 1:12

Daniel was a captive in Babylon, chosen by a chief official to enter the Babylonian court and learn the culture. However, he did not conform to the ways of the Babylonians. The Bible says he ate a very strict diet, and was no worse for the wear. In fact, he was healthier than many of his peers. God blessed his commitment to purity with increased wisdom and favor with the King. He interpreted dreams and visions, and also advised the King on matters of state. In short, he was a VIP, even later on when he was thrown in the lions' den (and totally came out alive!).

Well, I'm not Daniel in any kind of way, but I hopped on board when C+M decided to do a cumulative Daniel fast (DF) for Lent. I've never been very good at Lent, fasting, or self-discipline in general. But my church is doing a training series on spiritual disciplines, and I felt like the DF fit in pretty well. I really got confirmation of that when a visiting pastor from Romania spoke on fasting and specifically mentioned the Daniel fast. He also prayed for me over my food addiction!

When I say cumulative DF, I mean that we have given up the food groups progressively, going full DF for the last three weeks of Lent (almost done with week one!). First we gave up sweeteners, added sugar and all drinks but water; second was meat; third was dairy and eggs. The main difference of the full fast was giving up yeast, which is in a LOT of foods (reading labels is A CHORE). Thank goodness for the Passover section at the grocery store!

I wanted to blog about this experience because I don't think I really knew what I was getting into when I agreed to do this. I had this vague sense that somehow the DF could help me break my food addiction and maybe raise awareness about my problem areas. I know that only God can break those chains, but I feel that they have loosened quite a bit. Because it is difficult to find things I can eat, I tend to only go looking for food WHEN I AM HUNGRY. Which turns out to be the way we're supposed to eat! And when I do eat, it's not cereal or cookies or other crap. It's vegetables, whole grains, nuts, or fruit... which turn out to be actually pretty satisfying. I get hungry more often, but it makes sense because I'm not eating a ton of protein.

One of the things I decided not to do while on the DF is track. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but I was getting more and more disillusioned with MFP anyway. The app is not teaching me how to eat better. It's just making me feel guilty when I go over my calorie limit. I agree that having community support is good, but I don't know if the detailed calorie by calorie tracking is helpful for me. Especially when I randomly decide not to track so I can eat whatever I want and escape guilt. I can't be held accountable if I'm not being honest!

Even though I am not tracking, I have lost almost five lbs since the DF began, so at least I know I'm not gaining. However, this whole thing is not about losing weight so much as changing my habits and learning discipline. Awhile ago I posted about trouble foods that are simply not worth tasting for me. For me, they are like whiskey to an alcoholic's lips. It is better to avoid them altogether than to try and consume them in moderation. On the DF, I have eliminated pretty much every food that would cause me to do that. I used to think peanut butter was one of those foods, but natural unsweetened peanut butter is pretty hard to pile drive. It's good on a banana, but not straight from the jar like Jif Super Chunk.

You're probably thinking "That's all well and good, but what happens on Easter?" To be honest, I don't know and I actually kind of fear that. I know my eating habits will not be the same, but I am still trying to figure out how. Do I want to add every food group back? Or are there some I should just leave behind permanently? Should I start tracking again or try something else?

We'll see what happens, but for right now, it's working well.

further on down the road

A half-empty jar of Nutella, a scraped out hole in frozen peanut butter, a sink full of dishes, a trashcan littered with candy wrappers: these are the hallmarks of being home alone.

A gym membership card untouched, a food diary with no entries: these are signs of giving up.

The other day, a friend chastised me for eating something I probably didn't even want, and I responded with "What does it matter? I'm going to gain the weight back anyway!"

Deep down, I still believe this. I don't have true freedom from overeating. Some days I envy people with other addictions. People who can go through withdrawal and WALK AWAY from the habit, avoid situations where it will confront them. But repeatedly each day I am forced to face my addiction, and more of than not, I give in to it.

I once said that burning off my tastebuds would probably be a positive choice for me. Isn't that just a twist on Mark 9:43? Apparently that is not even an elective surgery... though some bloggers mentioned coating the tongue in orajel...

Sometimes at church I think about getting prayer for freedom from this. But something always holds me back. I don't know if I feel weird talking about it, or if I'm afraid of the freedom, or if I am just plain lazy.

But I'm headed in the wrong direction.

realism

So, I finally lowered my expectations regarding weight loss goals... at least on MFP. The app has this goal setter that allows you to choose how much weight you want to lose per week. Naturally, I set it to the highest it would go: -2 lbs per week, because I thought my body could handle it.

Truth is, my body totally could handle eating 1800 calories a day. If I ate all the right things, I would not starve or even be hungry much. BUT I'm not doing that. I'm eating fairly healthy things in large portions, and occasionally stuffing my face with junk. I thought I could keep myself accountable by entering everything I ate. When I reached my daily calorie limit, I rolled eaten calories over onto the next day, hoping to make up the difference with exercise/restricted eating. The reality? I've been going into each day with a decreasing number of calories, because of the debt that is accumulating. The exercise makes me hungry, and I end up eating more calories.

It's a vicious cycle, as you can see. So what can I do? For starters, I told MFP I want to lose 1 lb per week. My new calorie limit seems more manageable. And I have decided that I will not enter any exercise I do, so I will not receive "extra calories". Instead, all of that will go into the deficit bank, which will hopefully translate to weight loss.

What are your thoughts on these lowered expectations? Am I just giving in to my own desires? Or am I being realistic?

PS: I contacted the dance team regarding their invitation... We'll see!