loss

My eyes rimmed red from crying
I did not expect your death
I thought you'd be here in the spring
Taking that first breath

Instead you went from mother's womb
Straight to the Father's hands
He brought you home and held you close
We never got the chance

You'll never know the pain or joy
of living here with us
Instead you'll worship endlessly
the King so glorious

We wish you could be here with us
to hold and love, yet still
we are content to wait on God
and meet you when He wills.

12/21/2011

On Wednesday my niece was stillborn at 20 weeks. I wrote the above poem as a way to process. The first stanza is where I am, and the last is where I want to be. I want to smile at the thought of her safe with Jesus, rather than mourn the fact she is not here. I want to say her name with a smile, not a leaden heart. But I'm not there yet. I crave a cry I've never heard, from a child who wasn't even mine! I feel like I have no right to these emotions, but here they are, raw and deep.

The emotions aren't the only thing I don't think I'm entitled to, but have nonetheless. Another one is comfort food. It is everywhere anyway because of the season, and the voice that says "Not worth it!" is now drowned out by "YOU'RE GRIEVING! It's okay."

It doesn't help that this practice is more or less socially accepted. On Wednesday night, I was caught by a friend with my hand in the cookie jar figuratively and literally. She knew what I was feeling, and all I had to say was "I'm medicating" for her to ignore the sugar binge. Then I said "One day I won't need this anymore, but for today it works."

This statement is still resonating days later. When is my one day going to be? When Jesus comes back and says "I'm here. Put the cookie down!" When I run out of reasons to medicate? When I run out of food?

The answer is none of these. My one day is when I DECIDE to stop and call on God for help, when I choose a healthy me over a temporarily satisfied me, when I listen for the Voice of life over the conniving whispers of the enemy.

the trials of tracking

I never thought I would say this, but I feel like tracking sometimes actually makes me eat more than I would in certain situations. I have this weird aversion to leaving calories uneaten... like I am somehow depriving myself if I don't consume them, even if I'm truly not hungry. I need to find a way to reframe this in my mind so that I don't eat when I am not hungry regardless of my calorie balance. I also find myself eating more fat than I would if I weren't tracking, because I look for the calories and sometimes forget to look at that number. This is probably why WW is better, but MFP is free...

In talking with my mentor, I've come to the conclusion that my ultimate goal should not be a number but rather emancipation from numbers. Eventually, I would like to be able to know naturally what I should/should not eat, and listen to the Lord's leadings for those "permissible but not necessarily beneficial" foods. I don't want to count calories forever! But right now I *need* to take note of the excesses (carb/sugar/sodium/fat) and deficits (protein/vegetable) so I can begin to adopt better eating habits. I also need to learn to be accountable for the things I eat by exercising to compensate for overages. There are no freebies. Yet I need to remember that I can't do this on my own and that to walk (sometimes literally) in shame and regret is not helpful. With the consequences also comes grace if I am willing to accept it.

Please pray that God's still small voice would begin to speak louder than the cravings or inklings that I "deserve" certain treats, especially in cases where I technically have enough calories to eat them!

snow pass

When I rolled out of bed at almost noon, I was surprised to see a soft blanket of snow on the ground. I had heard the forecast but somehow it still took my breath away to see so much white. Even when the power went out, it was still bright in the house from all the reflected light.

I wish I could say that I proceeded to have a lovely healthy day in which I kept on track and even burned some calories shoveling snow... but that would be LIES. What I actually did was interpret the power outage & uncharged iPod as a Hall Pass to eat whatever I wanted. If you can't enter it on MFP, it doesn't count... right?

Wrong. The power is back now and my insides are gurgling from the binge. I thought about just not entering my intake... but I logged it anyway, just to see how bad it was-- a 2500+ calorie overage! WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Actually, I guess I know the answer. I was thinking "I can have this because I want it" and "I will fix this tomorrow" and "But it's so delicious, I can have more". But all these things are false. For example, what if I walked up to someone's husband and kissed them because I wanted to. SIN. What if I stole from a store because I didn't have the money to pay today, with the intention of paying them back when I did. SIN. What if I liked the feeling I got from a prescription pain-killer, so I started taking it even when I wasn't in pain. SIN.

Food-related transgressions are not often called by what they are: SIN. I've been thinking about this in context of Christian community. How many plump parishioners, stout singers, and portly preachers fill the chairs of churches? Do you say anything to them (me) about indulgence? No. Maybe you think you shouldn't because their (my) sin is more visible than yours. It's not fair that you know what they (I) struggle with when they (I) don't know your vices. So you should pretend that you don't know, to level the playing field.

What?! Whose idea was that?! While it's true that a person with a plank in his/her eye shouldn't try to help someone else get a sliver out of theirs... putting on sunglasses and pretending everything is F-I-N-E is not any better!

And you know what? If someone knows what I struggle with and loves me & Jesus, then they should hold me accountable. If I know what they struggle with, you better believe I will exhort them, because I LOVE them (and I like telling people what to do).

Being this way, having this relationship with food is not healthy or right. It is sin and it needs to go.

reset button

When my food tracker rolls over to the next day and my calorie credit resets, it's tempting to think that the choices from the previous day are washed away, including the 1000 calorie cracker/cheese/jam binge. But that is really just playing the "out of sight, out of mind" game. The truth will show up on weigh-in day.

I wish I could say that binges are a thing of the past, that they won't happen ever again. But in reality, I had one yesterday, and I will probably struggle with that temptation for the rest of life. However, I think that honest recording can help me to bounce back.

I don't have any trouble recording exercise in my food diary, and then consuming every extra calorie I earn. I just wish MFP would keep a rolling balance: if I go over my calorie limit any day, I carry that debt until I exercise it away. If every earned calorie was applied to outstanding calorie balances from previous days, I might stop taking three steps forward and two steps back.

Since MFP doesn't have this feature, I'm going to try doing it my own way. Every bit of exercise I do will be entered on Sunday until that debt is paid off. Here's hoping it works!

guilt free

So, church was amazing today. During worship I felt really light and free. It took me a minute to figure out what was different. Guess what it was? The guilt is GONE!

Today is day five of a new part of this journey. My brother texted me on Tuesday to invite me to join him in tracking our weightloss journeys on myfitnesspal.com. I already had an account from a previous attempt, so within minutes I was onboard, logging my calories, exercise, and weight.

I can't even explain the difference in just five days. Don't get me wrong- I haven't lost like 5 pounds or anything. The change is my attitude! The simple act of keeping track has thrown open the doors and invited me to enjoy food again. I don't feel guilt for what I eat, but I do PAY ATTENTION. If it's not worth the calories, I don't eat it! It's not rocket science, I know, but it is a major breakthrough nonetheless. Setting limits gives me freedom! Now where have I heard that principle before...?

I also watched Tangled last night for the first time, and was struck by the King waiting for his long lost daughter for EIGHTEEN years, sending multitudes of brilliant sky lanterns out each year on her birthday in the hopes that they would guide her home. Realizing that this is how God feels about ME almost brought me to tears. He so desperately wants me to leave these chains of addiction behind and run to Him!

This is the first Sunday in a long time where I have felt unchained. I stood with my heart lifted as the worship washed over me, with nothing held back from my Savior.

sweets & magic numbers

So I made a bet with a friend that I could give up sweets if she could give up chips for one month. This occurred after I ate two cupcakes AND two pieces of pizza in a span of maybe 30 minutes... I agreed to the bet without much thought, because I don't think of myself as a major sweets-eater.

Boy, was I wrong! I am realizing that I crave sweets... After every meal, after eating something salty, I start to think about sweet things. It's not necessarily chocolate or cupcakes, but anything that hits that taste sense! It could even be PB&J (PB is a whole other category of craving... let's just say it is *banned* from this house). Luckily, we have a lot of fruit and yogurt, which are exempt from my sweets restriction. Nonetheless, I did stare at a jar of jam for a good five minutes tonight, debating where it would fall on the food pyramid. I said "If it has High Fructose Corn Syrup (HCFS) in in, it counts as sugar and I will not have any." I looked at the label, and sure enough: the second ingredient was HCFS. Come on, Smuckers! Throw me a bone! I will admit, though, I took a little taste anyway... I think maybe it fermented during the hurricane power outage.

It's interesting that this bet is coming after I publicly declared I would lose 10% of my body weight by December 15. A few friends committed to attempt the same. So far, we've all said "LET'S DO IT!" but I'm not sure how many of us have actually started to do anything. I did a bit more exercise this week than I have been doing (certainly not the three miles every morning I USED to do), and also I have tried to start playing Just Dance 2 every day on the Wii (great arm workout!). But my eating... still just as disordered.

Maybe that's what led me to watch an episode of My (Extra)ordinary Family on ABC, featuring people who have food issues: anorexics as well as overeaters. It was interesting how interrelated these two conditions were when you really look at them. Control and fear play major parts. However, the thing that struck me most was the treatment for these folks: a 12 Step program similar to AA. So I wondered what those twelve steps might be. Overeaters Anonymous uses this list:
---

1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

---
Umm, wow! Talk about serious, deep stuff. So deep that I am stepping back to think: how much do I want this? Magic numbers are so much easier-- ten percent of my weight, a size twelve (which will take MUCH more than a 10% loss, incidentally), a BMI that ranks me as JUST overweight and not any other horrifying term (morbidly what??). BUT who am I kidding? There is nothing magic about numbers. Reaching any of those goals won't make me happy or satisfied. BUT falling into His arms, as described by the 12 magic-free steps above, just might finally stop the craving.

the pitfalls of comparison

Yesterday I played Just Dance 2, a Wii game introduced to me by my sister-in-law. It's really fun and a good workout. However, towards the end of song 3, my knee started to hurt and feel shaky. I stopped because I didn't want to do any damage.

So today I'm standing in front of my closet thinking about my knee, which is still hurting a fair amount. I started thinking about a coworker who is my height but about 50-60lbs heavier and 4 years older. I said to myself "She doesn't have pain, why do I?!" 

Then it hit me- am I really not taking this journey seriously because I am still better off than someone else? Maybe she doesn't have pain (as far as I know) but that has nothing to do with ME!

God knows my body intimately. He knows what parts of me are suffering the most under this weight, even those that have hitherto remained silent. He cares about MY health and desperately wants me to change my habits before something happens and I can't! I don't even want to think about what would happen if I could no longer exercise!

I think He allowed my knee to get sore because my back problems weren't getting my attention. My lumbar has given me trouble for the last five years, but only intermittently. In the last month the sensitivity has become constant. It doesn't ache necessarily but I have to be very careful about how I move.

So this is it: the point where I stop comparing myself and making excuses. God knows what is best for my body and 295 lbs is NOT it.

wagons and ladders

I am continually canonballing off the wagon these days. Each time I hit the chocolatey dirt, sink into the muffinous moss, or swim in the sugary sea, I lay there a little longer. I lounge in the post-binge haze until something alerts me- an unexpected reflection of the double chin, a slightly tighter pair of pants, an alarming number on the scale. I huff and puff and pull myself up, and begin crawling, staggering towards the wagon. But each time it seems a little farther away, and the journey more laborious.

A friend mentioned a book called Made to Crave, and I started to read it... three weeks ago. Until the part where she mentioned finding your "want-to". I probably read a few pages beyond that but I remember thinking "Hmm... I don't have a want to, really. Other than I don't want to literally suffocate to death in my own body." Then I stopped reading.

But now I am wondering if maybe that should be my want-to in and of itself. Maybe I should put pictures of my obese relatives on my fridge/cabinets/wallet to remind me that everything I put in my mouth is a step towards a healthier (happier?) future... or away from it.

My aunt is so heavy now that she can't sleep comfortably and is always fatigued. My uncle is slowly dying from congestive heart failure and insulin-dependent diabetes. My father used to be headed that way too, until bariatric surgery. But there is no easy way out- now he struggles with malnutrition, anemia, kidney stones, and a very restricted diet. And his relationship with food is still very disordered...

I hope this is my want-to. I need it to be my want-to because I can't think of anything else!

don't even go there

So lately I've been struggling with the idea of "everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial". I have mentioned a strategy in which I substitute the phrase "I can eat X if I do Y exercise" for the phrase "I can have this treat because..." However, I'm beginning to wonder if that strategy doesn't work well for people dealing with food addiction.

 Some foods are a road well traveled for me, that always ends in a serious overindulgence. Most cereals, baked goods, and salty snack foods fall into this category. Eating one little bit starts a chain reaction in which I find myself unable to eat only a single portion UNLESS it is individually packaged (who knew cellophane was a psychological forcefield?). But buying individually packaged snacks is super expensive and portioning into snack-size ziplocs is NOT the same. Somehow that zipper doesn't deter me one bit... maybe because it's resealable?

I used to think it was normal to have certain foods that I just can't control myself around, and anyone who puts those foods in my path is sabotaging me... But that takes the power out of MY hands, when in reality it is my HANDS that are doing the sabotaging by reaching for that cookie, chip, etc.

So now I'm leaning more toward just avoiding these "trigger" foods. It's not like they're a vital part of the food pyramid (though I hear now it's shaped like a plate...). Having one sweet/salty treat at a party may one day become an option, but for now it's an invitation to sin, so I'm going to say to myself "don't even go there!"

the Bride

I have a secret for you. Are you ready?

I think about... weddings.

Yep, that's my secret: I think about something that many normal girls think about. It's a secret because I make a big show of acting like I don't think about it, like I don't care about that stuff. I enjoy going to weddings and talking about other people's weddings, but I make sure people know I NEVER think about what it would be like to have my own... LIES.

One of the biblical metaphors for Christ & the church is marriage. The church is the Bride, who misbehaves a lot but is still loved by the groom, Christ. This analogy tends to make me a bit misty-eyed, because it makes me think of weddings and my own past. I think about what it would be like to be that Bride, in the flesh, broken but loved anyway. However, I know that extending the analogy to cast a human husband as Christ is dangerous ground; no man can or should fill that role.

I don't remember the first time I heard about women becoming nuns by partaking in an actual marriage service where they make vows to Jesus. I researched it a little and watched a clip of one such ceremony and it made me so happy to see the joy on the faces of these women. They are marrying the One they love, committing to a life of serving Him. I am jealous in a way. I don't necessarily agree with all the accompanying dogma, but I am drawn to the thought of marrying Jesus and living in community with others who have done the same. What freedom!

conviction

I feel like my conviction has kind of fled. I've been indulging quite a bit these past few days, and have felt little to no inkling of guilt. I know that guilt is not the same as conviction, but usually I get a little guilt before conviction swoops in.

So I'm a little worried that I'm not feeling either. Like maybe the Holy Spirit knows He is being ignored and so He's not wasting His breath. That scares me.

exceptions

I hate the self-talk that says "You can eat that because ______." I need to retrain it to say "You can eat that if _______."

BEFORE
Scene: a birthday party, burgers, chips, cookies, etc
"I had two burgers and some chips. I want a cookie. I can have some because it's a special event and I never have cookies."

AFTER (God-willing)
Scene: see above
"I had a burger with lots of lettuce and some baby carrots. I want a cookie. I can have one if I join the people playing volleyball for at least one game."

Notice how I changed the self-talk and the portions. I'm ambitious like that.

Right now my excuse is that I am visiting friends out of state and the staples of their diet are pretty much my guilty pleasures... I'm in serious danger of "I can have that because"-ing my way into a seatbelt extender for the plane ride home!

insulation

Losing weight is actually kind of terrifying. It has taken me many years and at least one failed "relationship" to realize that being fat is safe. It insulates me in more ways than just thermally.

Being fat is an easy excuse for being single. With each pound I lose, I begin to notice my singleness a bit more. I start to think about other characteristics that could repel men, and the list is not short. The failed "relationship" I mentioned occurred at my highest weight and ended because of my personality. That can't exactly be remedied with a strict regimen of diet & exercise.

When I watch romantic comedies, I start to get a little hopeful, even a little envious, until the thought "That only happens to skinny people" pops up and realigns my thinking. It's okay that I don't have a Prince Charming because I'm fat.

So what happens when I reach my goal weight and I'm still single? How then do I justify it to myself and protect my self-esteem? At what point do I have to face the possibility that maybe it's the Crazy that makes men forget my phone number, magically get back together with an ex-girlfriend, or spontaneously move to Asia?

Here's the real kicker, though: my fear of being alone because I'm unlovable is only overshadowed by my fear of falling in love and having my heart shattered... again. So I have TWO emotional reasons to stay fat: to protect my self-image (sounds contradictory, doesn't it?) and to protect my heart from being vulnerable... to be insulated!

But that's not what He wants, so the journey continues.

sleeping in the light

We who walk the broken ground
Who stand and who fall down again
Who just want to live
And we who wander in a dream
Who look but can’t see through the night
Sleeping in the light
We wait for you who spoke the morning
~Sarah Reeves "awaken"

These lyrics have struck a chord with me recently. My church often talks about being "awake" and living intentionally... I don't feel like I have been doing that as of late.

I'm not sure when I started falling back into old habits: living passively, letting things happen rather than being active in my own life, giving in to addiction(s) with little to no fight. But here I am, 3AM on a Sunday morning, reviewing the events of Saturday with more than a little regret. I have been awake for just over twelve hours, which means I slept until... well, you do the math. I ate, napped, and meandered around on the internet for a LONG time, making less than stellar choices about what I put into my brain and stomach.

And now I know that *if* I make it to church in less than seven hours, it will be with a seriously reduced capacity to pay attention... something I have chided others for fairly recently (sorry for the hypocrisy, you know who you are).

What am I doing?! I'm sleeping in the light. I've been lulled into complacency and fallen asleep. It's happened so slowly that I didn't even notice it. But now I am missing the beautiful daylight and only yawning awake just as the darkness falls. And the darkness is filled with everything I've tried to put behind me.

Jesus, please come and wake me up again. Show me what I do not see, show me what I am doing through Your eyes. Take my hand and lead me back into the light. Come and get me.

in remembrance of Him

I attended a friend's church awhile back, and I remember keenly the pastor's apology to visitors, saying "This is not how we normally do things, but today's entire service will be communion." He then led us in a meditation on this sacrament. We had glasses of juice and bagels, and he encouraged us to really think about communion as a daily discipline. He asked "What if every time we ate and drank, we did so in remembrance of Him?"

That service stuck with me and I've often thought back on it. What if I thought of Him before every morsel? What if I pictured Him in the room with me, sitting at the table or standing over the sink, as the case may be... How would that change my behavior?

So often I think that no one sees me when I binge. Some people see the aftermath-- the dead soldiers of cookie boxes and pretzel bags, but few people have ever seen me in the act. Yet, there is One who always sees me, His name is El Roi. I want to know what He feels when He sees me engaging in this behavior.

Maybe that would change the way I feel...

death of [a permutation of] a dream

Proverbs 13:12 "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is the tree of life"

I've been pondering my addiction(s) today, as I've been feeling like they are getting the best of me. I confess that I've been thinking hopeless thoughts, musing that these thorns are more a part of me than the petals, that I haven't been winning the battle, that any ground I've gained is minuscule compared to what remains to be conquered.

But then He reminded me of an event that happened about a month ago...

[hold hope down
don't give it light
some things can't live
without the night]

First, some background:
In the past decade, I've had quite a few dreams that have burgeoned and then burst. This led me to a place where I did not dare to dream, assuming that my hopes would be dashed. It was not a terribly unhappy place-- low expectations yield high satisfaction. Yet, I was so guarded against hope that my life seemed to be on pause. I lived day to day with no thoughts of tomorrow.

Then an emotional breakthrough occurred, a little more than two years ago. God used circumstances and two very dear friends to guide me to my knees, and He broke my heart wide open. All the callouses that had formed to protect me from feeling began to be peeled away. And in the days that followed, He planted a seed in me. That seed was a dream-- a dream of being healthy to do the things He wanted me to, and also of being loved by someone for who I am, without fear. It was a spark that ignited my drive to get up and begin taking my life back. I started exercising and trying to spend more time with God by cutting out parts of my life that weren't healthy for me at that time.

But before long, I started shifting my newfound hope about love towards one particular person. I spent a lot of time daydreaming about him, and he became the reason for a lot of my seemingly "good" choices. Fast-forward to a month ago when we saw each other, and it became clear that the "dream" I had created was only a crayon representation of a Monet. I took the beautiful hope that God gave me and brought it down to my size, fit it into my life-box, and then had a meltdown when it didn't pan out. When that [permutation of a] dream died, so did my motivation to get healthy, spiritually and physically. Not surprisingly, I have seen an intense resurgence of my addiction(s) in the last four weeks.

Now that I'm seeing this, I have to make a choice. Do I give up and give in? Or do I choose to chase a dream that is unclear, but that I know is from God?

fasting

My church has called a fast today. Needless to say, I'm not thrilled about fasting because I love food! I haven't eaten since midnight, and I slept til roughly eleven... so true fasting hours so far come to a grand total of a little over three. Pathetic. I know that fasting is a discipline that is supposed to bring you closer to Christ by drawing you away from earthly things. For me it always becomes a battle of the wills. My stomach speaks louder than the holy spirit... pretty much always.
So why am I fasting? Maybe to prove something to myself? To be part of the in-group? Maybe... Notice that neither of these reasons point me to my Maker. But at the same time, I am being faithful to the exhortation of leadership.

The culmination of the fast will be a service tonight to seek breakthrough by pausing from our daily lives. I thought that it meant breakthrough for our church but now I'm wondering if maybe there is a breakthrough waiting for me... freedom from these chains of addiction I've gotten so used to slugging around. Maybe His voice is trying to breakthrough the static and I just need to press pause to hear Him.

Here's hoping...

begin at the beginning

I've been inspired by a friend to start writing down my struggle. I don't know if it will help anyone, but I think it will help me to get clarity.

Let me start by saying that I have an addictive personality and a serious lack of self-discipline. I could go into theories about what could have caused these traits in me, but the blame-game and resulting victim mentality are actually kind of counterproductive. So instead, I will just talk about where I am, rather than try to figure out how I got here.

Some of my vices are obvious, some not so obvious. I love food. I especially like salty and sweet carbohydrates. I tend to binge on things like cereal, crackers, pretzels, cookies. When I lived with roommates, I just didn't buy that stuff. Occasionally I would lust after other people's carbs, but generally I kept my hands to myself. Once I added exercise into the mix, I started losing weight, and it felt good.

BUT now I am back living at home in the land of free-flowing carbohydrates... and I can't get enough. I've tried begging my parents not to buy that stuff but they keep saying "You just need to have self-control." So far, that's not working. I still exercise, so the overall effect on my weight is not very noticeable, but it is creeping back slowly. It's only a matter of time. Eating back every calorie I burn (and more!) is not only pointless, it's dangerous. If I stay at this size, the physical activity that stands between me and Jabba-hood will eventually get too hard for my joints. Exercise alone is not enough.

So what do I do? How do I stare down that box of wheat thins and say "You Don't Own Me!" when I really feel like they do? When I open the cupboard and see those colorful containers, I have a bodily reaction similar to that of an alcoholic surveying assorted bottles of booze. Food is a drug to me.

The addiction in and of itself is a problem, but the greater issue is that it stands between me and what God wants for me. I know He has big plans for me, plans which require me to be healthy. Yet I feel powerless against food!

So, that's where I am. Sigh.