Three Times Down

A light bulb went off on Sunday ...

Three times in my adult life I have been at a weight that is considered healthy. (Yes, this is another post about me and weight, but it's also about God so please stick around).

The first time was in 1995 after my mother passed away. It was a difficult year for many reasons and I escaped some of them by throwing myself whole heartedly into NutriSystems and packaged food. I lost my desired weight, felt great, quit, and within a year was back to my original weight. I had learned nothing.

The second time was in 2000. I joined an online weight loss program developed by Laurel Mellin. The basic theory behind her work is that everyone knows that they need to eat less and move more, but we don't do that because of long held faulty beliefs about ourselves and life. We have unreasonable expectations about ourselves and others, and we turn to food for comfort instead of feeling uncomfortable feelings. At the time it was called The Solution, but now it goes by the name of EBT (Emotional Brain Training). It was a messy emotional time for me as I slogged my way through the sludge and faced some pretty tough things. I honestly believe I would not be where I am today were it not for the work I did in that program. I lost weight and felt much better in general, but soon enough life got the better of me and slowly I gained the weight back. I had learned a lot about myself and how to have reasonable expectations but couldn't hold on to it for long.

In 2010 I joined a training studio and met the trainer I've mentioned before. I worked my butt off for two years and lost the weight again, but he pushed some buttons that I would rather he would not push, and I left. I learned some more about food choices and a lot about proper form for weight lifting, but still something was missing. This is also the time that my injury forced me to stop running and within a year I had regained almost all of the weight I had lost.

Three times my weight has been down, and two times it has come back up. 

At first I focused on food, but with the packaged food I learned nothing. Then I learned about how the bad thoughts in my brain affect all of my choices, but I couldn't turn that into lasting change. Then I learned about exercise, but without consistently making good food choices and still sometimes listening to the bad voices in my head, all I was doing was beating myself up.

In the nearly twenty years since I began this project I have learned a lot about diet and exercise. I have read many books about how the brain works and how to change habits that are detrimental to my well being. But on my own I didn't have to power to keep all three things going at once.

God is the power.

I've said many times in the past twenty years that I think I have to do this on my own, but I am not capable of doing this on my own. It never made any sense to me but that's how I felt. Now, however, it does make sense. 

I have to make the healthy choices in my life on my own by relying on God's strength to support me.

How many times have I read it on the back of running shirts at half marathons? 

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

I am now quoting scripture. Who would have thought? But I get it now. It's not just a slogan on a shirt it is the way to get through things that  you can't do on your own. 

Three times down? The fourth time's a charm.

Random Thoughts

• I often turn to books to help me work through situations. The swirling cyclone that is my brain calms down the moment I pick up a new book. I am interested in what other people have to say about what I'm experiencing, how they have gotten through, and what techniques I can learn from them to help me navigate my life. As I was coming home from the book store last week I thought about this, and wondered if and when I will ever turn to the Bible during times of trouble. It seems so natural for me to go to the words of other people. What would it be like to go to God's word instead? I'm not ready to make that an official "what would it be like?" question and actually see what it would be like, but I feel certain it is on the horizon.

• So far I am keeping my promise to eat whole healthy foods in appropriate amounts and to eat only when I am hungry. This is a simple thing that has never been easy for me. I see my years of studying nutrition and attempting to eat this way as training for this moment. There are no doubts in my mind about what I should eat, and that makes this easier, but by no means easy. I miss chocolate.

• My daughter joined me in April for a month of not drinking alcohol. It was her birthday present to me, a show of solidarity, support, and love. She has successfully navigated two birthday parties, one of which lasted the whole weekend, and a couple of other social gatherings. It doesn't seem to bother her as much as it did me when I started. She says that all she does is think about me doing this for a year, and it doesn't seem like such a big deal to quit for a month. She's wrong about that. It is a big deal and it's nice to have the company. She is also happy not to be spending the money on alcohol when she goes out - definitely a bonus.

• The woman that I modeled my year of no alcohol after finished up her year last December. I asked her what it was like drinking again, and her reply was my biggest fear. Nothing changed. She went back to using alcohol as a de-stressor, and having 2 or 3 glasses of wine most nights. That was accompanied by bad food choices which led right into feeling like crap. Abstinence is easier than moderation. I have eight more months to figure out how to get to a place where I can practice moderation around alcohol. I am not interested in making this a LONA (Life of No Alcohol).

Put It Down

I've made a hundred or more promises to myself and to others to change the way I eat. There is no lack of knowledge on my part as to what that should be, either how much or in what proportions. Time and time again I've said "this is the time" and time and time again I have failed to maintain any dietary changes.

So what makes my commitment to not drinking alcohol different? How is it that I can go from nightly glasses of wine and weekly over indulgence to not a drop in four months?

I promised God I would stop drinking for a year. That's the difference. You can read about that here if you missed it.

Last week I started a book called Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst. I could probably highlight the whole book, circling dozens of sentences with notes saying "that's me". It's making me uncomfortable, which is how I know that it is important stuff for me to recognize. 

So yesterday as I sat in the hot tub - you know where this is going, right? - I was thinking about the book and food and alcohol. I "know" that I have to change the way I eat but I am unwilling to do it. I was thinking about this unwillingness, and I realized that in order to fully commit to eating healthy I have to promise God that I will do it. I am resisting that because I know once I commit to God I have no other choice but to comply and that's scary. I've done so much work around my food choices and I've given up alcohol, why isn't that enough? Why do I have to give up chocolate and bread and pasta too?

"Put it down, Ginny. Put it all down."

Words from you-know-who popped into my head.

I pictured myself as a little girl clutching onto the things that she thinks will make her happy. Arms loaded with worthless goods as the riches of heaven await. (I can't believe I just typed that sentence.) I see God holding out his hand, waiting for me to make the decision to choose life with him over a life of empty, ultimately unfulfilling promises. Food satisfies my body but doesn't satisfy my soul.

The problem is that even though I know that food has never given me what I hope for, it is comforting. Although the satisfaction may be short lived, it is real and immediate. It is not so with God, or at least it hasn't been so far. It would be so much easier if I had something to think back on, some time in my life when my pain was eased by turning to God. For that to have happened I would have had to turn to him, which I haven't.

So this involves another leap of faith. 

In my relationship with God the past few months I have turned to him in praise, thanking him for things that have happened or for the flowers or a gorgeous sunrise. "Thank you" is easy; it doesn't require faith. "Please" is harder and more intimate. I don't want to be disappointed. I am afraid that he won't come through for me when the going gets tough. 

Can you see me clutching things closer to my chest and stomping my feet? 

All night long I pictured God's hand reaching out to me. Even as I ate that bowl of ice cream and chased it with a couple of miniature Reese's Cups I felt his watchful, and hopeful, eye on me. There was no condemnation of my actions; it was the loving gaze of a parent waiting for their child to make the right choice. "Soon" I silently said. "Not yet."

This afternoon I received in the mail the results of a physical I took a couple of weeks ago. My cholesterol is higher than it has ever been, with a particularly high triglyceride level. My spiritual nudging is followed by physical proof of my need to change my eating habits.

And so.

I will put it down. I will put it all down and take God's hand. I will turn to him instead of to food when I am happy or sad or stressful or tired.  I will make the choices I know are right for my body, and I will ask for his help when those choices don't come easily. 

This, my friends, is my surrender.

Restless

I'm restless. And bored. 

I have two posts in draft form that I started but couldn't complete. I have a number of books that I wanted to read, but now I find I only want to want to read them. I can't find a movie to watch or music to listen to. I want to work in the garden but not quite.

I feel like I am waiting for something to happen.

One part of my brain tells me that I should make something happen for myself. Another part tells me that I need to be still because I am, in fact, waiting for something that can only be found when I am still. More evidence that it is complicated being me.

I've had the house to myself for two days. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how many times it has crossed my mind that this is what it will be like every day once my daughter moves out and my husband dies. Who thinks that way? 

And yet isn't that how you decide what it is you want to do? Sure, I have to take into consideration how my actions will affect my family, but really when you come right down to it, this is my life and I have to be the one making it up as I go. It's just me, or just me and God if I'm going to go there, and no one else.

One life. We get one life. Am I going big or am I going home? Is going big what I want? Is it necessary? Is it fun? What would "going big" look like for me? Do I want to spend the rest of my days wandering around my house wondering what to do next? 

I feel the urge to jump but I know not where or into what.

The other thing that keeps crossing my mind is that this is what my father must feel like every single day. He is alone for days on end, especially when the weather is bad. He has trouble sleeping. Days and nights must go on forever. 

I'd be drinking now if that were something I still did. Drinking dulls the buzz in my head and makes it easier not to think about the future or what I want or what life is going to look like in the years to come. My father starts to drink in the early afternoon and I'm not saying that is why he is alone and lonely at 78 but the older he gets the more he drinks and the more alone he becomes.

Just now I was reminded of a song. I looked up the lyrics to make sure I was going to quote them correctly and ended up watching a video of the band performing it instead. Come to find out I've had the lyrics wrong. The song is Dare You to Move by Switchfoot and all this time I thought the chorus said "Dare you to move like today never happened." I have always thought that this song was about picking yourself up after a terrible day and dusting yourself off, rubbing some dirt in it, and moving on. Turns out I have been missing the last word. 

Before. 

Like today never happened BEFORE.

That is part of what has me so restless, one day has been bleeding into the next and I haven't been treating each day like it is a new day. They've all been reruns of days past. These lyrics somehow completely escaped me:

The tension is here
Tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

I am feeling that tension, but I've been calling it restlessness. Boredom. I guess that is what I am waiting for, what I'm being still to listen for, the whisper of where I am going next.

Here's a link to the song if you'd like to take a listen: Dare You to Move