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.