A Difficult Week

On the plus side, I didn't turn to alcohol when everything crashed down on me this week. And by everything I mean the weight of the words that run through my head when I am believing the voices that don't come from God.

How do I know these words didn't come from God? To begin with, I wasn't in the hot tub. If you're new to my blog you can read about my God in The Hot Tub conversations here, here, and here. Also, they were soul sucking words, words of discouragement and defeat, words of failure and fault. God doesn't speak that way. 

I know that.

But sometimes I don't believe that.

In the midst of the lies I believe that I am broken in such a way that I will never "get it", whatever the "it" is that makes grilled chicken and brown rice equal weight loss. I have been on a diet of basically that - lean protein and either brown rice or a sweet potato, or a protein shake and oatmeal - for six weeks. In the first week I lost 4 pounds. Since then I have bounced up and down the same two pounds over and over again. Admittedly, I have added some things on occasion, but those things account for less than 10% of my overall intake, and most of them have been what are generally considered healthy choices - mostly fruit, some bread, but yes, three or four non-alcoholic beers as well. And there was that serving of homemade rhubarb crumble with vanilla ice cream that I do not regret in the least.

My trainer has a chart on the wall of his studio that shows how many pounds his clients have lost since he opened in March of 2013. I looked at it yesterday and it was almost up to 1000 lbs. One thousand pounds, and not a single one of them is mine. I weigh now what I weighed when I first walked into his studio fifteen months ago. I lost some, then I gained some, then I settled right back where I started.

What is wrong with me? This is the main lie that has been running through my head this week, that there is something wrong with me because I haven't found the tools that will help me get healthy.

I'm also in pain again. The workouts with my trainer have taken their toll and my hip/leg/feet are just about back where they were when I quit the workouts before.

If you were telling me all this, I would say without a doubt that this trainer is not the trainer for you. 

And so I am quitting the workouts with him again. I'm off the Extreme Fat Loss food plan too. Maybe my body doesn't like protein shakes. Maybe it is resisting the lack of vegetables in the summer while they are so abundant. It's for sure my body does not like the workouts that I love so much. 

Nice to see you again Square One.

Halfway Point

A week and a day late with this post, but I passed the halfway point on June 6.

Not drinking is easier than I thought it would be. The anticipation of not drinking at events usually turns out to be worse than the experience of it. It's not such a big deal not to drink; I don't feel weird, and I haven't had but a few moments of feeling left out. 

There is still, however, a longing. A regret, almost, that I made this deal with myself. I am aware of how easily I could change my mind and have a drink. There is  nothing but myself keeping me from doing that. There is nothing but this "what would it be like to?" hanging over my head. I wonder, at times, what this is really all about.

Part of it, I think, is testing to see if I can trust myself to keep a promise to myself. I've been slippery in the past, making and then breaking dozens of promises to be healthier, eat better, drink less, sleep more. 

Six months is more than enough time to realize that I am not going to break this promise this time. Why oh why did I have to go with a whole year? Certainly six months of no drinking is a long enough time. The Half Year of No Alcohol (HYONA?) doesn't have quite the ring to it, but it would have served its purpose.

That's assuming I know what the purpose of this year is. 

Which I don't.

While it is true that I have a closer relationship to God now than I did six months ago, I can't see a solid connection between that and not drinking. It's not like I've prayed to God to help me not drink. It's also not like I've been severely tempted to drink and have turned to God instead.

Maybe it is as simple as this experiment of not drinking has merely been  a means of allowing a relationship to develop between me and God. All throughout the day I find myself turning to him more and more, and I don't know that if I hadn't taken alcohol out of the equation I would have even thought to do that. It is possible that if I had given up anything else - magazines, Spider Solitaire, that blasted 2048 game - and told myself that I would turn to God instead I would have ended up right where I am now. Maybe it was just the choice to make God a part of my life, and the thing that I gave up was meaningless.

I guess I'll never know.

But here I am, halfway through a Year of No Alcohol, wondering what the next six months will bring.

The Habit of Sadness

At work the other day there were donuts in the morning and cake in the afternoon. Old me on a diet would have used the excuse that these were for a celebration - two retirements - and therefore I was allowed to have some. More recent me may have resisted both the donuts and the cake, but it would have been a struggle and I would have been angry. Today's me didn't think twice about having either the donuts or the cake, but today's me was sad.

I couldn't finish the sentence "I feel sad because ..." but I recognized the feeling of sadness. Every thought that I tried to associate with the feeling didn't ring true. I didn't think I was being left out. I didn't think the donuts or cake would have tasted amazing. I didn't think that I would never again have the opportunity to have baked goods.

Undoubtedly I felt sad when I thought about the donuts and cake, but as I worked it over in my mind I slowly came to realize that feeling sad was merely a habit that I had developed.

Event X = Feeling Y

So now what? Good to know, certainly. Should I purposely conjure up the opposite feeling? I could make up new thoughts about how I am honoring myself and choosing good foods for my body, but that feels, at this moment, like so much blah blah blah.

I'm in a funk.

Even though I started this post days ago the funk has stayed with me. I've had a few moments out of it, but I am on a downhill slide. Or maybe I'm looking wistfully back at the mountain of weight behind me and wishing it were still about climbing that darn thing."Time to head north" sounded great, what was it? More than two weeks ago? I'm wandering aimlessly now, no longer hearing the voice of God. Is it time to hit the hot tub again?

More questions than answers. 

Here's how I picture myself. Head down, I'm watching one foot go in front of the other. I stop periodically to open a can of tuna fish and eat it without feeling - no joy or gratitude or awareness of making a "good" choice. I've had more than a couple difficult days where I feel hungry most of the time, and I am currently both hungry and nauseous. In the back of my mind I'm wondering if I'm nauseous because I'm hungry. This doesn't feel right.

This still feels like ignoring my body's hunger signals. It's not right when I ignore them and eat when I'm not hungry, and it isn't right when I ignore them and don't eat when I am hungry.

I've been here and I've done this before. I need to make different decisions but I don't trust myself to know what the right decisions are. 

Or is that just another habit? Not a habit of sadness but a habit of not trusting myself?

I exhaust myself.

In two days it will be the six month mark of my Year of No Alcohol. I miss it. It feels I am depriving myself for no good reason. The results I am seeing are not ones that I would have chosen. Nothing is clearer; I haven't made any huge leaps in my health or my weight. 

Hard, hard, hard. And yet ...

Onward. Ever onward.

A Can of Tuna Fish

This would have been an entirely different post if I had written it yesterday.

Yesterday I was full of hope, riding high on a little bit of weight loss, and a sense of a new beginning. Today, even though I spent the first part of the day in celebration with a group of women at church, today all I feel is hungry. I've been hungry all week.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

About eight days ago I met with my trainer Marcus and agreed to a six week, three time a week workout schedule with him. I also agreed to utilize some nutrition software that he had. The software had a number of different meal plans you could choose, so I thought I would see what some of them were all about before signing up for one. The first one I investigated was "Extreme Fat Loss" - bingo! That sounded perfect. I looked at the meals - basically it was a lean protein and either rice or potato for most meals, with protein shakes as snacks. No way, I thought. I hate protein shakes. Next!

Except there was no next. There was a glitch in the program that kept me from returning to the home screen and selecting another plan. I texted Marcus who told me to just give that one a try.

That's part one.

Part two is the book that I mentioned a few weeks back, Made to Crave. After reading it I felt ready to explore another option, another way of dealing with food. So against all of the voices in my head screaming "NOOOO!" I said "I can do that" and agreed to the food plan for six weeks.

The thing is, I've listened to those screaming voices for all of my life and what have they gotten me? They've gotten me into this struggle, into this fight I have with knowing what to eat and eating what I want. I have relied on my own "power" to force myself to eat things I don't like and to give up things I do like and have hated it almost every step of the way. 

This time - and this is why I haven't written in weeks, because I am afraid of making this next statement - this time I am approaching compliance to the food plan as obedience to God.

I have not been tempted, not once, to eat anything off of the plan. It has not been a struggle, there has been no back and forth in my head about "I want this. I can't have this. It's not fair I can't have this. One bite won't matter. I'm too fat to eat this. If I were a skinny woman I could eat this." There has been no chatter, no voices crying out.

There has, however, been a lot of hunger.

A couple of years ago I asked a woman trainer I know what she eats for a snack and she told me that sometimes she eats a can of plain tuna fish. Later on that day I ranted to a friend of mine that I would never, EVER, eat a can of tuna fish for a snack.

Today I ate a can of plain tuna fish with gratitude.

I was hungry. I've been hungry all week and today it came crashing down on me. I am weak and I am angry that I am hungry. I want to sleep so that I can more quickly pass the hours between when I am allowed to eat again. I am still not tempted to eat something other than what is on the plan. I made deviled eggs and potato salad (with bacon!) and crab cakes to take to my father, and I was not tempted to eat any of it. I am committed to obedience to God but that doesn't make me any less hungry.

Lisa TerKeurst, the author of Made to Crave, quoted a passage in the bible that I have thought of often this week.

You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north.
Deuteronomy 2:3 (NAS)

I have thought about my weight loss struggle as a climb up a mountain. Sometimes I ascend, other times I slide back down. During the times when I have been at the top of the scale and the bottom of the mountain I have imagined gazing up at it, wondering "Can I do this again?"

This is not about my weight or my food or alcohol. I have circled that mountain long enough. 

It is time to turn north.

I'll be bringing my cans of tuna fish with me.

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.