Faith in the Process & Myself

I feel like I'm either 100% IN or 100% OUT  That is the nature of my personality.  IN means clean eating with NO cheating, exercising 5+ times a week, drinking 8-10 glasses of water, keeping the house 100% clean, kids on schedule, etc...  OUT means just that: eating like crap, no exercise, bomb went off in house, kids on path to reserve a spot at juvenile detention... I've always felt there was no halfway but maybe I've not given the halfway approach much credit to at least get started.

As I stated in my last post, most of my friends who have attempted weight loss did so by starting out slow.  A change here, add a change there and so on and so forth.  They weren't doing it "Biggest Loser" style by exercising 4+ hours a day & only eating 1000 calories. They did it slow and steady, little by little.  And yes, their losses are little but what I am noticing is that they are LASTING!  They aren't up 3, down 4, up 2, down 5, etc.... they are literally 1/2 - 1 pound a week.  And imagine losing just 1 pound a week consistently for 1 year, I would be at my goal weight one year from today by losing 52 pounds.  That would be incredible!  But we're so anxious, so into instant gratification that we want those 52 pounds gone in 3 months so we can move on to our other "projects" but we fail to realize that if we don't go down the long path of weight loss, we will be right back where we were in several months time.  It's not like a boo-boo waiting to heal.  I did this to myself.  I put the food in to my mouth day in and day out.  I hide my eating because I know I'm eating more than I should but yet, I do not stop. This is the issue I grapple with the most. Why don't I stop? Why can't I stop? Why won't I stop?  Now is the time to figure out why.

So I've decided to take a balanced approach.  My goals this week are to just try to eat only whole foods (ie as little processed as possible), exercise 4 times this week with 2 short strength training sessions.  I'm going to log food but not count calories and see what happens.   I'm just trying to get my mindset to be conscious about my health and what's right for the long-term.  I'm putting my faith in the process of becoming a happier, healthier person.  It's not for a day or a week but for the rest of my time here on Earth.

I am also going to focus more on my faith.  My faith in seeking strength from God which I have never done before.  But just as importantly I am putting my faith in myself that I can put myself first.  This scripture below from Matthew depicts that God provides us with what we need as long as we focus on why we are here on this earth rather than the little things that really don't matter.  I don't think God wanted any of us to be here fat and unhappy but rather to enjoy life for all it has to offer.   Letting food be our focus distracts from the true pleasures of life: the sun on our faces, the spring blossoms, the laughter of children, the enjoyment of reading a good book.  Those are the things that should truly "shape" us, not the excess calories we consume.


Matthew 6:25-27

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?

Big Changes

Do you ever look around and wonder what everyone's secret is to succeeding?  I am seeing so many of the people I know from various facets of my life going out there and just killing it in terms of their weight loss goals. I want to be right there with them but the last year I've felt like my legs are in wet cement and as much as I want to pull them out, I just feel paralyzed.  I keep saying to myself, "Come on, let's go.  Today is the day! Today is the day to make a change" And then....nothing, zero, zip, nada.  No actions to match that self-talk and no idea on how to make real change in my life.   My hope is that by blogging and writing how I am feeling that I will unlock why I lack follow through and procrastinate on the person I want to be.

The quote that keeps coming back to me that just resonates with how I'm feeling:

Big changes ahead folks.  Really big.