Author: Margaret

Christian, justice seeker, truth chaser, freedom walker, word-nerd, self-proclaimed poetess and writer...

Weight Loss for Christians…because it’s Monday.

Margaret8 Comments

Do you really want to know how to lose weight?
Just do it.

I can’t think of a sin other than gluttony that I have ever condoned continuing until Monday. If I say a not-nice word when I stub my toe, I don’t walk around the rest of the day dropping F bombs because I said “gosh darn it” (or worse) before breakfast. I don’t spend the weekend cussing everyone out, even if they make me mad. If I realize there was a tube of lipstick under my purse in my shopping cart that I didn’t pay for, I take it back inside immediately. I don’t go on a shop-lifting spree.

But somehow it’s permissible to be a glutton, at least until Monday. Maybe I stopped for a high calorie, high fat fast food combo breakfast, and after berating myself, I would think, “I might as well pig out for the rest of the day and start again tomorrow.” However, “the rest of the day” normally lasted until…Monday. And on Monday, I would try one of the various diets, or if I was feeling a little more industrious, one of the “lifestyle changes” I’d tried and failed at many times before. Diets are bad for your mental health. All of them.

I say this all the time because it’s true: If you want to lose weight, find the way that works for you, and do that. Other than the first week or two, it is going to be a slow process. Accept that truth and move toward a healthier you. When you are healthier, you feel better. When you feel better you have more confidence. With more confidence, you find yourself stepping out and doing God’s will for your life in an open and public way, living your life so that others desire the Christ in you.

Today is Monday..but it wouldn’t matter if it was Saturday. Somebody said it well years ago:

Today is the first day
of the rest of your life.

  • If your first thought is “I can’t do this.” You are wrong, Jesus says you can. You are free because Christ paid the highest price for your freedom. You may not feel free right now, but as a believer, your first job is to believe what God’s word says about you: If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed (John 8:36) Also: The Messiah has set us free so that we may enjoy the benefits of freedom. So keep on standing firm in it, and stop putting yourselves under the yoke of slavery again. (Galatians 5:1 ISV) Stop being a slave to your appetite!
  • Step Two is to stop making it about the weight. Yes, you need to be the healthiest version of you, but stop making the number on the scale or the view in the mirror your main focus. Make Relationship with your creator your number one priority.
  • If your Monday finds you automatically planning to go on the same diet you’ve tried 130 times before “because it is the only thing that works for you,” but you are still overweight and obsessing about the number on the scale, time 131 won’t work, either. The truth is that diets don’t work. A successful, happy life comes from one better choice after another. Stop thinking you can’t and KNOW that you really are in control of your flesh! Your flesh only calls the shots when you let it. God didn’t give us a free will to have us hand it over to the greed of our appetites! Get pumped knowing you get to call all the shots when it comes to what goes into your mouth. Instead of giving in with “I know I shouldn’t” and popping it in your mouth, end that thought with, “so I am not going to today.” Get used to being the boss! You can do it!
  • Spend some time getting to know yourself, specifically foods you like and foods you don’t. When did eating a grapefruit you don’t like for breakfast ever lead to health or weight loss? When you are free to eat  normal servings of foods you like, you won’t spend most of your day obsessing over every morsel that goes into your mouth.
  • Get off the junk food. If you are eating sweets, chips, and fast food all the time, you will not want healthy food. You will want more sugar and high fatty food. That’s a fact. It’s like your spiritual food…if you fill up on junk TV and cheating songs, you aren’t going to want to sit down and study God’s word. Reading the Bible is imperative for a healthy relationship with the One who can make you all He planned for you to be.

It’s Monday. Take the next five days and commit to some better choices. Choose four or five of the following (or make up your own) and COMMIT to those choices. You can do anything for five days! And maybe you’ll find yourself on the way to some better habits….and weight loss. The goal here is to get accustomed to a healthier lifestyle and begin to do it automatically. We aren’t trading one obsession (all can I eat in a day) for the obsession of monitoring every bite you take. Next week, spend less time thinking about your next meal, it and more living your good life.  Good decision examples:

  • Give a sincere, head bowed, eyes closed blessing over your food, not just a quick “Thank you, Lord,” as you pop the first bite in your mouth. Take a moment of true gratitude. Not everyone has something to eat today.
  • Start off with smaller portions.
  • Don’t eat from the package.
  • Slow down!   Chew more.   Put that fork down between bites.
  • Eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full. You can more easily ascertain when you are getting if you are eating slowly. (However, if you plan to eat at noon, and you experience a hunger pang at 11 a.m., make your flesh wait until noon. You are in control!)
  • Remind yourself often, “I am not a glutton. I am free from the chains of sin because of the cross of Jesus Christ.”
  • No sugar (cookies, cakes, candy)
  • No junk food (chips, colas, snack crackers, etc.)
  • Choose to not be a glutton…which is a LOT easier with no sugar and no junk food.
  • Read scripture every day, even if it is just one Psalm or one chapter in Proverbs. (This should be a life-long commitment, even if you are extremely busy, or on vacation, or whatever.) If you are going to skip something, skip a meal, not Scripture.
  • Enjoy your food…again, easy to do when you slow down.
  • Don’t eat a meal in your car.
  • Pack your lunch instead of eating it in a restaurant.
  • Skip the fast food, even the “healthy” options.
  • Eat at least two healthy choices per day, such as a fruit and a vegetable.
  • Fast lunch every day Monday – Friday. Use that time in Bible study and prayer.
  • Fast for 24 hours:  An easy first-time way to do that is sundown to sundown.
  • Get educated on nutrition, not diets, so that you can make informed decisions about what you are eating, and let good choices become a habit.
  • Move. Walk more. Make a real effort to just move more. Use your fitbit or Garmin, or buy a good pedometer and walk at least 5000 steps, which is much easier than you think.

Which four or five do you choose? Remember, the goal is change, not losing weight. Losing weight is a side effect of the ever-elusive change we crave. This is one of the few times a side effect is desirable! You are in control! You can make some good choices and start a new life today so that “healthier” becomes second nature. Your first nature should be the nature of Jesus Christ.

Stop trying to lose weight. Start working on changing your focus. Your best you is the you God wrote about in His book. (Psalm 139:16)

My photos are from Rock Springs Nature Trail, Natchez Trace Parkway.

Hot Saturday Musings

Margaret6 Comments
Deibert Park, Florence, Alabama

I am feeling a little like Elizabeth Warren
My great-great-something maternal grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee.  I’ve always believed I have Native American blood running in my veins.  I received my Ancestory.com DNA results a week or so ago.   No Native American in my genes.  I’m surprised at how misplaced this information has made me feel.  This must be fake news!!  I’m going to try 23andMe.com!  Maybe they will tell me the truth!  Or maybe I should save my money and snap out of the denial.

Beaver Dam, Rock Springs Nature Trail, Natchez Trace Parkway

L’Oreal Tans and Lashes
Are you a self-tanner?   L’Oreal has a product called Sublime Bronze self-tanning mist that works pretty well.  If you’ve never done it yourself, just know you’re going to not be perfect with it the first time and own the unevenness.  The next time will be better.  This stuff is better than the professional tan folks pay $35-$50 for at Palm Beach Tan (which I did back in the spring).

I did have an incident with self-spraying, though.  The directions say to use a moisturizer for dry skin before misting.  I have some Avon Signature Silk lotion and the creamy body wash, which are in very similar containers.  I slathered the body wash on, thinking to myself as I applied it “I don’t remember this lotion being so hard to rub in.”  It works pretty well as a moisturizer (not really! There is just no way to tell this story and not look ridiculous.)  But you should see the designer tan (by designer I mean abstract design) I have on my legs…which mercifully has begun to fade in the places that didn’t rub off from the beginning from the coat of soap.  Just use regular lotion is all I’m trying to say.

On another note, L’Oreal’s Telescopic mascara was for years my favorite, and still would be if the wand hadn’t broken on the last two tubes I bought.  Now I’m in the market for a new favorite, and I’ve tried many over the years.   What do you use?

Speaking of Politics
Not that we were, but we are now.  What a spectacle politics is since Donald Trump’s election!  The hate for him began before he became the stumbling block to the election of Hillary Clinton, so I wonder if somehow they recognized he was a threat to her presidency quest long before conservatives did. 

President Trump doesn’t use a filter for his words, and if he thinks it, he tweets it.  I do wish he would rein that in a little!  Using Twitter to say what he wants is his weapon of choice for his voice because, I suppose, the media has twisted his words so many times.  I’ve said this before:  President Trump does exaggerate, but he’s not lying near as much as the lying media says he does. 

He does give the opposition fodder, doesn’t he?   He spins the web, the other side gets all tangled up.  Have you ever seen a fight between a wasp and a spider?  The wasp loses.  Maybe Donald Trump is the spider of society, there to catch some stinging varmints.  And people hate spiders, don’t they?  But they serve a purpose.

Personal Shame
Shame is an emotion long ago squelched.  Consciences are so seared, and the cloud of deception hangs so low that the shamed don’t recognize they are shameful.  Good is bad, bad is good.  God’s word told us it would be this way.

I have some personal shame that even though I have no cable TV, I know what’s going on with the Bachelorette. Social media keeps me informed, which says a lot about where I have allowed myself to land when surfing the ‘net.  I need to repent and turn away from the pollution.  The young (she’s 23) bachelorette acts a little like she’s been on a two-year mission trip to a third world country and suddenly finds herself in a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop.  After all the cheers and jeers of her season have quietened down, we will find that she took that particular show to a different level, a lower level that began several seasons ago, which is one reason I no longer watch the show (but obviously keep up with it enough to make judgments, right?) 

Back to Politics
There’s enough pride, deception, and shame to go around in Washington. Hell’s tool shed has been raided and tools are everywhere, strategically placed to divide this great country, while the duped continue to watch, believe, and applaud.  It reminds me of a song from my childhood, “Oh, be careful little ears what you hear…Oh, be careful little eyes what you see.”  As it turns out the song was correct, and if you’re not careful, you just may believe what they are telling you and see only what they want you to see.  It’s the whole spiritual vs physical seeing and hearing, a much too heavy topic to cover this fine Saturday morning.

But Christians must remain vigilant and prayerful for His will on earth as it is in Heaven, not our own wills.  That’s really hard because most of us think we know best.  I know I’m guilty of that.  November 2020 will be here quicker than we realize, but we still have over a year of political bickering.  All the more reason for prayer!   

This Blog/My Book
I’ve had no passion for blogging lately.  I have some giveaways still packed away that I planned to use to gain a bigger following (a shameless self-marketing ploy), but I realized that if I’m not writing, I don’t need a following.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with this blog, but here’s my idea:

I’m writing a (yet unnamed) book about Christians in chains.  Personal freedom, getting out of the pit…I mention weight and weight loss a lot because that has been my issue my whole life, but it’s not about the weight, it’s about the freedom and how Christ paid the heaviest price for the freedom we have but don’t know how to access.  I have thought about posting excerpts here from the book. 

Again.  I don’t know. 
Have a wonderful weekend!

Misplaced

Margaret5 Comments
Old Railroad Pedestrian Bridge, Florence, Alabama

I feel mighty misplaced some days.  Not lost, mind you; God always knows where I am!  But the world’s pollution sometimes distracts me so until I am doing nothing of any significance.  Admittedly, I allow myself to get caught up in the schemes of the enemy to interrupt, and he doesn’t have to do too much work to sidetrack me.

I’ve learned to say “No” to others when needed for the most part.  It is to my own self I have a hard time saying, “Nope, you aren’t going to do that today.”   Things like overeating, complaining, judging others (usually mentally, but God still hears it), and wasting time.

I do know how to waste precious time!  Did you ever sit down at the computer or pick up your phone to do a quick glance at Social Media, and two hours and seven videos later, you’ve heard things you shouldn’t have heard, read things you shouldn’t have read, commented things you shouldn’t have typed, shared silly memes, and gotten irritated at a friend’s political post that bordered on insanity?   Then you realize how much time has gotten away…again…

Or is that just me?

After working all day and doing the other things that life and the day demands of us, it’s easy to lose our place.  It’s a lot easier to do mindless things like scroll through social media or watch television instead of finding quiet time to be alone with God to commune heart to heart, spirit to spirit.   When we don’t make the sacrifice of time, we’ll find ourselves misplaced. 

God’s plan is infinitely better than any idea I can conjure up, and His place for me has real purpose.   If I want His will fulfilled in my life…and I do…then I simply must remember that my part is important, and I need to do what I need to do (and give up what I need to give up) to get in place.   

Thursday’s Committed Thoughts

Margaret3 Comments
Huntsville Botanical Garden, Huntsville, Alabama

Focus Pocus
I was supposed to be writing my “Focus” post Tuesday night, but I got caught up watching the State of the Union Address.  For the first time in my life, I watched the whole thing.  I thought President Trump did an outstanding job.  But I’m not sure if my patience is going to last two whole years of political mayhem.  It seems like only six month ago my social media accounts were covered in Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.   

My “Focus” post still isn’t written. 

Snarky Sarcasm
Scrolling Facebook and Twitter sometimes makes me want to put on my cyber combat boots, pull out my snarcasm, and start typing some truth.   But with my bad attitude, I’d just be a clanging cymbal, you know, because it’s hard to show love to folks online who are politically insane.  Scrolling social media can be bad for my blood pressure. 

Fakery and Compelsions
I wonder why Christians post memes and stories that aren’t true.   I suppose they do it because they don’t check the facts first.  It’s just my observation, but they don’t seem to appreciate it when the truth is pointed out. :::grin::: But I have this truth compelsion.

50,000 points to anyone who can tell me where “compelsion complex” comes from without googling it.

Never mind, here’s a video:

Barney Fife, of course!

Making the devil laugh
The devil likes us to get us engaged in social media wars.   It’s a great distraction and keeps us from doing anything productive.  When you get into political arguments, old slew foot knows you are not going to change their minds; you are going to enrage them.  It’s not your responsibility to tell them what is right and wrong.   They already know your arguments and they don’t believe it.   They believe there is nothing wicked about killing a full-term baby in the womb.  You can’t fix that.  Prayer changes things, though, and the change might be in you.