Category: Health and Weight Loss

In Quest of Slowing Down

MargaretLeave a comment

Be still and know that I am God…”
Psalm 46:10 NIV

Procrastination has its place.

You know the story.  You passed up all the fast-food breakfast places on the way to work.  You have a good lunch packed and a healthy snack ready for the afternoon sinking spell.  You are going to do it!  Today is the day!  You walk into the office full of confidence, and then you catch a familiar scent.  Someone brought warm donuts, the ones that melt in your mouth.  So unfair!  Now what?

Even if you do just have one, that won’t be the last you hear from the donut.  Later, you’ll excuse another bad choice, and by 4 p.m. you will have given up on abstaining today.  That’s the way of sugar.  There’s another option, though:  Slow down!  Before you give into the temptation, wait 30 minutes.  I don’t mean impatiently watch the clock, checking the time every 3 minutes until half an hour has passed and then grab the donut.  So what, then?

Start every day well-armed.  Take a few minutes to remember why you are on the pathway to a healthier lifestyle. Take some deep breaths.  Make a goal for the day and say it out loud. Ask Jesus for strength (we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. Philippians 4:13).  Have a scripture ready, “Be still and know that I am God…” or one that speaks to you. And know you can say, “No!  No way!” to temptation.  In other words, be in a forearmed to talk yourself out of temptation by whatever means works for you.  Just because you don’t have a donut today doesn’t mean you can never have another donut.  It just means you aren’t going to throw this day away.  You aren’t going to shuck off the newfound confidence you walked in with. 

Procrastinate!  The longer you put off the bad choice, the less likely you are to give into it.  There’s where you have control of your choices…before you plop it into your mouth.  That goes for the hunger pang that hits you around 10 a.m.  Give it a few minutes.  It will go away, and you’ll be fine until it’s time for lunch.

Tomorrow:  Decluttering our headspace.

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Losing Weight, Day One: Truth

Margaret2 Comments
Huntsville Botanical Garden

Psalm 25:5
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.  (ESV)

Food choice control doesn’t start after the fact, it starts before.  When the side effects of food we know we shouldn’t have eaten hit, we develop good sense amnesia regarding food for the rest of the day, giving in to the growing cravings to eat anything sugary, salty, and fat-laden, that never quenches the desire.  I call it feeding the consequence.  When I am in the throes of a sugar binge, it’s hard to remember I have a choice, and I will toss all resolve to the wind with barely a thought, much less a fight, and eat like the sugar addict I admit that I am. 

For a successful day, we must first make a commitment.  We have to want to lose weight enough that we resolve to remember our triggers, and not pick up the loaded gun of unhealthy food.  We also know those first few days are going to be the hardest, especially if we are coming off a weeklong (or longer) stretch of undisciplined gorging.  It’s easy to unstrap the feedbag on Monday morning.  It’s hard to keep it off through lunchtime.  Go dig out that diet plan that has temporarily worked for you in the past and start with that, but place more faith in yourself than in the plan.  Only we can decide to abstain from trigger foods (even if they are permissible on our plan) knowing it will throw your cravings into overdrive. 

Remind yourself often that you are in control, not your appetite.  If you want to lose weight, then find the way you can live with for the rest of your life and do that.  This will take time, effort and research, and losing weight is going to be slow.  But five  pounds a month is 60 pounds in a year, rather than being in the same place (or heavier) a year from now. 

 Tomorrow:  Slowing Down

Ding Dang It!

Margaret2 Comments

Ding Dang Diets
I haven’t been counting my Weight Watchers points lately because I’ve grown weary with noting every morsel that goes into my pie-hole.  (And there’s been more than one Amish fried pie in there!)  Anyone watching me these days may well notice the evidence of my preference to eat rather than count as the smaller britches I bought late last summer are now my Maypops.  They may pop anytime.

Ding Dang Dawn of the Day
I gave myself a pep talk this morning at 4 a.m. when I was forced out of bed by a bladder begging for relief.  I looked into the bathroom mirror.  A 4 a.m. face is frightful!  “Do I really want to keep gaining weight?” I asked myself.  “Why, no! No, I don’t!” I answered.  I resolved to not start off my day with Jack’s yummy, buttery biscuits, a plan I’d made when I got into bed last night.  By the time I arrived at work, I had indeed eaten a Jack’s breakfast. Then, when I got to the office, a donut called my name…one of those Krispy Kreme fried devil biscuits, chocolate covered with sprinkles.  Yes, I did!   

Ding Dang Dining
As a side note…often at the Jack’s near my house, you order what you want, you pay for what you ordered, then you get what they give you.  Today, they did well.  But I digress.

Ding Dang, Ding Dang!
Now…it’s Thursday.  I can’t start a better way of eating on Friday!  It might be a law, I don’t know.  But I don’t want to binge all weekend, either.  Well, I do want to.  I just don’t want the consequences of it.

Ding Dang Choices! 
I have a tight relationship with bad choices…and it’s not just food…but those are stories for another day.

(I can’t “ding-dang” a devotional.  It’s too ding dang important.)
I should write seven-day devotional of sorts, covering personal choices, free will, and relationship with our Creator.  It would be about picking up and moving on toward a better life, no matter how many steps back you’ve (I’ve) taken. 

That’s the ding dang plan.  If I write the devotional, I’ll share it some day. 

My Own Words Bite Me

Margaret1 Comment

I’m at that place where the scales aren’t moving.  I’m stuck at 73 pounds.  I was stuck at 50 pounds a few months ago, but I knew why…I was pigging out on the weekends and behaving through the week.  Took a month off from restaurants and that took care of the hump.

Nashville Zoo

I did screw up a weekend a few weeks back.  I think most people trying to lose weight can relate to this:  I spend three weeks losing 4 pounds, binged on the weekend, and gained back the 4 pounds in two days!  Took me two weeks to lose those pounds again.  Vicious cycle.

I don’t know why our bodies will do that…hang on to every pound for dear life, and grab two pounds just by smelling the Krispy Kremes. 

My first 50 pounds were easy.  Melted right off without much struggle, and with no exercise.  For the last month, I have been walking.  I am now doing 50,000 – 70000 steps per week.  It’s not always easy, but it’s doable. 

Nashville Zoo

Here’s were my words are slapping me around.  I’ve been losing and gaining weight my entire adult life.  And now I’m 57 years old and feel as if I can advise with some tiny bit of knowledge learned from my years of experience.  So, I say about losing weight:

  • Find a way to eat that you can live with and do that.
  • Don’t engage in extreme exercise if you’ve never done it and don’t like it you won’t stick to it.   Find the way to exercise that you can live with…and do that. 
  • After the initial quick weight loss of a new diet, it’s going to be slow.  Very slow.  Very slow is better than not at all or gaining.

Slow is not an option,
but the rule.

But I find myself at the point where I’d rather eat than get on the scales after a week of walking over 10,000 steps each day, eating according to my chosen plan (Weight Watchers) and seeing a 2-ounce loss.  Two. Ounces.   I know my plan works, and I know that slow is not an option but the rule, and I am frustrated.  I still have 88 pounds to lose.  And I cannot use my upcoming vacation, Thanksgiving, and Christmas as reasons to quit or gain.  And if I do gain, I must not quit.

To show my hypocritical thinking…I’m going on vacation next week.  I do not plan to count points.  Why commit to something I probably won’t do because it will be such a hassle?  The best I can promise myself is to make wiser decisions.  It will be a test, no doubt.  

My Back Yard