Category: Health and Weight Loss

Monday Musings: The Great Habit Exchange

Margaret2 Comments
Sunset on Fort Walton Beach

I spent a few days in Fort Walton Beach, Florida last week. I’m not usually a beach lover, I tend to be a mountain girl, but who doesn’t like the roar of the ocean, the birds, and the beautiful sunsets and sun rises every now and then?
As I was editing the photos for this blog, what I remembered most about the sunset was all the time I spent snapping pictures, instead of sitting back to enjoy the disappearing sun and the sound of the waves. Like the time I spent trying to get the perfect image, I realized that I’d spent a lot of my life trying to accomplish something for the future, but not enjoying life right now. It’s a little phenomenon I call living in the future.
For me, it is all the time I wasted trying lose weight believing that next year, when I’ve reached my weight loss goal, I’ll do this, or go there, or go see my old friend who I’ve avoided because I didn’t like my weight. True friends wouldn’t care about my size!

Gulls in the sand

Around a year ago, I had a profound experience where God began to answer my years of prayers for freedom. I have learned so much since then. Some of it has been some hard lessons about choices, habits, personal responsibility, and change. Change often involves a bit of crucifying of self, and that, my friends, is difficult and painful.

Sand weeds (I have no idea what they might be called.)

Something I was reminded of in Florida is just how easy it is to slip back into old habits. They are so welcoming and comfortable! The more I learn about freedom, the more aware I become of my personal responsibility and my choices. I went to the beach without a plan in place, and I acted just like a girl without a plan. I didn’t weigh this morning…my scales are broken. Thankfully! If I can’t prove I’ve gained any weight, it must not be true, right? No? :::Oh:::
Once while discussing weight loss with a friend, I argued freedom didn’t include a diet plan. She quoted the scripture, “Without a vision (plan), the people perish.” I countered that our hope wasn’t in a diet, but in Him. We may have both been right.
We do need a plan. The plan needs to include a complete power exchange. Instead of letting bad habits have the control, we take control of our habits. Bad habits don’t change themselves, and they don’t let go of us easily. That’s where God’s beautiful grace comes in.

This view is five floors up, and it is my favorite memory of the trip. I spent some quality time with God here, looking out over the ocean.

I’m not saying you should ditch your diet plan. But if you have repeatedly lost weight and regained it using the same plan, it’s not working for you. If it was, you (and I) would be thin by now. Getting to know your appetite, pinpointing your bad habits, and figuring out which good habits to replace them with takes patience and perseverance. It is a process, but once the power exchange has taken place, it is no longer a struggle. You really are in control, not your appetite, no matter what your appetite is yelling at you. Over the next few months, I’m going to be working on Habit Builders like the ones below. I sure hope you join me. Five for Five. Five good habit for five days….the first one should always include God.

The Emerald Coast water tower in the distance

Five for Five Suggestions:

  • 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.
  • Slow down!   Chew more.   Put that fork down between bites.
  • 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.

If you are interested in reading more about Five for Five, I wrote about it HERE.

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.

Ten Great Reasons To Ditch That Diet!

Margaret7 Comments

Dieting!  Dieting!   It’s just a bore!
I try and fail, then try some more.
Limited portions and watching fat,
Counting calories and things like that,
But all I ever really do
Is seem to gain a pound or two!

I grew weary with diets several years ago…here are my top ten reasons to ditch the diet:

Number Ten: Being on a diet is like carrying around a 70-pound backpack full of loud little gremlins who are always poking you in the back and sides reminding you that “you can’t eat that!”  You carry that baggage with you everywhere you go.

Number Nine: You can’t relax at a party and enjoy socializing because you hear the party food talking in one ear (“Remember how good I taste!”) and the diet snickering in the other ear (“Hahaha!!  You can’t eat that!”)

Number Eight: You don’t enjoy a meal out with friends because your diet-mode brain churns the whole time.  Brain waves bounce from “Which entree is the safest choice?” to mentally berating yourself because you made a not-so-good decision.   The rest of the meal is spend having conversations in your head with every bite about how you get back on that diet tomorrow.

Number Seven: Tomorrow rarely comes. You wake up one day and realize you’ve spent your whole life on a diet, thinking about a diet, or breaking a diet.

Number Six: When tomorrow does come, you pick up the backpack and repeat the process, often eating foods you don’t even like. 

Number Five: Food rules you because your life is centered around the calories, fat grams and carbs, with the hope that this is the diet that will finally work, and you’ll be all it promised you would be.

Number Four: Dieting makes you believe that you can accomplish weight loss quickly, so you weigh every day only to find yourself discouraged because the scales are barely moving, or going up instead of down.  Then you console yourself with comfort food.

Number Three: Being on a diet takes away the reality that averaging a 5 pound loss a month is 60 pounds in a year…which is far better than failing on 5 or more diets, and ending the year with a gain of 15. 

Number Two: Beating yourself up for breaking your diet cannot be counted as exercise.

And the Number One Reason to Ditch That diet: It never worked before…I can’t see Diet Number 1,152,484 working, either.

When you realize you’ve dieted for years and still find yourself in bigger clothes than last year, it’s time change your focus.  It’s not about the weight.  It’s about the focus.  Come visit me tomorrow…we’ll talk about that.
UPDATE: I started watching the State of the Union address, and lost my focus… Hopefully I will have the post read on Friday!