Battling in the Promised Land

It's been a long time. Which means I'm going to write a lot. And it's not going to be well-written, either, because if I try to tell myself it has to be perfect, I'm not going to write at all. So, because of all that, let's start with something funny to make you actually want to read the rest of the blog (I'll throw more in here and there to keep it interesting):

Let's just state the obvious first. It's been 3 years since I've written here. Which means it's been over 4 years since I started this crazy journey. Although, of course, my "healthy lifestyle" journey has been going on since long before I ever decide to have weight loss surgery. I do feel like it was a turning point, however. It's a place in my journey where I want to lay down stones like the Israelites did after they crossed the Jordan river (you can find the story in Joshua 3).

Like the Israelites, I feel like I had wandered a long time in the "weight loss" desert. I can even think of how my first huge weight loss moment that had happened a few years prior had kind of been like my emancipation from Egypt. I thought I'd never be free of the shackles of my weight and food struggles. And then God got me out and gave me miracles I didn't deserve. I lost 80 pounds, got married (which I had only thought would be possible if I were thin), and felt confident in how I looked for the first time in my life. But again like the Israelites, I hadn't learned the lesson of complete dependence on God. My eyes were on the deliverance and the promised land, not on God. And slowly but surely, I fell back into all the same problems.

All that fancy analogy means is that my motives weren't yet in check. I wanted to lose weight because I wanted to be thin. I wanted to be thin because I wanted to be beautiful. And I wanted to be beautiful because I felt I was worth more as a person (in my eyes and in the eyes of others) when I was pretty. And I didn't think beautiful and overweight were ever a package deal.

What happened right around the time I had surgery was a moment of surrendering my dieting and weight-loss journey over to God. My instinct was to make this all about vanity and I knew that had to change. It wasn't easy and I'm still fighting the instincts that were a part of how I thought for so long, but I can see clearly how it was the beginning of using my weight-loss struggle as a way to draw near to God. And in the process the struggle itself became not to be thin, but to be healthy in mind, body and soul. There are a few important truths there that I'm now getting my mind to actually believe:

1. My worth as a person is not tied to my weight or how thin I am. (Original faulty belief: thin = pretty, pretty = valuable. Faulty belief brought on by: being a teenager. Or walking through the mall. Or any pretty girl on television/movies/Miss America pageants. I could go on, but we all get this one, I think.)
2. Just like every other girl out there, I have a beauty that is all my own and was never meant to be compared to anyone else's. (Original faulty belief: if I am in a room with someone prettier than me, I am no longer pretty. Faulty belief brought on by: see above.)
3. Being thin and being healthy are not the same things. Just because I can keep my weight down does not mean I have a healthy mindset about food. In addition, an unhealthy mindset will eventually come back to bite me. (Original faulty belief: if I work out enough, I can eat whatever I want and then I'll be healthy AND not have to worry about my eating habits! Faulty belief brought on by: a certain family member who runs marathons and then eats licorice and peanut butter for breakfast.)

So here I am 3 years later. Here's the nitty gritty weight update: As of yesterday morning, I weigh 169.6 pounds. I'd maintained my weight between 155-160 for about 2 years and then last year we went through a crazy period where I put on about 10 pounds. The short version of the story is that we were in the process of moving across the country and I thought God had told me that as long as my clothes fit and I felt good about myself, He didn't want me to get on the scale. I honestly don't know if that was God, (and because of the result, I somehow doubt it) but regardless, I gained all the extra poundage in about 2 months. When we got to our new destination, I got on the scale and about died. And if I'm honest, I've been struggling within 5 pounds of that weigh-in weight since then.

Because of my weight going up (and unfortunately my pants size going up a size as well... yuck), I've recently jumped back on the weight-loss wagon. Now as many of you know, maintaining and losing are two very different things.

Maintaining is much more relaxed. A pound up, a pound down, no big deal. Losing weight means I'm suddenly much more stressed out about the scale. A pound down means nothing until I've gone at least a week with that pound still down. And dear Lord, if I go up a pound, it's DEVASTATING and turns me into a guilt-ridden mess who suddenly is going back through every bite to see where I went wrong. Eating while dieting can be even more of an unhealthy obsession than eating when not dieting. Which seems backwards to me, because I'm trying to be healthy.

All that being said, this time around, I am tweaking a few things. God's wisdom has taught me that focusing all day on the food I'm eating (or not eating) is not healthy. I have enough healthy habits that are cemented into my life (including not having any "binge items" in my house), that I don't have to be super strict and have the diet take over my life. I don't have to count every calorie. What I do have to do is listen to God about my eating.

Now I know that sounds super overly spiritual. And to be clear, I'm not saying I wait for the Holy Spirit to "move" before I allow myself to eat. It's not that dramatic. What I do is invite God into the kitchen with me. I talk to Him when I'm making my food choices. And, of course, He's with me in Costco, too, because we all know I'm not making it out of there without a pie in my cart if God's not helping me. :)

I've never been very good at stopping before my plate is empty, so I try to be more aware of His voice while I eat, too. Just because there's "only two" bites left doesn't mean I have to eat them (no joke, I've literally heard God tell me "no" when I already had the bite in my mouth. And He's had to remind me that I hadn't swallowed yet.). I try to listen when I load up my plate, too. For example, sometimes there's just a little more than enough leftovers than I really need. And my old instinct is to just put it all in my bowl. God's been teaching me that there's no reason to do that. Even if there's only a few bites left of the leftovers after I serve myself, it's better left in the fridge or even down the garbage disposal than put into my body when I'm already full.

Other than that, it's just one obviously good (or even "better than bad") choice at a time. And like Lysa TerKeurst talks about in Made to Crave (insert broken record noise), one victorious choice at a time leads to victory.

So, here's what all that practically means for me right now: I'm heavier than what I believe is healthy. I need to be more diligent about my choices and I'd like to lose some weight. Exactly how much is debatable. I'd love to be at 150, but I'm not holding myself to that number. I'm talking to God about it. I know my body would feel better if I built up some muscle (I've had some random health/body-broken issues lately), so I'm working on that. There are a few strict "rules" I hold to, but I like to think of them more like boundaries. I eat a protein-rich breakfast every morning. I only have one cup of coffee a day. I don't bring food into the house that I know will test my self-control. There are lots of other things, too, and maybe in my next post I'll lay it all out.

The first time I lost all my weight was a miracle God provided through basically perfect circumstances. The second time, it was a journey I took with God step by step, learning complete dependence on Him and, in the process, learning that the "promised land" of my weight-loss journey looked completely different than the one I had pictured. Now I feel like I've been dwelling in the promised land for a while, but some Philistines I didn't quite annihilate the first time around have reared their ugly heads and God and I are going back out to battle and claim the land. My prayer is that He'll help me truly clear out all the "idol-worship" that I have going on. I don't want to put my vanity or anything else before God. I want to honor Him in my eating and in doing so, honor Him in my life.