Archive for the The Journey Category

I woke up at 4:15am this morning. I was up at 3:00am before that and 1:00am before that. I woke because I was uncomfortable. I woke because I was hungry.

Hunger is such a simple thing, relatively speaking. The body runs out of fuel in the stomach and fires some neurons into the brain which signal other pesky organs to groan, namely the stomach which growls like and angry dog. I’m hungry because I began eliminating my bedtime snacks and cutting back on portion sizes. I do this every time I pack on extra pounds and force myself to begin working them off. Every time feels like the first time. It’s painful and awful and frustrating. I don’t much like to experience hunger.

Some people will say you need to eat when you’re hungry but I have learned my body and the only way my body sheds pounds is to go without. Smaller portions=less food in=weight loss. Since I have such an efficient body I really don’t need that much food. But my brain doesn’t really understand that, even though I am constantly trying to make it listen.

I only say all of this to explain that eating less is a special kind of self-imposed torture for me. My natural state will consume vast quantities of food without batting an eye. And even though I have been waging war against my desire to eat I feel like I am constantly losing. The same way many people take Advil or Tylenol for pain, I take food.

This morning I lay in bed at stared at the red digital display on my alarm clock. 4:15am. 4:20am. 4:27am. And so on and so forth. Until I finally got mad, climbed out of bed and suited up. I walked through Ferguson with my SI belt(that enables me to walk without pain) and listened to Romans and prayed.

Which brings me to my point. Hunger induces a feeling of such discomfort that it drives me to cry out to God. It is the one thing I am completely unable it ignore and powerless to dismiss. It gnaws at my resolve and whispers to me to just give in. I believe that is why fasting can be a very powerful mechanism. It forces us to deal with our bodies in a very basic way. In my case it drives me to the brink of madness in such an acute way that I have to reach out for the only sanity I know, Jesus. And in those moments of helplessness and pain I find clarity. I learn who He is in the middle of the suffering and who I am in my relationship with Him. I ask for His help because I have had no luck facing my food issues alone. Food has never healed the pain in my life. My slavery to it is well documented. The freedom I find in renouncing food for a time, and meditating on the brokenness it induces leaves me in a state of empowerment I don’t find any other way.

4:15am was only the beginning of a very long day, one I am eager to put an end to. But I take comfort in knowing I was aware of my life today. I experienced hunger, fatigue, wonder, self-realization and the peace that comes from mastering my body. Today I lived. I didn’t just muddle through. I was intentional. I am proud of myself(and not just because I resisted cookies). I am proud for enduring when I could have given in to my food-lust. And THAT is amazing!

(and for those worried I’m starving myself–I’m not. I’m well within my calorie range for height and weight)

When I was young everything was black and white. A person was good or bad. An issue was right or wrong. As I’ve grown older I still see things this way but tend to keep my opinions to myself unless I know the person I am talking to is like-minded. I don’t want people to not like me because my opinion is different than theirs. I don’t want to hurt their feelings. And, I don’t feel that arguing with that person about said belief is going to change how they feel. Now I will be honest, there are a few issues that don’t apply. Healthy living is one of them. I will tell just about anybody that I think fast food is evil, sugar is bad for you, and gluttony is sin. Whoops! That last one just slipped out.

Did I say gluttony is sin? And what is sin anyway? Isn’t that some old fashioned word that Bible thumping fundamentalists use? Sinners go to hell, right? So it would be really wrong of me to get on my blog and say gluttony is sin and sinners go to hell. Wow. I am a crazed fundamentalist if I ever met one.

Gluttony: excess in eating or drinking, greedy or excessive indulgence.

Sin: an offense against moral law, an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible, an often serious shortcoming

The thing is, when I was fat(okay, morbidly obese) I didn’t want to admit that I thought gluttony was sin because I didn’t want to admit my failure in the area of food. After all, good Christians NEVER sin. So I gave a lot of excuses about why I was fat(everyone in my family is fat) why it’s so hard to lose weight(I mean, you have to like, eat less pizza). But talk about overeating as sin? NO WAY! But I had this overarching guilt that hung around my neck like a noose. I had condemned myself, sure, but I wasn’t going to walk around telling everyone how I felt. I felt bad enough already. But that doesn’t change the fact that deep down inside I felt incredibly guilty. But why?

Lot’s of people are overweight and don’t feel an ounce of guilt. Why me? Well, I’m going to step out on a limb and say it’s because I am a follower of Christ. I read the Bible a lot because I think it’s awesome. To each his own, right? And one of the Ten Commandments says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” and food had become my god. I worshipped it. I turned to food for comfort. I turned to food to fill the empty holes in my heart. I turned to food because I loved it more than I loved God. How can I be a Christian and say that? Well, it’s because it’s true, AND Christians are sinners.

What? Christians are sinners? I thought they were all perfect and holier than thou and stuff. Well, not really. In fact, not at all.

But the really great thing about being a Christian is I believe when I sin I am forgiven by the very Jesus I follow. That is what makes being a Christian just about the most wonderful thing ever. I sin, He forgives me. It’s liberating as all get out. The problem is, once we realize we’re sinning, we’re supposed to at least try to stop. There’s this passage in the Bible(Romans 6) that talks about grace and how just because we are forgiven for sinning, we’re not supposed to keep on at it(sinning). For years I struggled with this passage as it related to food because I felt so completely enslaved by my desire to it. And the thing is, it really broke my heart. I felt like a really crappy Christian.

So when I began my journey to better health(I wanted to lose weight) I asked God to teach me discipline. I was weak and I wanted to be strong. How does one do that? Well, they just do it by taking little baby steps until they get stronger. The most awesome thing is that God walked with me the whole time. He saw my desire to change. I knew he saw my heart, that I was putting food before him, and gave me the strength to start saying no to food and yes to a deeper relationship with Him.

When I made the conscious decision to make God more important than food my life was completely transformed. He gave me the strength to say no to the most important thing in my life. For this and many other reasons, I love Him.

I started this blog to inspire people to live a healthier lifestyle but I think I would be remiss to omit the very reason I wanted to change. So I’m throwing this out there…. yes, I believe gluttony is sin, and yes, I’m a sinner(and still a follower of Jesus). But the best news of all, and what really inspires me, is that Jesus loves me anyway. That’s what the good news of the gospel is really all about. Forgiveness of sins, relationship with the creator of the universe. I know how flawed I am and so does God. But(and this is the best but of all) He loves me anyway. If that isn’t inspirational, I don’t know what is.

I’ve never known hunger. Not real hunger anyway. The kind of hunger that doesn’t know where the next meal is coming from. The hunger that feeds on itself until the bones show. I’m lucky that way. I’ve never had to worry where my next meal is coming from.

This type of hunger seems rare in America. We have government assistance for people who don’t have the money to buy food. No one should rightfully go hungry and yet they do. I like to complain about the things that go wrong in my life. One of the big issues I deal with being my proclivity to overeat. Lately I seem to let myself get very hungry before I eat. This has left me to wonder, how would I feel if I didn’t have food or the means to buy food? The hunger is often so strong I think it will consume me. But 30 minutes later I’m eating and then I’m full and the hunger is sated.

Tonight the man at the deli at Shop N Save asked me if I’m “the girl that writes that healthy article” after I ordered my muenster cheese. I don’t know his name, though I’ve read his nametag before and promised to remember. He is the one who always smiles when he sees me and says, “It’s good to see you” and “Have a blessed day”. He has every reason to be miserable(by my estimation). Customers are rude, impatient and crabby. But I’ve never heard him complain. I think about Angela, the beautiful African American woman who has worked behind the deli counter for years, her hair parted down the middle and wrapped into braids. I think of all the times she has smiled, told me about her grandbabies and brightened my life with her kindness. I frequently see her waiting on the bench in front of the store waiting for a ride home. She doesn’t have a car. She never complains. There are countless others who wait on me, people I love that work at that store. I go there practically every day to pick up something or other. Not all of them smile. I believe some if not most have their share of suffering. And while they may not be hungry for food, I know they hunger for more…more money, more security, more hope. I suppose it is the human condition to hunger in some fashion or another.

We all want more. What we have is never enough. And certainly my life has taken its share of twists and turns and I am currently not where I want to be. But today I realized I really don’t have any problems at all. I have a house, heat, healthy children and a good job. And, I have food to eat. All the food I could ever want. I don’t know what it is to be in want, much less need. Certainly my life isn’t perfect but compared to some, I am extremely wealthy. God forgive me for complaining.