Archive for the The Journey Category

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.

I recently finished a book titled, “Thin Wire: A Mother’s Journey Through Her Daughter’s Heroin Addiction.” I feel a little obsessed about heroin addiction but it seems the closest thing to my food addiction. This book was written by mother and daughter and seemed more of a “How not to treat a heroin addict”. But it was their words and their story and they lived it so who am I to judge? The reason I really like reading those kinds of books is that when someone is writing about their own addiction, it usually means they survived. And heroin is a killer. I think it took great courage for Christine Lewry to write that story. Because she was definitely an enabler. But she never gave up on her daughter. That kind of love is amazing.

Christine’s daughter Amber says at one point, “Drug addiction is no-one’s fault but your own. No one makes you a heroin addict; it’s always your own decision-that’s the first thing I have to admit to myself.”

Amber also talks a lot about the pain in her life and how heroin is a numbing agent to that pain. Each time she would detox and get clean for a while her emotions would come rushing in. It was very painful. It was part of the reason she relapsed, though she never said so in so many words. There is no doubt about it, pain is difficult to deal with and we all have our own ways of coping.

Amber was able to finally sever the ties from the people she did drugs with. It was the only way to stay clean. If she hung out with people who did heroin, she was unable to resist, even though she still thought about it a lot. I think about food a lot but I can never escape it. I am constantly bombarded with flashy advertising. A simple trip through the grocery store can set me on edge if I’m the least bit hungry or sad. Tonight it was donuts and I resisted, even though my middle son cried all the way out to the car. Yesterday it was Easter candy and I buckled and ate way too much. I ate it to numb the stress and pain of the day. And it worked. Sugar works for me which is why I return to it over and over and over again. The difference between sugar and heroin is that one is socially acceptable and the other is not. Both kill in high quantites. Both are poison.

I write this blog because I am not always strong. I write because I have to encourage myself to keep trying to take care of my mind and body. I write because I want to encourage others who struggle with food and mood. And I’m not going to give up just because I had one bad day or week or month. I’m going to keep relapsing and sobering up because that’s who I am. And even though I am flawed and broken, I am me and nobody else. And I love me too much to give up the fight.