Archive for the The Journey Category

I first learned about habitualization from David Kessler in his book, “The End of Overeating.” I never considered that food companies were manipulating me by using taste and texture in order to motivate me to eat—and inevitably buy—more. I don’t fully understand how the brain works, even though I have read “The Addicted Brain” and have now ordered, “Capture: Unraveling the Mystery of Mental Suffering”. I find that by reading about addiction and trying to understand how the brain works, I understand my own situation more fully and am able to combat the compulsions that make up my every day existence. Food addiction is about so much more than overeating(as I have come to learn over the years). It is emotional, physical, psychological and even sometimes completely irrational. But I cannot stop pursuing information on how to conquer my body and its lusts in this stuggle to overcome my own personal Battle of the Bulge”. I find that to concede is to quit, and I’m no quitter.

The only good thing about habitualization is that it works both ways. For instance, I never crave French fries and they used to be a staple of my diet. I do, however, crave broccoli. You might read that last sentence and think I’m joking but I’m not. In fact, after I wrote that I went to the store and bought broccoli because I was out.

Yesterday I had lunch with a group of women from work and the person sitting next to me noticed that I ate the things on my plate in a specific order. In another lifetime I would have been offended by that observation(so insecure am I!) but yesterday I was only mildly amused. I explained the rationale behind my consumption.

“I always eat the vegetables first, then the protein, and then the carbs(if there are any).” She raised her eyebrows, nodded, and then continued to eat the food on her plate. (I get the raised eyebrow a lot when discussing food so I’m used to it)

Eating your vegetables first is lesson one in Healthy Eating 101. Fill your belly with low calorie, high fiber foods and you will fill up faster and consume fewer calories. The problem for a compulsive eater, however, is that gluttony tends to override the natural full impulse. Which is how I came to consume too much at lunch yesterday, and also why I continued to eat at home last night even though I was farther away from hungry than New York is from San Diego. And it’s not as simple as recreational eating or eating to console an emotion gap. Because each episode of gluttony has only one common denominator, mainly, I just eat too darn much.

So if I know my triggers(sugar or anything sweet) and I know that will-power isn’t enough to keep me from said foods, why do I still come into close proximity with them? Even worse, why can’t I just have a little taste and throw the rest away? To delve into such issues would require several hours of psychoanalysis I’m not prepared to undergo at the moment. The problem persists. I still overeat, even(and especially) when I know I shouldn’t. What interests me is that were I not a heavier-set person, no one would care. But I suppose that’s another blog post entirely.

FAT. Is there a less stigmatic three letter word in the English language?

When I grow up I won’t obsess about food any longer. I won’t dream about clouds of cotton candy or eating calorie free cake. I won’t have arguments with myself about why I shouldn’t eat birthday cake or why I should eat more fruit. I won’t lie in bed with aching joints because I’ve over-exercised my body with hopes of cancelling out excess calories. And I won’t silently sob over cookie crumbs with the immense regret only a true food-obsessed person can understand.

No one ever said living a healthy lifestyle was easy. If they did, they never knew what it was to struggle with addiction of any kind.

I have been reading with interest about the epidemic of drug overdoses in the St. Louis area due to synthetic cannabis. It almost appears as if someone is manufacturing the drug to eliminate the homeless population. Is there anything more insidious? But I would argue that the makers of Oreo cookies have the same goal in mind. They have created a product that is almost utterly irresistible. Consuming Oreo cookies, if taken to its logical conclusion, will destroy the body of the consumer—albeit more slowly than a drug like K2. And yet people continue to eat them and pretend there is no ill effect. Why?

When I was heavy I used to joke around that I knew McDonald’s food was unhealthy. But I never actually believed that was true. It tasted good so therefore it was good. As I think back about my mindset, most importantly, I realize I didn’t care if it was healthy or not. I wanted it. So I bought and consumed it. But after reading David Kessler’s book on overeating, I wouldn’t walk into a McDonald’s if someone paid me money. Not if I was starving to death. Not if it was the only food left on the planet. (Okay, maybe I would but for the sake of dramatic license just go with it) The point is greed is indiscriminate. Whether it be money or food or power or sex, greed has tentacles with particularly venomous suction cups attached that will kill us if we cave in. And so if you are not fighting against it, it is destroying you. Your body is the ship being dragged to a watery grave. And while you may “live” as a drowned person until the ripe old age of 60 or 72 or even 103, you are, in essence, dead.

I have a lot of coping mechanisms to help me deal with food addition. I specifically employ them after I have been negligent in my duties to surrender my sin(greed and gluttony) to the only wise God who is able to deliver me from them. It’s all part of the “save myself” mentality the world so readily offers as the remedy for FAT. I have been absolutely sick with myself since I started eating cookies over the weekend until I finally ran out on Sunday night. And so today at lunch I poked my head into the only book I knew would help with that. And I’ll be honest; I didn’t want to go there. I wanted the quick fix. I wanted to escape into a land of fantasy(television). I wanted to exercise the guilt away. But, when I really want to fix my disordered eating patterns, I go to the only place that tells me the truth and offers a suitable remedy…

Tonight I forced my children to engage in dinner and conversation. I asked questions. They gave incomplete answers. I made chocolate chip cookies. They salivated. They begged for cookies. I said no. Finally they capitulated and gave their mean old mom the appropriate responses. And I sighed with relief after the two very tense hours was complete, content that my attempt to teach them discipline while not losing my temper was over.

My husband was sitting at the table as the nervous tremors subsided(two shrieking beastlets can cause the nerves to fray a tad), and looked up at the ceiling. He cocked his head to the side and said, “Why is there pumpkin on the ceiling fan?”

And that is when I told him this story…

It was the day before Thanksgiving and all was not well in the house. My car was in the shop with an as yet unnamed issue that was soon to be estimated to cost an arm, a leg, and half an earlobe. I was busily baking pies. My plan was to bake two sugar free pies for me(because why bake one pie when you can bake two?). And I was also baking two pies for a 5K race on Thanksgiving morning. I had gladly completed the first two pies, which were baking in the oven, when I compiled the ingredients for the last pie–my first ever attempt at a sugar-free pumpkin pie.

You must understand how excited I was. I had baked and prepared the two cups of fresh pumpkin(no cans in my house!). I had put it into the blender with the eggs, cream, honey and milk. It was happily blending when I turned away to roll out the crust. A few seconds later I turned back to the running blender to see it leaping off the counter.

I did not shriek. I did not yelp. I simply dove like a ball player racing from third base to home plate and, with outstretched arms, I managed to catch the contraption before it fell and shattered into a thousand pieces. Unfortunately, I had removed the lid at the last stirring and so the perfectly blended liquid inside leapt out and exploded all over the kitchen floor. And the walls. And the kitchen table. And the back door. And, evidently, the ceiling fan.

After I had finished telling my husband about the aberrant blender he looked at me and said, “Margaret, you should never leave the room when the blender is running.”

And my forehead wrinkled a bit but I didn’t say anything snippy. I said, “Well, I didn’t leave the room. I was standing right there rolling out the pie crust. And that crazy blender went and vibrated to the edge of the counter and jumped off.” And then I smiled that smug kind of smile that people do when they are really proud of something.

“And do you know that I have gotten so good at practicing discipline that I didn’t even holler. I just grabbed a bowl and some towels and started cleaning up.”

And my beloved husband, full of wit and wisdom said, “You missed a spot.”

Today we are married 15 years. Happy Anniversary, Honey.

And yes, had you been here the great pumpkin pie catastrophe would never have happened. I honestly don’t know what I would do without you to tell me how to prevent catastrophes after they have already happened.

Have you ever woken up and realized the desperate state of your life? Maybe it is the terminal illness of someone you love or your own wasting body. Maybe it is the moment you realize you can’t fix your addiction. Maybe it is a broken and bleeding heart. Have you prayed for God to take your affliction—to heal your beloved—to heal yourself? And the answer you received was a slow and steady no. Many people have rejected faith in God because of that answer, not realizing that they end up settling for life in the shadows. We do this because the pain hurts and we want to run away from it. But I would postulate that we run from the very thing that would save us.

I watched the first installation of the new Gilmore Girls series on Netflix last night. It was delightful. I looked with wonder at the snowy scene of Stars Hollow and marveled over each detail. From Lorelei’s first inhalation of snow-scented winter to the closing scenes where she realizes she has been tricked into counseling with her mother. What an amazing journey these characters have been on over the years. From joy to sorrow, from broken hearts to love, we have watched and waited and cried…

…over a television program.

Fiction though it is, I believe there are nuggets of truth in that show that matter. Family is precious, even when we don’t agree or see eye to eye. Love and sex are not the same things. Our peculiarities make us who we are – unique, fascinating, obnoxious. I loved that program in its inception because single motherhood resonated with me. I watched and waited for Lorelei to find the “holy grail”; i.e. true love with Luke. And watching the “Winter” episode definitely pointed to their happy union. I believe the reason that show works well is because of the aesthetic—beautiful small town filled with quirky residents that showcases people with genuine struggles fighting the fight to find and give love. But at the soul of this episode is something each character has had to come to terms with, how the death of a beloved character has impacted their lives.

Death is the inevitability all of us face, and our response to it matters.

Each day we spend on this planet we come into contact with what I would call the little death: SUFFERING. Physical pain. Relational pain. Emotional pain. Monotonous pain. It is at times so profound that we will do anything within our power to escape it. And interestingly enough, many of us think we are immune to it. I would even venture to guess many of us are in such a state of denial that we pretend we are not suffering at all. We paint our faces, put on snazzy clothes, buy a nice car and drink our diet coke from a PETA koozie cup. Then we quietly thumb our nose at our neighbor because their koozie cup isn’t as awesome as ours. We hold it up and shout, “Look at this koozie! It’s bedazzled! And its purchase saved an elephant tusk.” Then we settle in with a Stephen King fantasy novel. At the end we close the book and say, “Phew! I’m glad that’s over with.”

We have gotten so good at pretending the little death doesn’t exist that we have to read stories about it.

And by so doing, we reject the most glorious, the most precious, the most wonderful and amazing anecdote to the little death that has ever been given, God himself.

I have been digging at the root of my sin for a few years now. What is it? How do I find it? How do I pull it out? Some people that I love very much have criticized this need to quench the fire of sin as me “being too hard on myself” or “not accepting the grace given to me via the death of Jesus”. And it’s interesting to consider where I started on my journey to learn discipline(as it pertained to overeating) to where I have arrived(at a place where I still overeat). That is why I began reading John Owen. After all, how in the world do I eliminate this dreadful curse?

I initially perceived my sin as the compulsion to overeat. Then after I learned how to eat healthfully and lose the weight, I realized I was merely plucking fruit from the tree of my sin. There I stood in all my lush greenery, throwing apples(my compulsion to eat) into a bucket while nurturing my pride(as big as an oak). But I don’t have the luxury that others have of looking at myself and thinking I solved the problem. I can see the truth about my heart. I became painfully aware that losing weight was only the beginning of plucking fruit so I decided to pick up the shovel. And that is when I realized something extremely important…

Suffering is a gift.

I used to think pain was God’s way of punishing me but now I realize that if God truly hated me, he would leave me the heck alone. This little death that I face is the means by which he lavishes love upon me. How do I know this? Is it because I’m a masochist? Do I like my lashes and say, “Thank you, Sir. May I have another?” No. And many times no. I hate to suffer. But by suffering I have learned to turn my eyes to the only thing that brings true and sustaining joy, Jesus Christ.

I was waiting for a friend in a restaurant today when I heard a catchy song, the refrain of which was, “Where have all the good guys gone?” Those lyrics resonated with me and I found myself emotionally invested. Then I heard these words, “if we are all in the gutter, it doesn’t change who we are, ’cause some of us in the gutter are looking up at the stars.” Yes we are. We are all lonely and sad and looking for a hero. We are all looking for love. We are all looking up to the stars.

I’m dying. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But make no mistake, I am dying. I feel it. I want to avoid it. But no matter what I do it is unavoidable. The only hope I have as a human being is to live each day by dying well. I can pretend I’m not dying. I can choose not to think about what happens next, but the little deaths I experience make it impossible. I see my helpless estate and I long for a hero. So why do I settle for anything less than the biggest, brightest and best “superman” there is? I’ve been doing it for years. With every bite of chocolate, every act of lust, ever angry word I ever spoke. I keep trying to save myself even though I know I can’t.

But I am learning that the little death that precedes the big death is actually a foretaste of the Father himself. Each pang is a blessing in disguise. The Bible calls it discipline and says God uses it to bring us face to face with him.

Hebrews 12:5-6 “And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Nobody likes discipline(the little death/suffering). And we all long to be loved. It is the fundamental need of my soul to be loved for who I am. When I think of all the years I spent languishing with insecurity, I grieve. I should have been rejoicing in the steady hand of love reaching out to hold me. Instead I kept smacking it away while screeching, “I hate you! You are so mean!”

Last night we came face to face with the knowledge that there was no dessert in the house. My children began to have spasms of the mouth and limbs. Such words and contortions filled their senses that I worried they would get brain aneurysms. My husband, frustrated by the commotion, offered up his secret stash of candy bars to the flustered juveniles. They pounced, but I stood up to my diabetic 8-year-old and said, “I don’t want you to eat that. It will cause problems with your blood sugar.” You see, even though I can give him insulin for the sugar in the candy bar, his body doesn’t process it properly. He gets hyper, anxious and his blood sugars rise and crash(just like anyone who consumes sugar). He fought back. I argued. He sobbed. I stood firm. He screamed at me, “You are so mean!” I said, “I am trying to protect your body from harm. I know the candy bar will hurt you and I don’t want that to happen. And finally, after a lengthy discussion, Ephraim made the decision to eat the candy bar and accept the consequences while I looked away with tears. It was a grim reminder of the many times God has told me no, I insisted on saying yes, and ended up facing the painful consequences. But now I can see how God didn’t run away angry and hide his face from me because I was acting foolish. Rather, he was waiting for me to see what I had done to myself and how very much he wanted to cradle me in his arms and wipe the chocolate from my face.

Love is not usually what we expect it to be. We get our ideas of love from a box full of glittering lights. That is an illusion. Real love protects, seeks out, comforts, restores, and fills our senses with wonder. Real love gives the gift of the little death in order to show us the means by which to access real, soul-satisfying love. If you have not experienced this kind of mind-blowing, supremely satisfying love, and you claim to know Jesus—I’ve got news for you: You don’t know him at all. If you are walking around complaining about the little death, you haven’t seen the face of the one who conquers through it.

Today I found the root of my sin—something I’ve been digging at and trying like hell to pull out for as many years as I can count. I see it there—pulsing—like some alien monstrosity. It was uglier than I expected, and most decidedly black. And I realized with horror that I’m not strong enough to pull it out. I suppose in the beginning I thought I would be, but I can’t. It’s too massive—too hideous to touch—too full of poison. But rather than throw dirt back over it, rather than sigh and concede defeat, I looked up.

And there He was. He had that look about his face that seemed to say, “Well, would you like my help with that?” And I fell on my face and sobbed. Yes. Yes I would. And thank you, Daddy. Thank you for all the little deaths you sent to help me find it. Now please take it away. Bury it at the bottom of the sea. And please, like Corrie Ten Boom said, place a sign over it which reads, “No fishing allowed.”