In April of 2010 I knew I was fat but wasn’t willing to do anything about it. I didn’t want to separate myself from the foods I loved or move enough to burn off my extra padding. Conceptually, I wanted to be skinny and pretty—like most women. I wanted my husband to find me attractive. I wanted to bend over and touch my toes—okay, not really—I just wanted to be able to clip my toenails. But I was locked into a addiction that was worse than any prison. I had no idea I was killing myself emotionally and physically. But rather than address the issues causing me to spiral, I sulked, made excuses, and cried. It was all very unproductive.
Fast forward three and a half years and I am rubbing people the wrong way with my healthy lifestyle. The way some people roll their eyes at me, you would think their eyeballs were loose. Today I feel this deep well of emotion stirring in my soul. I want to educate people on what it means to be healthy. It seems that many people around me have a very loose idea of what good health is and what it truly means to be healthy. Even worse, they don’t care. This has made me deeply reflective. Why do I care?
The diet industry is booming. Obviously there is a market for people who want to lose weight or get in shape. But until a person identifies their motives, sets a goal and sticks to a plan, they are no better than me, a decade ago, ordering Hydroxycut and saying a prayer that it would melt the fat off my body. I am so glad I have adjusted my mental faculties into learning discipline, not only because I wanted to lose weight, but because I felt God wanted me to take control of my out-of-control life. I am whole-heartedly convicted that being “self-controlled and alert” is a spiritual and physical discipline. I love the comedian, Jim Gaffigan. He makes no excuses for his fat, pale body. In fact, he’s making a lot of money touring the country while making fun of himself for being fat and lazy. Sure it’s funny, but he’s a comedian and his life is supposed to be a punch line. But when we get serious, we are forced to take a hard look at our lives and our bodies. If we have to make jokes to deal with the pain, something is seriously wrong.
Here is my list(my opinion) of what Good Health is:
1) I am not in chronic pain. (sports injuries aside)
2) I can outrun my children, which means I always win.
3) I’m happy.
4) I don’t cry when I open the closet door(anymore).
5) I fit in the driver’s seat of my car without pushing the seat back.
6) I don’t have any serious illnesses and can fight off reasonable infection without antibiotics.
7) I can climb a flight of stairs without fear of passing out.
8) I enjoy eating lots of fruit and vegetables.
I could go on and on but eight seems like a good number. I used to think I had no say in my health. I assumed I would contract cancer, or some other terrible disease, at any time and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. I now know that eating the right food and exercising regularly will help prevent terrible diseases. Take type 2 diabetes, for example. Between 1995 and 2010 the number of diagnosed cases of diabetes jumped by 50% or more in forty-two states and by 100% in eighteen states. These statistics are so staggering that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to create a strategy to slow the prevalence of this illness. If you don’t know, Diabetes causes blood glucose(sugar) levels to rise higher than normal because your body loses its ability to use insulin properly. We also know that sugar feeds cancerous tumors. So why do people insist on consuming it in such vast quantities? Yes, I do know it’s tasty but it’s killing us!
The tipping point for me was my recent decision to cut dairy and gluten from my diet. Three weeks have passed and I feel like a completely different person. I have lost 7 pounds. My head is clear. I am not obsessing about food anymore. I’m so full of joy and relief that I keep saying, “Thank you, Jesus!” It feels like a miracle and maybe it is. I lost 140 pounds through sheer force of will. If only I had known then what I know now… I never thought in a million years that life could be this good.
I want everyone to have what I have. That is why I am writing this blog. Yes, this world is fractured and imperfect. Yes, there is pain, sorrow and hardship. Yes, bad things happen to good people. But we have one thing we can control, our bodies and what we do with them. I have a serious question for you to consider: Why wouldn’t you do everything humanly possible to take care of your body?
Because honestly, I don’t see K-Mart having a blue light special on human bodies any time soon.
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