Battle of the Bulge: What I'm Learning Now

Oh the bulge...THE BULGE MAN!

I know that I wrote before about this year's New Year's command that this weight get thee behind me in the name of Jesus New Year's resolution to lose weight. If you haven't checked out my post on resolutions you should - it's inspired me a couple of times to keep going with all of the ones I set this year.

 I've learned that making PERMANENT CHANGE is really, really, really, truly, hard work.

So I wanted something where I could learn proper portion control and just get some better habits established. Enter the MyFitFoods 21 Day Challenge. MyFitFoods is a chain started in Houston that is like healthy fast food on the go. They carry meals that are not only portion-controlled, but that are combined to give you a meal that is relatively low on the glycemic index.

I am at the start of Day 17 and it has been...well challenging. For the last 17 days I've eaten 5 small meals from MyFitFoods everyday, with one "cheat meal" allowance each week. I pick up my new foods on Mondays and Thursdays. The convenience of the program is awesome - it's like having a personal chef for a month! The staff at my location are super-friendly. More importantly most of the food is delicious and I've got lots of cool ideas for how to make even more healthy meals at home. I thought the small portions would kill me at first, but that whole deal about eating smaller meals more frequently is #thetruth. I rarely feel hungry...really only late at night because I opted out of the 8 PM snack cause...well ain't nobody got money time for that! I lost 4 lbs in the first 2 days...which was most likely water weight but...yea it's still gone so booyow! I haven't weighed myself since, but I know my clothes are fitting much looser and more and more people are beginning to notice that I've lost a bit. I have more energy and I haven't felt that racing heart, blood sugar spike not once.

But the challenge...and more importantly the lesson in the challenge. I needed to eat this way to see a few things about my lifestyle and the decisions I've made in the past and the present. What I thought was a proper portion...is just not. I was eating way too much...mostly because the food tasted way too good. And the hardest lesson is that sometimes I just have to say, "No."

Yea. Like D.A.R.E. only this is F.A.R.E. The Food Abuse Resistance Education program.

My self-control and will have been put to the test at least 6 times that I can think of in the last 2+ weeks. I've been in situations where my friends and co-workers are eating some of my favorite foods and I just have to say no....and in one instance I had to just leave. In other cases I've just had to say no to own dang on self and that nagging craving for...well chocolate everything! I've been trying to overcome unnecessary, usually emotional eating for years, but I never knew what saying no to food would sound like coming out of my mouth. What it would feel like...I mean how would I stop the drool from falling while my friends enjoyed a plate of cheesy fries? You may laugh. #thestruggle is real.

Now that I've done it successfully a few times (and by successfully I mean there was no running off and binge eating alone afterwards) I know that yes, my taste buds will react. Yes my stomach has been conditioned to growl at those freshly baked cookies. But, I have goals to reach and therefore I do have the power to control what goes in my body.

Last night, after an exhilarating event my friends/co-organizers wanted to go out for food afterwards. I was still riding on the spiritual high of the event and wanted to be in the mix, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to avoid the temptation. It literally feels like I'm going through some sort of withdrawals when I'm sitting in front of a plate of fries these days lol. One of my friends suggested I just "cut back a little and enjoy the foods I like." It's just not that simple for my body...it's not that simple for many people's bodies. In fact I envy the people who are like "Oh I just started looking at glasses of water and I started losing weight." Ugh, chile please. And at this point in my journey, I don't think it's okay to just randomly indulge...I know what that leads to for me and it. ain't. pretty. So last night I made the decision to go home and not put my will to the test...and it was a very hard decision, but after talking to my sister I realized I can't expect other people to make the decision for me. Other people, especially my friends who don't have the same issues with food or weight...they don't get it and while I can try to explain it...they don't have to get it. I have to get it. I have to decide when it is time to compromise, sit and fight an urge, or when to just leave. And I have to be okay with whatever decision I make.

That revelation stung, in fact I'm still grappling with what all of this looks like in the long term. Will I eventually make these decisions as easily as I would have made the decision to stuff 6 of those donuts down my throat? Probably. Will I need to seek out some like-minded folks who have similar goals? Maybe. But those are questions that will only be answered in time. In the meantime I'm feeling renewed...and dare I say freed. Self-discipline is clearly not developed through just thoughts...faith without works is dead boo...it is developed through taking an action that is sometimes contradictory to what you really want to do, and then repeating that action until you get it in your muscle memory and it becomes what you really want to do.

I'm off to go try to put this into practice in other areas of my life too! I hope this hits home for somebody, anybody, everybody (SCREAM!) :-)

Must'a Forgot

I am still on a Resurrection Weekend high! Now when I first started this blog, I intended it to be more of just, "Hey look I'm discovering all these really cool things about me and the world around me and I want to share" but more and more that's turning into, "Hey look what Jesus showed me about me and the world around me and about what He wants to share with us!" Never thought this would be me, but here I am.

So anyway, back to that Resurrection high. I've read the story of the Resurrection hundreds of times..okay that may be an exaggeration...but I've read it a lot and this time it was like I read it with fresh eyes and in turn I gained some fresh perspective on where I am in my journey to bliss.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to lose the weight I've been carrying around for the last few years. I set up some mini-goals for myself along the way which originally included:

 Complete Yoga X without stopping by March 31*

 Re-start a running program by Daylight Savings Time

 Track meals 5/7 days of the week

 Food journal on good and “bad” food days to get to the root of emotional eating

 Report weight loss and gain to TDS Team*

7 PM is reserved for workouts during the week except for Tuesday and Wednesday*

 Rewards for every 5 lb weight loss

I've put an asterisk next to each goal that I need to rethink. That's more for me than for you, so I digress. Anywho. While I have lost an amount that shall remain undisclosed at this time, I have not been losing at a rate that I'd like and that occasionally gets discouraging. Okay more than occasionally. Maybe more than discouraging. When you factor in visits from friends and family, late night snack attacks with the girls, and the occasional PMS craving for a whole cake from The Chocolate Bar (which I have yet to give into...only by the grace of God lol)...I have spent several of the past few weeks in tears because making PERMANENT CHANGE happen is hard. Really hard.

I find myself boo-hooing, and woe-is-me-ing, and dangerously close to upending my other resolution to be kinder to myself this year. On those days when I am scraping at the bottom of my resolve, I so easily forget that I have promise. A promise that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. A promise that all will be well in my body as it is in my my soul. A promise to myself to feed and care for my body as Christ does the body of believers (the church). Yea that's powerful stuff, but I forget sometimes. And I revert to crying over what looks like a lost dream. I bet the disciples thought their dreams had been lost that day when Jesus took His last breath on the cross...

See Jesus told His disciples that He would be killed and be buried, but He also promised them He would rise three days later. This weekend I heard the pastor of The429 here in Houston preach that he would have been posted up outside the tomb waiting for Jesus to get up with a countdown and everything. I'd like to think I'd be there too. I'd like to think that after watching Jesus perform miracle after miracle after miracle that if He said He'd get up from the grave, I'd believe and be ready and waiting with a "Haha I told you my He'd do it." But like the disciples, sometimes I waver.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my own emotions over what looks like a dead dream or a dead future that I forget what God has promised me. Just like He promised to rise from the grave, He promises to raise us into new life as well. All He really asks us to do is to believe.

With that in mind I know I've got to keep working at what I want for my mind, body, and spirit to the best of my ability, but I've also got to keep believing in what I've been promised. That's what faith's all about ya know?

Lady in waiting: How I finally learned to love my singleness

http://albfit.tumblr.com/post/20965105295/learning-to-love-the-process-is-so-important-for

This is just a straight up excerpt from my journal that I happened to share with a couple of friends...I think it's powerful for those of us who are learning to truly love ourselves as we learn to love God...as we learn to love "The One" who hasn't shown up yet :-) and particularly those of us who have chosen celibacy while we "wait." 

...I talked about how it is so much easier to be intimate with a man than with God because we can see and feel the man. To have true intimacy with God takes more faith and trust than to have it with a man. That was the first aha, which led to the second. The second is what put me on an all day high.

For a while I've been saying (probably because I heard it somewhere) that we have to get our relationship with the Lord right first before we can love anyone else properly, particularly in a romantic relationship. I remember once, a friend asked me what that would look like -  to learn how to love from God – I couldn't really answer her at the time, but I knew the idea was right and I knew the Holy Spirit would show me when I was ready.

Today while I prayed about this revelation, He deepened my understanding of what He wants and what I want. He wants me (us) to know Him on a level that is so special we can't ever experience it with anyone else and that we can barely describe to anyone. Some women talk about having made love to the Holy Spirit. I don’t know about all that, but I do know there are times when I pray that I feel so completely submerged in His presence that it is dizzying. In those moments I feel Him drawing me closer, but my level of faith and trust has not yet allowed me to go all the way where I know 

But anyway He wants us to have those experiences with Him – and not always the dizzying ones, but the ones where we know His love deeply - so that we have a reference point for true intimacy. It is a point where we know Him at such a level that is special to our individual relationship with Him. Once we've been able to experience Him fully, we are in a place where we are safe to fully experience intimacy with other people, especially physical intimacy with a man. We can now have those experiences without harm because we are so deep into Him that we know how to experience intimacy with someone else and not lose ourselves or lose sight of Him. 

Too often I went chasing sex looking for intimacy because I didn't know how to get what I really wanted. Half the time I didn't even know or want to admit that intimacy was what I really wanted. What I did know was that I was left feeling empty too often from those experiences. 

I believe God wants to show me (us) how to get intimacy with Him - and when I get it I know I'll never have to seek it from random hookups or even just attention from a man again. He has so much more to show us! He really does want to be our first love, our first husband. As I prayed over this revelation this morning I was brought to tears over how much He loves me and how much more closely He wants to get to me, how much more He wants to show me of Himself and of His love, how much more He wants to show me about who I am as a person and as a woman and eventually as a wife. But He wants it all with me first so I won’t ever walk away – He is a jealous God after all ;-)

The more I prayed this morning the more excited I became about being taken to these new heights with the Lord. I found myself more excited about experiencing Him than about ever getting married mostly because I've begun to really see the holes in my character that He needs to fill. No man can fill those gaps – trust me I tried to let the last one fill them and when he couldn't I left feeling hurt and nearly betrayed by love.  I don’t want to come to my husband without having laid those gaps before the throne. 

You know, this year is the first year I've actually noticed trees budding and awakening in Spring in Houston? I had a moment while I was walking at Memorial Park and then another while I prayed this morning where my eyes “just happened” to fall on a budding tree. The whole time I've been here I've been completely oblivious to any signs of Spring – and it’s my favorite season! But God! He  is allowing me to see and He is drawing these parallels with me and nature. It’s like He’s saying, "yes I tore you down last year, but I am allowing you to bloom this year."

I’m not all the way there, but He’s working in me and it is a wonderful feeling to know it – to be irrevocably certain that He is in control and that He wants only good for me. It's like He's walking me around creation with fresh eyes - so I see my own awakening and blooming with fresh eyes! He is just...wow! Awesome! I’m sure that temptation will come my way. I mean – I was just checking out some firemen who showed up to one of my campuses (thanks for pulling the fire alarm whoever you are kid!) But there is a difference in that and the total yearning that I've felt for a relationship previously. I am special and the relationship He has for me is so special and will be so awesome that He wants me right and tight spiritually before I walk into it. Whew my God loves me!