Hope

I've been pondering a lot of big thoughts lately. And I haven't hurt myself yet, so I think it is safe.

If part of my purpose is to grow faith, to learn to hope, then I must guard against the enemies of hope.

It is so easy to talk yourself out of anything that requires investment. Investment of time, energy, money. But most of all hope. Hope is the currency that we all find ourselves short on in the face of discouragement or difficulty. You have to continuously grow hope. Foster hope. You can't bank it for a rainy day. You have to spend it--the more thoroughly the better. It can't be hoarded away. It won't survive being locked up or kept safe. It must be thrown upon the waters. It thrives on danger and wastes away when guarded.

Hebrews 11:1-3 says,

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  For by it the people of old received their commendation.  By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.


That's the thing. God wants us to live with hope. To grow in faith. It is the currency of heaven. The very nature of spiritual things. God himself called the world into being out of nothing. There was no hint of creation before He brought it into being. It came from no visible glimmer, no former pattern. And when we dream, when we hope and have faith, we must learn to not look around for the obvious. The low rumble that warns the train is coming, the flash of light around the bend in the tunnel. NO! We have to believe things that we can't see. We are called to step into a dark tunnel in hope, trusting the One who tells us that though it is never SAFE to hope, it is what we were made to do.

We, like Eve, are tempted to take the path of knowledge. We want to know things. To gather information and then, be our own god by deciding how to proceed. But God invites us instead to live by faith. It is not that we aren't to use our brains, or to be wise...but how much more heavily do we rely on what is seen over what is unseen? I don't need training to follow my brain, but I very much need practice in living by faith.

Even something as simple as eating sensibly requires faith and hope, built upon a bedrock of truth. Though faith is the assurance of things not seen, it is also built on Truth. When my assumptions are lies, then hope is built on a sandy foundation. I must build my hope on truth...and more specifically the very Truth, Jesus Christ.

So it is wisdom I seek more than knowledge. Truth. And after I have discovered truth, I am required to build my hope on that truth. To disregard temptations to abandon the truth, to resist the discouragement that teaches me to cease hoping.

Ultimately my goal is heaven, but right now, I must live this life here  on the earth. And for some reason, God knows that I need to learn faith, hope and love. I can't even please him without Faith, so, it is best to get busy!

So today I will practice hope. I will hope that by consistent, daily healthy choices, my body will respond in time. Even though I am seeing no sign of it happening yet. The scale is stubborn--I waver after almost two weeks with between 1 and 2 pounds loss, and I am tempted to ditch the whole thing. But I am choosing hope today. I know...the truth is I have made big changes in my diet and exercise. I must foster hope that those changes will bear fruit in time. In spite of the evidence not seen. I must also be grounded in unvarnished truth. It won't do to let lies come in and undermine my hope. I must ferret out the lies and faulty beliefs before my hope is built on a sure thing.

Exercise, otherwise known as Breathing Hard, is good for you.

I have been enjoying my bicycle since I have pretty much recovered from my knee surgery almost 2 months ago.  I got in 6 1/2 miles today, and it took me about 42 minutes. And I went uphill...both ways! Well, I did have a few hills. And I did breathe hard and I got a little sweaty. So that means that I did good, right?

Seriously though, I do enjoy my bike. I like to go fast. If I'm going to be exercising I like the sensation of the earth moving past me at a decent clip. It somehow seems more laborious to me if the road moves slowly under my feet...or even worse, walking on a treadmill. You get nowhere on those things! And I have to think I'm getting somewhere...and the faster the better. (And yes I do have a bit of a lead foot in the car, more's the pity).

But losing weight is not something I can speed up. There is no quick, easy version to switch to in order to make the road to thinness whip by me, hair floating in the breeze. At times it is a slog--a slough. It is sometimes a thankless, monotonous task that seems to go nowhere fast. I know that persistence is the key here, but it is so hard to keep going against along a slow, tortuous meandering slushy way...dropping a pound here...a few ounces there, gain a few ounces at times for no explicable reason, lose a little more the next week. You really have to take the long view and do your best to not think about the pace. It is what it is. Might as well accept it.

That has been one of the areas of weakness for me over the years. I lose momentum and cannot content myself with minuscule losses, or pauses, or even reversals when I am doing everything right! So I give up, gain weight, and then have to tackle it at a later date. Ah the insanity!

And that is how it seems to be for me now. I have dropped maybe two pounds over the past week. I say maybe, because sometimes it goes up a pound and sometimes down. But I do weigh a little less. It is just that since I don't see the scale moving steadily downward, I'm tempted to think this is not working! After all, I've given it all this TIME. I've been good...where's the instant, constant and steady payback?

But losing weight or overcoming any hurdle in life is somethings that needs HOPE to feed it. Faith. You have to believe, in spite of current evidence, that making sane, healthy changes in the way you eat and move will make things change for the better in time. That even if it is slow, so very slow, it will come.

I have to work on building my hope. To discard the negative voices and have the boundless faith of a child again.  How do I do that?

Crack for the Menopausal Woman

After a day off from blogging, I'm not feeling particularly inspired to write cleverly today. Still plugging along with my eating plan. Making better choices with my eating. Maneuvering successfully through the minefields of restaurant meals, and even a dessert buffet at my end of the year gathering for my English as a Second Language students.

But today I bought a package of Godiva caramel crunch bars, my kryptonite! They are little chocolate bars filled with chewy caramel and sea salt sprinkled liberally on top. I am pretty sure they were manufactured by little magical elves who are bent on keeping me heavy and hooked on their version of crack for the middle aged woman. One bite and I'm down for the count. So I haven't had that bite yet. It is on the shelf just out of my reach, but not out of my mind. The thought of it has danced entrancingly around my mind like a cartoon bubble cloud. I know I shall eat it. I must, I must!

Ok. So I plan to eat it. And I will eat it. It shall be mine and shall come to nestle safely in my tummy, all warm and happy. It is simply no good to anyone on a shelf, just taunting you like that. So I will teach it a lesson and consume it and then I will win. Er. Well, sort of. No, not really, but why does it seem like a victory as I contemplate having it for my very own precious?

Do I need to be one of those people that don't keep certain foods in their house? Or should I remain of the opposite camp of far kinder and gentler folk who believe in keeping stashes all over their house in case of emergency. (You know, a craving emergency.)

Hmm. I've always kept my stashes. For me it is worse to want something and not have it near and then wind up eating something that only whets the appetite for the craving but still leaves you longing for the thing you were dreaming about.

I don't know. It's something to think about, I guess. But for now I plan to enjoy that little morsel, and just write down the calories in my little app and keep on rolling.

Cue the ominous music.

It's Not Me, It's You

Have you ever thought that maybe you've been living your life on auto drive? That maybe you were so focused on one way of doing things that you never stopped to think it could be done differently? Should be done differenly? That maybe, gasp, there is a better way to go? Or that maybe you have been traveling a rut so long that you can't see over the ridge to a beckoning vista beyond?

We all like to float in the stream of accepted dogma. No one likes to go against the stream for long. We at least like to find our own tribe and swim along with them. It's like this with politics, and philosophy, and especially religion. (That's why relationship with God is so much more challenging than just following religious rules.)

So it is with diets. We align ourselves with people who are following the same plan, touting the benefits of our own chosen method like zealots on the mission field.We like the neat rules, and spend a lot of time bending our minds to happily acquiesce to them. I spent a very long time frantically looking for something that was "right" in the world of diets. But maybe there is not one "right" way. Talk about a paradigm shift.

Maybe you just have to pick something you can live with and stop second guessing yourself. Do ya'll second guess yourselves? Am I doing that? Wait, maybe I shouldn't do that. GAH!

The bottom line is that, no matter what eating plan you land on, we all find that we have to give up old habits, and learn new ones. We have to soberly make choices in a new way, and give up being careless. Maybe the real problem is not that I couldn't find a plan I could live with...it was that I didn't want to give up being a careless eater.

That's what I miss. Carelessness. It is so relaxing to be careless. For example, when you are not following a plan, you can mindlessly nibble your daughter's chocolate pop tart pieces that she left on the counter. (Why does she do that? Was she standing at the counter eating and then suddenly found something more compelling going on? Why can't I find more compelling things to do than finishing a chocolate pop tart?)

Mindless eating. Oh the joys. But is it really a joy? If you are doing it mindlessly, how can you be enjoying it? I mindlessly clean toilets, but don't find that I am compelled to find more toilets to clean.

There are many things I do in a day that are rather mindless. And that's probably best considering the toilet cleaning analogy. But eating shouldn't be one of them. After all, if you like doing something, shouldn't you give it your attention?

So, now I have to P L A N. I have to write things down. I have to make choices between this or that, rather than just eating all of this and some of that, and a little more of this. But let's face it, when I was doing that it didn't make me feel good at all. Most of the time I was eating on autopilot, and would come up out of my food trance thinking, "Did I really just eat all that?"

Oh well. Even when doing something mindlessly, we are constantly making choices. Maybe I can eventually learn to mindlessly eat the right number of calories? NAH. I know that ain't gonna happen. So I have to choose to be mindful in the area of eating. And that's ok. 'Cause I like to eat, so why not pay attention to one of the pleasures of life?

That is why I am liking the simplicity of counting calories. There is only one number I need to concern myself with...the caloric content. It's not a perfect system, but if you are on a calorie budget, you do steer more toward healthy choices, since they are the ones lower in calories. And with lower calories you also automatically cut down on saturated fats, sugars, carbs...the whole enchilada. (Hm, enchiladas...maybe I can figure a low-cal version?)

I've gotta go put that chocolate pop tart in a baggie. And in the pantry. In a box. Out of sight.

So this is my life now, huh?

I am getting into the swing of things. I have noticed that the hardest moments are when I am hungry. (Duh). But no, it is not really that simple. The thing about counting calories is that every bite you take subtracts from your daily allotted total. I'm all about addition baby...don't much like subtraction.

But you start off with x number of calories per day, and then you set about eating, and that means subtraction. I could play around with semantics and say I'm adding up my calories, but when there is a limit looming at the end of the day, you know very well you are really subtracting.

 I am eating real food, with a few diet-y choices that I happen to like to smooth out the edges. I eat fried eggs and toast for breakfast, something left over from last night's dinner for lunch, and then I try and make a good meal for the family most evenings. So far this week, I've made Caprese chicken, spaghetti, and tonight chicken tortilla soup. All very good and reasonably healthy. My meals (making smaller portions) tend to be around 300-500 each. I throw in a few low calorie snacks to round out my day...and I find that I am eating a generous number of calories per day, with no real deprivation. The weight loss will be slower than if I reduced them to 1000 calories per day, but I'm just tryin' to keep it real here.

I do so hate to see the diminishing number of calories on my LoseIt! app. But I'm learning to relax, there really are plenty to work with in my day, and I can make it through comfortably if I am reasonable and sane in my choices. And I'm learning to not make any sudden decisions to ditch the diet an hour before I eat. Those moments when you are getting really hungry are when your mind seductively whispers, "Why don't you do this diet thing another day?"And then I realize, I'm going to be doing this for a long time. Really forever. There is no such thing as starting another day, because all the days I have left will leave their mark on my body, whether I chose to acknowledge that or not.
It's best to make peace with the fact that, like money, I have a limited amount and if I don't want the consequences of overspending (money or calories) then it's best to put it down on paper and stick to it.

Things My Cat Told Me

I'm not really a cat person. I have a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Louie who occupies the special place in my heart reserved for furry things. But I do have a cat named Mishka that I like. He is weird. Truly. I have watched him sit and stare at a blank wall. Of course, you have to wonder about me watching a cat watching a wall. But...oh never mind. I'm weird too. I admit it.

Now, Mishka doesn't actually talk to me. That would be really weird. And probably unbelievable.  But I know what he is saying most of the time. I remember when he was a kitten and I took him to get neutered. He said, 'AWEEEMEOWWWAWA." Which means "I am going to kill you when we get home." No, he actually didn't try to kill me right away. Cats know that revenge is a dish best served cold. He cashed in on his threat about 6 months later when he latched onto my hand with teeth and claws as I gave him a bath. I can still feel that bite 4 years later, and I haven't bathed him since. We began to understand one another at this point. Since then I always take him to a professional groomer who always tells me how well behaved he is for his bath. Mishka always smirks at me when she says that.

He's not always malevolent. Sometimes he comes and sits on my lap and puts his head on my shoulder and purrs happily. This worked out pretty well until we got Louie. Now whenever the cat gets in my lap, Louie tries to come join him, and then the fun games begin where I try get away while they play the game, 'ThisIsMYMomAndYouNeedToLeave'. It is a game for three players, but I don't usually like it much.

Last weekend we took a trip home and I boarded Louie. My cat does not like to be boarded. He is an inside/outside cat, which means that he goes inside or outside every time the door opens. So when we take a short trip, we prop the door to the garage to give him shelter, and leave him plenty of food and water and he is much happier out than when we have tried keeping him indoors for days. (I know this because if he stays in too long he pees on my favorite chair in order to tell me not to do this in the future.)

So as we were preparing to leave, I had the kids make sure Mishka was out of the house before we locked up. But by the time we were pulling out, I wondered if he had somehow made his way back in, so we stopped while I called his name to see if he appeared. He did not answer me or come to me, but as I walked around the house I saw him sitting in the front behind a bush, staring accusingly at me. I know what he was saying. "So, you are off again on a fabulous trip and think that I will not notice your absence, do you? I will remember, my lady. Oh yes, I will remember." At this point of the conversation, he casually flexed his extended paw and licked it to dismiss me, but he and I both knew the message had been given. We both know what a long memory he has.

So what does all this have to do with dieting and weight loss? Weight loss plans are like cats. They speak their own language, fill you with dread, and eventually deliver on their promise at some unknown future date. I am three days in and I have heard whispers of hunger, promises for the future, and a good bit of staring at blank walls for no obvious reason. But the scale finally dropped down over a pound, so I'm pretty sure that means I'm winning. For now.

Dieting is not always fun, but what can you do? Diets seem to have more than 9 lives, and I'm pretty sure if they could talk they would try to be the boss of me. Which is kind of the point. Where is that cat, anyway?

OCD is Alive and Kicking

I spent a good amount of time setting up my blog and rewriting my first post and then editing and editing again. Pretty soon it will be perfect. And then I will go arrange my soup cans alphabetically. Nah. Just kidding. I think. Why do people do that? Should I do that? Do you do that by brand name, or do you start the alphabetizing all over with each brand? How do you decide which shelf to put them on?  Left to right, up to down?  Or is that too left-brainy? Wouldn't it look prettier by color? Hmm...now we are talking!

I kid. I'm not that OCD. Just mildly. Well maybe moderately. How do I get off this topic?

I spent a whole day following my calorie plan. I even came in under my calorie budget! I weighed in this morning and am down two tenths of one pound. Celebrate! Should I be weighing daily? Maybe not. Why do I do that? Could it be my OCD tendency? Do I care? Why should I care? Then again why should I not care? Shall I make a list of pros and cons? Am I driving you crazy? Am I crazy? STOP the madness.

Seriously though, I have found daily weighing to at least keep me grounded in reality. Although it is interesting how you can get to the point where you see the pounds climbing daily and can keep telling yourself that you MUST start losing weight for a ridiculous number of days. And still be mildly surprised that the weight is not magically inching downward. And it is amazing how easy it is to say to yourself...well, maybe tomorrow I'll start a new eating plan. Or after this event, or after that weekend. Maybe I was not as grounded in reality as I like to think? Ya think?  Of course I have not been grounded in reality. I have been grounded in Creative Overthinking and Carefully Constructed Willful Ignorance.

I read a comment somewhere that has resounded in my mind over and over in recent weeks. It was something like this..."you are not fat, you HAVE fat". It is a new thought that I am trying to program into my mind. To identify yourself as fat or even as a fat person is programming yourself with a lie, or at best a twisting of reality. I am not fat. I have fat that I'd like to lose, but it is not me. It is flesh. It reflects a period of years of bad choices, and emotional eating, but it is not my identity, who I am or who I am meant to be. My body is my earthly habitation, and I can work to make it a comfortable one or not...but it is still only an outward shell for who I really am. The person God created and interacts with is not simply my physical self, it is also the inner me. My physical body is a combined result of God's original gift coupled with the sum total of my reactions to the material and spiritual world around and within me. As a Christian, I believe that Jesus is to be Lord of all...yet my body unfortunately does reflect the years of choosing my own way. Thank God there is grace and forgiveness. Otherwise I might be tempted to believe I should just give up. He continually whispers a reality check if I open my ears to listen.

Speaking of comfortable or not. I wore a pair of pants yesterday to substitute teach in that I have not tried on for a few months. When I first put them on it didn't feel too bad.  A little snug maybe, but I figured it would hold in the extra girth in a more flattering silhouette than another choice. (Exhibit A: Carefully Constructed Willful Ignorance)  An hour or so later I felt like my organs were being pressed upward into my rib cage. The waist band cut into my middle like a vise, and I felt like 3 pounds of sugar packed into a two pound sack. Definitely not comfortable. And reason number 281 for getting some weight off. I used to want to lose weight only so I would look good. That was back when I was slim enough not be be really physically uncomfortable. And though I don't deny the desire to look my best...my motivation right now is to feel comfortable in my skin and in my body. I remember feeling light and "bendable". I can still bend, but it ain't pretty or comfortable.

So, I march onward, in the attempt to remove the Carefully Constructed Willful Ignorance and exchange it with reality. Real reality. Really real reality. Ok. You get the idea, right?

How to start, how to start.

They say the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. But when you have a large hunk of pounds that you'd ideally like to lose, that is a rather daunting prospect. Especially when you're "50 something". And a slow loser. And have a track record of the last 15 years of yo-yo dieting, with mixed results but an over all steady weight gain of of an alarming number of pounds. Mixed result. Yea. Let's call it that.

It wasn't always like this. I was a rather petite teen and a somewhat average to petite young woman. I started "dieting" at 12 when I weighed 105 pounds, so I was seriously deranged then. Oh to weigh what I weighed when I first thought I was fat!

The morning weigh in revealed a brand new, shiny high. I have been avidly and with great interest watching that number edge up over the last 4 months. I was 20 pounds less back in December, and I was just beginning to feel better and have hope of continuing onward. Then I had a couple of surgeries and was not able to exercise...and hey, if you can't exercise there's only one thing you can do...EAT!

So now reality forces open my squinting eyes, and I realize that if I don't start controlling what goes into my mouth, my weight is just going to keep going up. And I'll end up with diabetes. And then I'll die. Well, let's face it, I'm going to die anyway, but I don't want the diabetes part. Plus I am really tired of sore knees and squeezing into my jeans (but refusing to buy the next size up) and not enjoying clothes shopping at all. I want to make a change, I just need the courage to do it. And to stay with it a very, very long time.

I realized that since writing has always been my thing, why not blog about it and have some accountability that way? If you know I'm doing this and I know you know, then maybe I'll stay focused. I will try to be honest...well honestish, anyway.

My plan? I have mulled over this for years now. I have tried Weight Watchers on and off again many, many times.  Eventually I gave up every time when my weight loss  stalled.  The last time I tried it, they had gone to "smart points" which consists of a formula that strips every ounce of joy out of dieting (smirk), which for me means sheer torture that you have to pay for. No thanks. If I'm going to torture myself I want to do it for free.

I have had success with Intuitive Eating on and off over the years, but then something always happens to pull me off that track and put me firmly back on the track of Emotional Eating. Which is like intuitive eating but way more entertaining and less successful. I've tried low carbing for about 3 hours, but I like bread and also feeling like a normal human, so...

I tried liquid only fasting for a day once when I had to have a colonoscopy. And though I love jello and gatorade as much as the next girl, it is not an experience I'd like to repeat on a regular basis. And I have actually fasted for a day or so for spiritual reasons...but it is not really the best weight loss plan since you eventually have to stop fasting. (I have discovered that eating regularly is part of life for some curious reason).

So I am just going to try (again) the good old fashioned basics of calorie counting. I started with calorie restriction as a slim and stupid teen, and it worked quite effectively for 10 years or so, and honestly, though I didn't really need to lose weight back then, it sure did work better than any other method I've used since. Back then I used a 1960's era booklet with a woman in a leotard smiling encouragingly about her 1000 calories a day diet of cottage cheese and Tab cola. I did that religiously and lived to tell about it.

I'm going to use an app on my smart phone to track my food. I chose the "Lose it!" app, which seems to be pretty easy to use...and I'm just using the free version. I'm not even sure how many calories I will end up shooting for daily, but I tried inputing my weight and my desire to lose a pound a week, and it gave me a end day of 200 years from now. I exaggerate the end day. But it is A Very Long Time Into the Future.

And the truth is, I likely don't need to lose all the way down to my former happy weight. Weighing what I weighed at age 35 sounds alluring and delicious and like A Very Good Idea, but I am nearly 52 now and haven't seen that weight for 16 years. Getting down that low may make me look like a tiny crone. And though I will admit that tiny crone trumps roly poly old lady, I might be fine as average middle aged woman in the normal range-ish.

I may try and go lower in calories later, but we'll start with those initial diagnosed daily calories for now. And I plan to up the activity level little by little. See how sensible I plan to start? You can watch the crazy take over later..