Praying through September 9, 2011

So, I’ve been fighting my way through a pretty yucky cold.  Today I couldn’t handle the stuffiness and the sinus pressure a moment longer, so I took some Aleve Sinus, which has to be the best, most effective decongestent out there.  Only trouble is, it makes me feel too blah to exercise.

All that to say, I didn’t work out today.  But I’ve had a couple of decent days in terms of food and portion control.  Part of that is because nothing tastes or even sounds good to me.  But part of it just might be the thinking I’ve been doing about “cravings” and temptation, and whether it’s a sin to deviate from my weight loss plan and goals.

I’m not sure.  Still pondering that.

But today it was kind of weird.  Often when I don’t work out, I get that, “Oh well – let’s just throw in the towel completely” feeling.  Like, “Why even try?”  And a few of those thoughts did cross my mind before lunch.  I’d gone all morning without eating anything, and around 1:00 I realized that I needed to have something for lunch before I left to pick up the kids from school.  I typically have a Slim-Fast and some vegetables for lunch, but I totally wasn’t feeling the veggies.  I have this blah taste in my mouth from being sick and congested, and all I wanted was comfort food.

That’s when I got to thinking about the leftover casserole that was in the refrigerator.  I’d made it for dinner last night, and it’s one of my favorites – chicken, wild rice, and a sauce made from sour cream, a dash of curry, mushrooms, celery, onion, and white wine.  It’s amazing.

The more I thought about the casserole, the better it sounded.  I could imagine how refreshing it’d be to sit here and eat the rest of it – a very good sized portion was left last night – and drink unlimited amounts of Diet Coke to offset the saltiness of the casserole.

I decided to take a shower and get ready before eating, and while I was in the shower, it crossed my mind that perhaps I should pray about this…just to see if there was anything to that theory from the Craving book.  I didn’t even really pray very specifically – it was more of a fleeting thought as I showered.

But after I finished getting ready and went downstairs to have lunch, I realized that I no longer felt like having the casserole.  Instead, I fixed myself a protein shake.  I didn’t have time to have any vegetables.

The new protein shakes I’ve been making aren’t as nutritionally balanced as Slim-Fast shakes, but they sure have an interesting appetite-suppression effect on me!  That, combined with the “ugh” feeling from my cold, made me absolutely not hungry the rest of the afternoon.  I came home from picking up the kids and made myself some broccoli.  Then I had a Lean Cuisine and some milk.

And I’m totally fine right now.  Nothing sounds good, nothing is tempting me.  Not even the ice cream in the freezer.

I don’t know if it’s having this congestion, or if it’s the prayer and thinking I’ve been doing, but whatever it is, it’s good.  Here’s what I ate today:

Special K Protein Meal Bar (180); protein shake (240); broccoli (100); Lean Cuisine (210); milk (120).  Total:  850.

Wow.  Not nearly enough…but I’m just not feeling like eating anything else today.  I suppose that’s OK once in awhile, after all my major over-indulgences.

Food issues and…theology? September 8, 2011

Or, Is Overeating A Sin?

Awhile back, I was poking around on Amazon, looking for something to read on my Kindle, and I stumbled upon Made To Crave:  Satisfying Your Deepest Desire With God, Not Food by Lysa TerKeurst.  It had 181 five-star reviews, so I downloaded a sample and ended up buying the book.

It’s a thought-provoking read.  TerKeurst writes in a ”down-home girlfriend” style, which I find simultaneously engaging and yet somehow just a little bit too self-consciously cute for my tastes.  I’ll be going along, reading and nodding in agreement, when there will be an anecdote about her husband or something that just feels too forced-funny, like “insert chuckle here.”  It kind of throws off the rhythm of the Bible-teaching aspect.

But, like I said, between the “cute” parts, there are some thought-provoking ideas.  For instance, TerKeurst’s main point is that if we find ourselves over-indulging in food to the point where it is getting in the way of how we know we ought to be (physically fit and healthy), then we are using food inappropriately – and that misdirected “craving” becomes an obstacle to a better relationship with God.  Food becomes an idol.  Going on a binge with a bag of potato chips is therefore a sin.

Therefore, we should view our struggles with food in the same way that we would view any other spiritual struggle.  And we should handle them similarly.  We should pray for strength and use scripture to satisfy those cravings when they come.  TerKeurst herself managed to take off something like 30 pounds by looking at food this way.  She asserts that denying ourselves in the physical realm can result in spiritual blessings.  She cites several Bible passages to make her case, starting with the logic that while “all things are permissable, not all things are expedient.”  While food itself is morally neutral, and eating too much isn’t necessarily always wrong, it’s not good for us – and since “we were made for better than this” (a mantra she recites to herself when feeling tempted), and since the good is the enemy of the great, we can know that God would prefer us to give up our over-indulgences and instead fill our lives with Him.

I have no argument against this teaching and pretty much agree with it.  And yet…well…

As someone who struggles with an addiction to limitless pleasures, where I simply don’t want to stop eating something that tastes good, I have to say that while I can easily see the spiritual implications of my addiction, I don’t know that I’m comfortable thinking of eating too many potato chips as a sin.  I don’t know that I’m totally OK with putting so much spiritual baggage on something that ultimately affects the physical and the temporal and can so easily be about vanity than (primarily) “being our best for God’s sake.”

I mean, what motivates us to want to be physically fit and slim?

I know that in my case, my motivation primarily lies in wanting to look better so that I can project a more “together” image to the world and feel better in my clothes.  Are there spiritual benefits to feeling better about my physical self?  Well, yes.  I think so.  I’m no doubt more open to people when I’m not feeling self-conscious about how wide my butt looks in my fat jeans.  I’m friendlier, which is a good thing (a more Christ-like thing).

But mixed in with that “more godly” element are all kinds of other elements that are fleshly.  Like pride.  While I love feeling better – which I do when I’m in shape – the truth is that I never felt that bad when I weighed 190.  Oh, I probably would have started feeling and seeing the bad effects on my health sooner rather than later, but on a purely physical level, I didn’t feel particularly horrible when I was fat.  It was only on a mental level that I felt bad.  And – this is interesting to me – I only felt bad mentally when I was around people who were in better shape than I was.  Weighing 190 and wearing a size 16 or 18 didn’t particularly bother me when I was surrounded by other larger and dumpier people.

So for me, size has always primarily been about how I compare to others.  I don’t like feeling frumpier and fatter than other women.  I like looking cute in my clothes.  I like knowing that when other “together-looking” women see me, they are viewing me as an equal, as someone like them, and not as someone who doesn’t take care of herself as well as they take care of themselves.

So yeah, there are all sorts of fleshly, pride-of-life things tangled up in my motivations for wanting to be fit and slim.  To be brutally honest here, I’ve never felt like God is more pleased with me as a thin person than He was when I was a chunkster.

I’ve never felt like my physical size is something that God is terribly concerned with.

Yes, I can see where God is more honored when Christians look good.  An obese person is obviously not taking care of herself.  An obese person is not a very good advertisement for the Christian life.  An obese person is not exhibiting self-control, one of the fruits of the Spirit.

But a thin person can be just as not-very-spiritual as someone who struggles with self-control.  A thin person can become self-satisfied and arrogant.  A thin person can quickly forget how tough the struggle with food can be, and can begin to look down on fat people and think they are self-indulgent slugs who just can’t push away the plate.

How this connects back to Lysa TerKeurst’s book is, if my motivations for taking off weight are a tangled mess of mostly fleshly desires, then does exercising more control over what I eat still translate into a spiritual pursuit?

I’m really not sure.  I’m open to the idea of thinking about my over-indulgences in this way, and I’m going to be thinking about my “cravings” and praying about them to see if God will work and move to help me in my struggle with my particular addiction to limitless taste pleasures.  But – I have to say that I am sort of uncomfortable with the notion of strapping still more baggage onto my struggles with food.  I’m uncomfortable with the concept of spiritualizing what for me has been a battle I’ve previously successfully fought primarily with practical strategies.

Like, thinking of the lying voice in my head as “Crazed Addict Fatgirl” has helped me far more than thinking of that voice as “the Devil.”  Analyzing my issues with food and gaining the insight that I have problems with limits – and then taking practical steps to distract myself and focus on positive choices – has thus far given me greater success than viewing my disregard for limits as a sin that is dishonoring to God.

So, yeah.  I’d recommend TerKeurst’s book.  It’s thought-provoking.  And like I said, I’m open to bringing God into this equation.

But thus far – after having been thinking about this spiritualizing-weight-loss thing for several days – it’s just not resonating in my heart yet.

We’ll see if that changes.

Gathering momentum…again September 7, 2011

I’ve decided it’s time to re-embrace my old good habits.

Yes, I’ve drifted for months.  Every once in awhile, I’d have a “come to Jesus” day or two, and I’d blog about how I was going to turn myself around.  But then the old bizarre thinking patterns would come back.  Crazed Addict Fatgirl maintained way too much control of my thoughts.  I’d have a couple of days of having all the pieces of the puzzle in place – enough veggies, a couple of fruits, exercise, portion control – but then around day 3, I’d think about ordering pizza.  Or cooking some other fattening food.

The thought would send me down the path toward the action.  Crazed Addict Fatgirl would lie, taking over my thoughts and assuring me that I could control myself.  Or that it didn’t matter if I ate 4 pieces of pizza, since “it’s only cheese pizza,” which isn’t quite as bad as the kind with a bunch of meat toppings.

Because of Crazed Addict Fatgirl’s vice-grip hold on my thoughts, allowing her to take over after only a couple of “good” days is always a huge mistake.  It always leads to failure.

Which is why I have not really taken off any of the pounds I’d put on over the past 10 months or so.

For a long while, I’d done pretty well at maintenance.  I’d have my ups and downs, but despite some days of over-indulgence, I was generally able to hold my weight in the high 150s.  That’s not “perfectly thin” for me, but it’s not bad, either.  I was still able to wear all my “skinny” clothes, and I looked pretty good.

But sometime last fall, I started picking up some bad habits.  I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but I developed a few secret food rituals that centered around the time I had to spend in my car in the afternoons, waiting for my kids at their new school.  When the weather was warm, I had quite a bad Diet Coke addiction, which I never would have just by itself.  No.  I always wanted something salty to go with it.  So that typically meant bringing a bag of potato chips along, or stopping at KFC to pick up some crispy strips.  I’d orchestrate the whole thing so carefully, bringing my 2-liter of Diet Coke in an ice chest, along with a gigantic plastic cup full of ice.  I’d also pack some of my homemade ranch dressing for the crispy strips.

My weight crept up a couple of pounds.  I began to see 160 or 161 regularly.  I would tell myself that those two or three pounds could come off in a matter of a few days…which was sort of true…and that my “secret” rituals weren’t causing me any lasting trouble.

Then over the kids’ fall break, we went to Disneyland.  We had a great time, but we were so busy that I didn’t get around to working out like I’d planned.  I figured that the miles and miles of walking we did would more than compensate for the lack of more intense exercise.

At the same time, I threw all food restraints to the wind.  I discovered how much I LOVED the clam chowder soup in a sourdough bread bowl at one of the restaurants at California Adventure.  I’d wolf the entire thing.  I’d eat whatever I felt like eating, including desserts and whatever else.  I even had a big breakfast of pancakes and eggs and bacon on a couple of the mornings.

When we came back from that vacation, I was a solid 163.  And despite a dozen or so times when I vowed to change, that number never really dropped.

I resumed my workouts, often running 4 miles at a time.  But then I’d throw all portion control to the wind, even when it came to my vegetables.  I got into the habit of eating bunches of tomatoes and ranch dressing…along with whatever I felt like for dinner.

When I started my full-time teaching gig, the workouts got harder and harder to maintain, and my weight crept up some more.  163 became 165, which then became 167.  On some days I’d step on the scale and gasp to see the 170s.  I’d vow to get my portion control back.  I’d vow to ditch my bad habits with potato chips and tortilla chips and sourdough bread.  And ice cream after dinner.

But I realized that Crazed Addict Fatgirl has her old grip on my thoughts these days.  And if I don’t embrace some days of food prison and vanquish her grip, I will end up being fat again.  The high 160s, where my weight consistently remains right now, mean that I can’t comfortably wear my skinny clothes anymore.  I lie to myself and say that it doesn’t matter.  In the moments of temptation, when I’m really hungry and don’t feel like working at it, Crazed Addict Fatgirl reminds me of the few skinny clothes I can still squeeze into.  And then I cave to temptation.

I realize that I just have to stop.  I have to break Crazed Addict Fatgirl’s hold.

Something that has served to sober me a little and make me face up to the fact that Crazed Addict Fatgirl has been LYING to me was going through my old photos.  I was looking at pictures from two years ago, from 2009.  Particularly in some pictures from camping trips, I realized how much I miss wearing this one pair of shorts and these tops that I really like.  I also realized how much I miss liking how I looked in photos.  Lately, when my kids get hold of my camera and snap pictures of me, I’ll end up deleting most of them.  I don’t like how wide I am with these extra 10 or 15 pounds.

I have to remember that once I get some momentum back, Crazed Addict Fatgirl does lose her power over me.  If I can just string a bunch of “good” days together – where all the pieces of the puzzle are in place and I don’t overindulge – then I will be able to face real temptations and make it through them.

So that’s what I’m doing.

My weight today was right at 170.

Here’s what I ate:

Special K High Protein Meal Bar (180); grapefruit (100); Slim-Fast shake (190); broccoli (100); tomatoes (100); Lean Cuisine (310); milk (90); prunes (100).  Total:  1,170.

I also did 1 mile on my new “stride” machine (something like a cross between elliptical and stairstepper).

We’ll see how it goes.