slave to the scale

I have been losing weight. Trimming up. My pants have been loose and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Until I stepped on the scale today.

I've gained three pounds.

And my whole day turned sour looking at those ominous numbers glowing red. I cried. I swore I would eat nothing but raw veggies for the next week. Work out every day. Only drink water. Cancel my breakfast date with my husband to stay at home and eat fat free yogurt instead.

All over three pounds.

As I drove home this afternoon, still teary eyed, and full of regrets, I had a heart to heart with God. In the First Place 4 Health book the author challenges the reader to confront his/her negative eating habits and look for why they indulge in unhealthy behavior. I have to be honest, when I read that, I skimmed right over the "take a moment to journal" space and kept on going. I felt like I didn't need to dwell on the reasoning behind my bad habits. I had a poor self-image, I ate when stressed, blah, blah, blah, moving on now. But on the commute home I asked God to really show me why I overeat and choose nutritionally-poor foods.

The answer is really simple. I self-medicate with food. Feeling glum? I'll eat a piece of cake. Stressed? Give my husband the puppy-eyes and ask him to go pick up fresh doughnuts. That time of the month? Gotta have chocolate chip cookie dough to offset my crankiness.

In other words, I don't rely on God. At all. I don't trust Him to get me through a rough day, but I trust a Hershey's chocolate bar. Rather than leaning on my Savior to support and sustain me, I eat. I'm always justifying that one little splurge...and that little splurge comes almost once a day.

The scarier part is I honestly don't know how to overcome this mindset. I've lived this way since middle school, probably longer. I will literally have to unlearn a frame of mind that I've had for over fifteen years. I have no choice but to trust God more now than ever before. Otherwise, I'll keep focusing on what the scale tells me.

getting skinny for Jesus

I finally broke down and bought the First Place 4 Health book. Immediately after buying the book, my husband and I went out for lunch where I bought a fried chicken basket from Rush's (a local fast food chain). That was a month ago. I just started reading the book this week.

So can you tell how serious I am about this? It's taken me one month to read the introduction. I haven't even started chapter one yet. I drag my feet enough when it comes to those pesky little words "diet" and "exercise", but start throwing in Scripture references and I down-right get sulky. And skeptical. I already feel unworthy looking at the cover of Self magazine, now your going to show me another skinny cover-model and imply that not only is she skinnier than me, she's more spiritual? Egads.

And why do we have to take a diet and exercise program and make it biblical in the first place? Just so we can sell it in Christian book stores? Just because we know eating healthy and exercise is good for us, does not mean we have to find this truth in Scripture. The Bible is an anthology of spiritual teachings, not a workout plan or a biology text book. The focus of Scripture is God and how man can relate to Him. Yet, we tend to take Scripture that has spiritual applications and try to bend it to meet a certain topic. People take the story of Daniel and how he refused to eat the king's food because it violated purity laws. He asked to eat only certain foods not because they were intrinsically better for him, but because he wanted to fulfill the law. And God blessed this by making him fitter than those eating the king's food. Yet, people take this Scripture which focuses on obeying God's word and run away with it, formulating some perfect diet plan that somehow obliges God to help you lose weight.

Yet, here I am reading a Bible-study/healthy living plan. The fact remains that just because the Bible does not explicitly tell me that eating right and exercise are good for me doesn't negate the fact that these are good things. And I like the holistic approach that the First Place 4 Health program seems to endorse. The emphasis is growing in all four areas of life: physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional. So, I'm still a little skeptical, but I'm going to give it a try. We'll just have to see.