Take A Chance on Me

At the beginning of last year, I set out to lose a 100 pounds, throw away or give away a 100 things, and do a 100 half hours of exercise. 

The main goal was to see if I could enact lasting change in my life.  Could I be something other than what I was? Hence the title “300 and Change.”

The score at the end of the year is as follows:

80 things given or thrown away.

50 half hours of exercise.

and…

I lost 30 pounds.

Now, that weight loss may not seem like much in a year. But it is more than I have done in the last several years.

And I’m still encouraged at how the year turned out. This may be surprising, seeing as I didn’t maintain the blogging as much in the second half of the year, and the weight loss wasn’t consistent, and there were several times I gave up.   

But the point is I always came back to the project.  I came back to it with the help and encouragement of friends and family. I dieted for a year and saw a decent weight loss, and I think that isn’t anything to shake a stick at.

But the real question is change.  Did I see change in my life?  And the answer to that is a solid yes!

I might be a little neater.  I might be a little lighter.  But the real change happened in my heart.

(I’m sorry, as soon as I wrote the phrase “in my heart” the sarcastic me kinda rolled her eyes, but I don’t know how else to say it.) 

Before I sat down to write a wrap-up of last year, I decided to reread my old posts.  I took a little time to flip through my “many entries,” a very little time.  As I read, I had some thoughts.

1. This chick gets me. I mean really.  I totally know where she is coming from.  It’s like she’s in my head.
2. This chick is funny.  Losing weight to avoid cannibalism. The bit about the music montages.  This is gold!

But after I finished marveling at my own insight into me, and laughing at my own jokes like the dork I am, I came away with another feeling from those first batches of posts.

“This chick feels like she’s got something to prove.”

During the first half of the blogging and the dieting, I was seeking to define myself.  I wanted to put on a persona.  I am the girl who blogs.  The healthy girl, the funny crusader for dieting woman everywhere.  

I wanted there to be pictures of me in my blog like the pictures I have seen and envied in so many other blogs.  The picture of the blogger as the cool professional of the future.  Hair trendy but not edgy.  A professional cut or style, but maybe with a little pink underneath. “I can be serious and fun.” Makeup - natural but stunning. A cool flattering slouchy outfit with jeans.  Of course there would be a scarf and some sort of fair trade world jewelry.  I would be carefree, laughing, and looking off to the side, as if someone candidly shot this picture of me in all my fabulousness while I wasn’t paying attention.  Like maybe at a fair trade coffee bean party, or right before I left for my mountain soul journey that I take every few months to write down all my deep insights, or while I was discussing rescue puppies. (Giving back is the new black.) 

I created this person I wanted to be in my head.  She was basically a mash-up of pinterest pins and facebook posts I’ve envied in other people.

I was trying to use this experience to put on change like a trendy scarf, while the truth is the change had to work from the inside out.  I’m not sure why this didn’t occur to me.  It’s a very basic concept.  And I think I did know on some level that the change I was looking for had to happen on the inside.  But I didn’t know where to start.  So I started with the outside and hoped for the best.

When I read back through the earlier posts and the spiritual things I was struggling with, like the comparison trap, overly obsessing about what I eat, and obsessing about what other people eat, I had a joyful realization that I’m not doing those things as much. Or when I do those things now, I seem to be better at calling it for what it is, either silliness or sin or both. 

Then there were the darker issues I struggled with.  The issues I had with faith, contentment, and my husband’s illness. And those issues are better too.  Not gone. Not solved, exactly, but better.  Better than they have been in years. 

Better because God worked on my heart in ways I never could.  He worked on my anger with Him and taught me surrender.   And, to my surprise I found strength and comfort on the other side of that surrender.  I am worried that this sounds like something I did.  It was not.  It was something God did in me.  It was like He tweaked things in me over the year, so that I would run better.  You know, the race set before me and what not.

It wasn’t a change all at once.  It was a lesson here, a set back there.  The encouragement of friends and the love of loved ones.

And it was also God’s word.

I wrote the post about being angry with God.  Sometimes, after I get my thoughts on paper, there’s a feeling of, “There, that’s sorted.  I have come to a conclusion.  That’s what I will believe now.  I will be all better.”  But of course things are never that simple.

Those feelings were something I would pick up and put down again and again.  I was talking to my friend about this.  Asking why couldn’t this issue be settled in my mind?  Why do I keep struggling with this?  And she asked me how much Bible reading I do.  I said not a lot.  I didn’t want to.  I didn’t feel like I could claim those promises any more. Promises like “mighty to save” and “God is the great healer.” It is a dark place when you read the Bible with a sarcastic snort. 

My friend simply encouraged me to start.  “It doesn’t have to be a lot.  And you don’t have to think you believe it.  And even if you don’t want to, we know that God calls us to read His word. And somewhere in you you know it’s a good idea.  So just do it out of obedience.” (For the record she said this very nicely.) 

I started reading again, because I knew she was right.  

As I go through adulthood, the problems of life become more complicated.  The struggles are greater and harder to bear.  And I guess I expected the answers to be complicated as well.  But in this case, the old Sunday School standard seemed to be as true today as it was years ago.  

“Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll grow -grow -grow.” Or for me it could be sung, “Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll heal -heal -heal.”  Maybe they’re the same thing.

It works.  In a way that is hard to explain unless you have lived it.  It didn’t take away my problems, but it made them easier to bear. The word is alive, and it changes you.  It changed me.

Change.  There it is.  What I was seeking.  What the whole project was about.  Could I change, could things change in a year?

They did.

It occurs to me that maybe they always do.  Maybe we always go from one year to the next wiser, farther along in our faith.  I just happen to have the documentation to prove that to me now.

There was a quote that I came across in an old post that I think was a good wrap-up of the success I was looking for and the success I found.

“I guess I’m just weighing out what I’ll consider a success and what I’ll consider a failure when it’s all said and done.

Perhaps the goal is not to stand at the end of this year “a success” but merely to stand at the end of this year changed.  And changed for the better.  A little surer of myself.  A little surer of who the Lord is in my life.  A little less scared and a little less fluffy.

I think that’s where I landed, by the grace of God.

As I have been writing this I’ve had an Abba song stuck in my head. (I realize it should be a hymn or worship song and I’d like to pretend it was.  But Abba it is, and I’m not gonna lie.)

“If you change your mind, I'm the first in line

Honey I'm still free

Take a chance on me

If you need me, let me know, gonna be around

If you've got no place to go, if you're feeling down

If you're all alone when the pretty birds have flown

Honey I'm still free

Take a chance on me

Gonna do my very best and it ain't no lie

If you put me to the test, if you let me try

Take a chance on me.”

That’s what has been echoing through my head as I start this up again. Because I’d like to go at this project one more time.  See what I can lose, toss, and learn in a year.  Tell all you kind souls about it, and see where I stand at the end of next year. 

In short, honey, I’m still free.  Take a chance on me.

P.S. Now you have an Abba song in your head.  You’re welcome.

Every Yesterday Should be December 31st

It’s a new year and I’m back.  I need to share with you the wrap up of last year, what stats I actually ended with, and some of the things the Lord taught me along the way.  And I’ll get to all that.  But today I just wanted to talk to you about a not often discussed phenomenon: December 31^st the great disappearing day!

We’ve all experienced the magic of January 1^st. The clock turns and we begin to slough off the gluttony of the season and think sensibly again. We dust off and update our Weight Watchers apps. We tuck holiday candies into the back corners of freezers, or throw them out if we’re really hard core. Or, if we’re not so hard core, we might consume them in a last fit of frenzy.   There will be no comment at this time about which category I fit in. 

People begin to start thinking about the old standards of healthy living. Things like carrot sticks, coconut oil and kale.  We drink water, chop through the flesh of crisp vegetables, lace up shoes and in every way we are taking steps to a better us. Then scales creak and tell sad tales and we take the pill of the bad news with the glass of “So this is where I start.”

These are the January covers of some of the magazines I get. 

Apparently, I have 2016 in my pocket.

I don’t need to take a long time explaining how the start of the year fills me with hope. I see the year stretching before me and everything seems possible. I can make a lasting change in my life. I can be different. I am in charge of my future days. They will bend to my will. We all understand this feeling.

I am fascinated by the power of this day. Mostly because these feelings of hope and encouragement don’t happen often for me. It’s not every morning that I wake up thinking I have the year in my pocket instead of the last of the holiday candy. 

But this year I realized that for me the magic does not lie in January 1^st, but in December 31^st: the day that is forgotten. December 31^st is the day that I easily leave behind.  This year’s December 31^st wasn’t a particularly good day, health-wise. We invited guests to our house and I stayed up too late eating snacks and munchies. But I don’t wake up on the 1^st lamenting the night before. The day and all its mistakes are gone in the light of that enchanted morning. 

I am amazed at the spirit of forgiveness of oneself that I feel on January 1st.  I am willing to forgive myself of all of it – a night of snacking, a season of bad choices, sugary drinks, and heavy meals. I take in the stock of a whole year, the good and the bad, and then let it go like chaff in the wind. I rest in the fact I can’t change what has been done, and it wasn’t all bad.  Then I take a deep breath and move forward. What is this midnight magic? 

Any other morning I wake up still counting the calories of the day before. I wake up deciding, based on yesterday, if I can get my diet back on track.  I wake up weighed down.

But not on the shining new penny that is January 1^st. Why can’t I do this every day? Why can I so easily forgive myself for a whole year that night, and not forgive myself of a day or so any other night of the year?

Do I need the ritual? Should I count down every night till midnight, blow a noise maker, kiss my husband, toast with something bubbly, let go of the day I just had, and embrace the next? This seems gratuitous and crazy (but a little fun).

I just want to remember this me. This “it all is still possible” me. Maybe I don’t count down every night, but what about at the turning of every month? Walk into the 1^st of every month with the freshness of a new year. Or what about every Sunday night, count down and face Monday free from any weekend shackles, ready to take on all that I have set out to do? 

My Weight Watchers app, that, yes, has been recently updated, used to hold the tracking from the day before on the screen. The old version used to make you clear the old day before starting the next. Not any more: the new app starts every day on a clear screen. And the screen has the button you can push to start tracking and one simple phrase. “Let’s do this!” They know what they’re doing.

So I’m gonna give this a try, to feel the freedom and clean slate of every morning. Not just to live every day like its January 1^st. But live every day like yesterday was December 31^st.

Let’s do this.

Celebrate Food Times, Come On!

So I have some questions about food and celebrations.

A diet can be hard to follow on most days. Most days you are tempted by many things, like the fluffy whip cream atop the Frappuccino that’s served right before your green tea comes to the counter. Or the swirling, lovely plate of pasta spilling over with bouncy, noodley goodness, making your grilled chicken dish look sad. Or really anything in a Panini format, with melty, crispy, lovely cheese. (Man, I’ve been dieting a while.)

But for me, the temptation is always the worst when there is something to celebrate or something to grieve. I don’t really need to spell this out, but to put a finer point on it, it’s anything from the spectrum of birthday cake to a cookie after a bad day. 

These occasions make avoiding temptation particularly hard because they come with something else that is delicious. Justification. 

“You’re only thirty once.”

“It’s Easter.”

“It’s just a little graduation cake.”

“I deserve this after the day that I’ve had.” 

“It’s a full moon.”

And those excuses have a point. What’s the problem with a little something decadent every once in a while? 

I have a decent-sized family, and we all live about half an hour’s drive from each other. This includes my parents, my two siblings, their spouses, and their children. So birthdays alone take up eleven out of twelve months. Then there are holidays, my anniversary, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. That’s not counting Monday holiday cook-outs and major life events such as graduations, promotions and big announcements. 

Pepper in the occasional bad days. And soon “every once in a while” turns into “every now and again,” and then eventually to “more often than not.” 

So, it serves to reason that I have to re-think how I handle “special occasions.” I’m really looking at four options here. I can white knuckle it. Have a similar sweet alternative.  Have a small amount of the special food. Or the more likely fourth option: indulge like I used to.  Let’s break down every scenario.

“White knuckling.” I have done this. And I am ok at it. It helps that my family knows my food decisions and doesn’t expect or pressure me to enjoy dessert. But it is still really hard. Sometimes I have to have something obstruct my view of the dessert. I can’t make eye contact with it. Its presence nags in the background of my brain. I’m not gonna lie; making conversation even gets hard. 

So then there is the “sweet alternative.” This usually looks like fruit or a small piece of good dark chocolate and sometimes both. This does distract my mouth and mind a bit. But it’s only a small consolation amid the plunging of forks into fluffy cake or the diving of spoons into gentle mounds of ice cream. (I really have to stop describing food.) 

Then there is the option of” indulging a little”. This isn’t a bad idea. I could keep the portion small and enjoy the little that I have. But when are the “small portion” indulgences too frequent? I mentioned that there are a lot of reasons to indulge. When do I decide indulging is truly justified? Is it the occasion, or the time that has lapsed from the last indulgence? 

I don’t actually have an answer here. But I do know in each of these scenarios, I feel like a loser. I feel like, “What’s wrong with me that I can’t handle this situation? Why I can’t handle eating dessert and looking the way I’m supposed to.” Or “Why  can’t I abstain from dessert without obsessing?” And if I do enjoy dessert I feel like a failure. I just feel like something is wrong with me that, when faced with the simple question of “Dessert?” I don’t have a clear answer.

Will this always be a struggle? Will I ever be able to get through these get-togethers without the anxiety-ridden questions surrounding frosting?

When I started cutting out the cake-eating from these special events, I realized it was one of my favorite parts of the get-together. This paints me in a lovely light, I know. But I love food. The crumb of a well made cake or the joy of a scratch-made frosting warms my heart. I just wish that enjoying the cake wasn’t always mingled with guilt and confusion.

 And I love to bake! Creating, experimenting, the beautiful fluffiness of sugar creamed in butter – am I to no longer create in this way? And if I do continue to express myself in baking, am I not supposed to eat it?

But then again, the struggle with my weight has been life-long. Maybe I need a drastic shift in how I think about the “joys in life” I feel I am entitled to. I don’t know if I am ready for that.

I feel like I need a structure that allows for some small treats but has an electric fence to keep me from going too far.

So what do you do? I don’t really have answers here. 

So tell me, what do you do? When is indulging ok? Where are the parameters? 

In short, when and how much cake is ok?

The Comeback Kid

I have walked away from blogging a little bit. I didn’t walk away completely from the overall challenge although there were some diet vacations.

Things got busy. Life got busy, and I just got fatigued by the whole thing. And once you get away it is hard to come back. 

This is true in most projects for me. Once I stop writing it is hard to get back to it. Once I go off my diet it’s hard to stare a salad in the face again. Once I stop working out I feel a little sheepish pulling on my sneakers in the morning, like somehow the sneakers know.

 “Well, well, well, look who thought she would lace us up? Are we gonna go on a little run, Steph? Is that what we’re doing now? You think you can just discard us for weeks, stick us in the corner with your uncomfortable heels? Who by the way are not the brightest pair of pumps at Payless.  Have you ever tried to have a conversation with them? Not exactly a Rhoades Scholars if you catch my drift. You think you can just discard us with Ding Bat Sling Backs over and then just pick up where we left off?!?”  (Those are some sarcastic sneakers)  

I think the problem with coming back is a problem of identity. I am trying to decide which of these actions truly defines me: am I the quitter or am I the one who tries again? Every time I pick up again after taking a break from something, I feel like the quitter merely pretending to be a doer. I feel fake, and somehow I feel like the outside world is watching me and whispering, “She’s not fooling anybody.”

Why do I default to the worse of the two settings? Maybe it’s because it’s easier to walk away. So it feels like what is easier for me to do must be closer to my true self.

I want to be seen as successful. Always going forward, never flinching or wavering in the task I set before myself.

But the truth is, I waver. I am a crazy waverer. I waver so much I would fail multiple sobriety tests. I’m Waver McWaverson. I waver so much people see me and think I’ve just taken a long journey on a swaying ship. I stumble through life on sea legs, the waverer that I am.

I doubt myself. I doubt my choice of workout or diet. I doubt my resolve. I’m afraid. I am afraid to fail and to be seen failing. I think I’m afraid that if I get it wrong and don’t succeed I’ve somehow locked in “a failure” as who I am. 

I overcharge dieting, organizing, and blogging with all these self-defining feelings, so no wonder I come back with a certain amount of anxiety. It feels like facing the music, or more accurately, facing a part of my personality I’m not proud of. 

I feel like there is a debt to be paid. I am coming back and carrying the burden of the past failures. And not only do I have to face my past failures, I also have to face my past successes, because sometimes the shining gems of my past accomplishments seem to accuse me, they have turned into millstones representing all the opportunities I’ve wasted since the times I succeeded.  

So I come back feeling I have to somehow make up for and atone for all the past mistakes. Especially in the area of healthy eating. If I walk away from that, I come back literally bearing the weight.

As I thought over these issue, I came across Philippians 3:13-14.

“But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

This refers to looking forward in our spiritual walk. I’ve always been taught that “forgetting those things” means past failures and success.

I always read this verse taking away the idea that past success don’t count tomorrow. That you can’t rest on your laurels. But in the light of this current issue, I find that the idea of a clean slate, of forgetting all that is behind, both the failures that claim to define me and the successes that demand I don’t put them to waste, is a freeing concept. The idea that I can take my failures not as a cross to bear but as lessons learned.

It is also important to remember what defines me. Christ. His death on the cross that saved my life, and my purpose to glorify God. And that is it. 

And to remember what is the “goal” and the “prize” that I press on towards, which is not to be a size two. Or to stick to the strictest of diets so that I can hold it as a source of pride, but rather to glorify God.  In this situation, I am to glorify God in being a good steward of my body. 

And to put a finer point on it, to be a good steward of my body, today. Just today.  I just have to worry about the choices I make today.  Not absolving for past mistakes, not defining myself with every bite, just doing my best, today.

So shut it up, shoes. It’s time to move forward.

For the record, I’ve lost 27 pounds