What it Means to Have Real Weight Loss

This week and half has been hard on me. 

I’m up two pounds and I don’t want to tell anyone about it.  I don’t want to tell anyone because I am afraid of how I’ll be seen.

Because this is not the first set back. If this was the first set back, well, that’s one thing.  That makes me approachable, relatable, likable even.  It humanizes me a little bit, which is good because I know you all have been blown away by my superhero nature. ;) 

But a second set back… another week with a small weight gain, right after I announced the week before that I am losing too slowly to reach my goal in the first place….well ,that is a bridge too far, my friend.  My audience will tire of this “I am up two pounds so I feel like a loser” speech.  They’ll tire of trying to convince me otherwise.  They might start to agree.

How can I ask any group of encouraging people to wade through two failures?  

Why would you still bet on me?

This past week I’ve had these and other dark thoughts, as I am wont to do, but I rallied.  I rallied with the love and encouragement of my family and friends.

And I am encouraged by another thought: I haven’t quit yet.  I usually would’ve given up by now.  I have passed the point where I usually bail.  I’m in a new territory of dedication.  So that’s something. 

 

Also, this up and down of the scale is starting to teach me to find my joy in the right places.  I can’t be happy when I am two pounds down and sad when I am two pounds up.  I mean, I am. I don’t want to be, but I am.  

But I can’t hinge my world on a scale. I’m not exactly sure how to change that, but I’m asking the Lord to fix that in my heart.

And I think He might, because I have seen another gain besides the two pounds. 

Confidence. 

Something I prayed for in an earlier post.   Something I asked the Lord to write on my heart because I didn’t know how to do it myself.  Lately, I find that less and less do I hate what I see in the mirror.  Less and less do I hate my pictures.  I have started to notice my smile instead of my belly or my eyes instead of my arm flab.

I put on a bathing suit to go swimming the other day.  Mind you, just with my family. I gave myself a once over in the mirror and I saw that there is still a way to go weight-loss wise, but I didn’t give it much thought.  I didn’t care.  I was going swimming, and, for the first time in a while, that didn’t require me to obsess over my thighs. 

This blog is about change, and God is changing something in me.  In small ways, He is working something out.  And although the scale isn’t going down this week, I am a little lighter. 

So don’t bet on me. I am just a silly girl two steps away from a hissy fit or a pity party at any given moment. 

Bet on the fact that the Lord makes all things new, and I might be one of them.