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.
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.
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.
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.
- This chick gets me. I mean really. I totally know where she is coming from. It’s like she’s in my head.
- 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
“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.
