New Year's Resolution?

First things first.... Happy New Year!!!

But as I head into the New Year I am SO grateful that the Lord has been working with me the last couple weeks and preparing my heart for this New Year. By working through my issues with food and exercise and generally stripping away any pretenses leaving nothing but truth, this year I have a different perspective on the New Year than any other year to date. Like everyone else I am So temped to want to say I'm starting a new diet, making this change or that.
WHAT? No new diet for you? No PLAN? I mean everyone HAS to have a plan going into the New Year right?! I do but it's not the plan you think. Late last night the Lord stripped away any plan I thought I was going to have. He stripped it down to one single solitary plan. He did this by showing me this verse. I didn't go to bed until 1 AM and yet still I opened my Bible. I was SO tired but the Lord wouldn't let it go. He had greater work to do than letting me sleep. This is what he showed me. And when He did I couldn't believe it. I got tears. He is perfect. And his plans to prosper me are perfect. And His Word is perfect.

[20] If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— [21] “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” [22] (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? [23] These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
[3:1] If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. [2] Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. [3] For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
(Colossians 2:20-3:3 ESV)

Any rule I could come up with, any diet, any resolution, would be of NO value in stopping the indulgence of my flesh! The ONLY answer is to set my mind on the Lord, on the things above, NOT on the things on the earth. In one fail swoop the Lord destroyed my towers of Babel that thought that I could be like God, doing it on my own.

There is only one resolution to be made this year, and every year from this point on. To set my eyes on the Lord. And all the things that I would love to make resolutions about will fall in place. With the Lord ALL things are possible.

ONE RESOLUTION to rule them all.

Eating Healthy

So on this message board I'm on I posted something and the subsequent discussion really got me thinking about me and food and WHAT EATING HEALTHY IS. Is it eating the exact right proportion of nutrients? Or is it eating in a way that is healthy for both mind AND body?

Photo Credit: Boise State

I've always eaten pretty healthy. We only do brown rice, whole grains, eat loads of fruits and veggies, raw milk, etc. The majority of what we eat are great nourishing foods. Yet still I'm overweight. Yet still I have an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food. And as I'm trying to truly change my life I realize that things with food are NOT simple. While in theory the whole "just eat healthy foods" thing is great, I am realizing that I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that for me, that's not all there is to eating healthy.

I FINALLY realize why things like going low carb, etc. don't work for me. If I truly DO them successfully they do but I always fail then I feel even worse than ever. When I do restrictive kinds of diets I tie certain foods to right and wrong. So if I am only supposed to have no processed food at all and I eat say a small bowl of ice cream I feel like I've done WRONG, I've sinned even. Or if I'm only going to have a certain number of carbs and I crave an orange and I eat that I feel horrible. An orange! When I restrict certain TYPES of food, I tie food into my identity, my spiritual life, into whether I'm doing right or wrong. I spend the entire time I try to lose weight burdened heavily by my constant failure ,feeling overwhelmed with a feeling of constantly being in sin. And as we can guess then I overeat and gain more. This is what has happened this entire Holiday season for me (okay and my entire adulthood).

I want to learn to eat normally. I want to learn to healthy portions of whatever the food is. I want to be able to eat a few bites of ice cream and not eat the whole carton because well.... what difference does it make? I've already blown my diet by eating ice cream so might as well really enjoy it and eat a ton right? No. I want to be able to ENJOY food enough that I can savor a portion instead of shoveling it in where I enjoy it even LESS.

I wish I had NEVER dieted. I can't eat a single thing without thinking if it's high carb, low carb, high cal, etc. etc. I DO NOT want to be like this the rest of my life. I want to enjoy the blessing that food is. I don't want rules that make me obsess about food MORE. 5 small meals instead of 3. Well if I don't want 5 my mind is consumed with the fact that I either overate the last meal, or my metabolism's a mess and that's what I don't want 5. If I want 7 then I'm consumed with that I shouldn't have 7 or I'll get fat. All the food RULES destroy for me the blessing that food is. For ME saying "eat only nourishing foods and give yourself a small treat a day" would be a rule that in Day 1 I would break and then the self-condemnation would ensue. I want to be able to eat in a WAY that's healthy. Not only eat healthy foods because rationally that means I'm the healthiest. I want to EAT in a way that's healthy. So eat when I'm truly hungry. Eat only the amount I need. I want to be able to enjoy a treat if it sounds good and not feel the need to eat 10 pieces. I want to eat the way the Lord designed food to be IMO.

Food has definitely become an idol for me. I think of it often. I obsess about it. I get consumed with thoughts about food. Those thoughts can be of the cake I'm not allowed to eat so all I do is think about how great it smells and would taste. Or they can be because I then chose to eat some cake and then spend forever beating myself up about it. It is an idol in my life.

Years of dieting has destroyed my thought life with food. I try and take them captive and the captives revolt the second I take another bite.

Though I admit I'm scared of the idea of NOT having rules for my food. I haven't been able to trust myself to make good choices up until now so why would I make any from now on? I admit to being skeptical that I will EVER shake these tapes that run through my head over and over when I eat even the smallest thing. But it's my goal. So I'm starting this journey. HOW to do it I don't know yet. But hopefully as I read the rest of Overfed Head I'll learn LOL!

Dieting Makes You Fat

So I'm reading a great book called "the Overfed Head". It's by Rob Stevens. His site is HERE. I was fortunate enough to get the book when he was giving away free for a short time. But it's not expensive as far as ebooks go at $11.95. It's a worthwhile read in my opinion. It comes HIGHLY recommended to me from a friend who's a long term tapper and someone who has conquered weight once and for all. That's the kind of testimony I appreciate.
It's about learning to eat what your body needs, eat what you love and not obsess about food or diet. It was recommended by a friend. It instantly reminded me of how good ole Charlotte said she had learned to eat. The whole book is stuffed with nuggets of wisdom but I just read something in it that made a light bulb go off about dieting. I appreciate the science of weight loss. And this will open your eyes as well.

"when you diet, the weight you lose is composed of water, fat, and muscle. When you go off the diet, the weight you regain is mostly fat and water. So with every diet you are changing your fat-to-lean ration for the worse. That means you need fewer calories to maintain your current weigh than you would need if you weighed the same but had never dieted."

Yeah. Read it again. Failed diets (and 99.9% of them fail) actually make you FATTER and make it harder and harder to lose weight. I NEED to learn to stop obsessing about food. Period.

Making cookies, eating cookies and um.....

Every year I make 4 bazillion cookies for Clay's work. I'm happy to do it. He is such a blessing to me and it honors me to be able to let him be "that guy". He likes being the guy who walks in with the mass amounts of tins of cookies. He likes being that guy who can take tins down to the Union office and give them to the head guys. He likes looking not just respected at work but respected at home as well.

But man I make A LOT of cookies. This year is was 10 kinds of cookies and many batches of each kind. 800 cookies maybe? We won't get into how many I ate. We just won't. You can imagine all on your own. If your imagination wants to be kind about it, I'll appreciate it.

I learned a couple of things yesterday in my cookie madness.

1. - I want, no I need, to remember just how gross eating sugar makes my body feel. After a day with way too much sugar, boy did I feel gross. In fact I feel even worse today, the day after with my body working to recover from a day with too high blood sugar.

2. - I want, no I need, to have t-tapp principles become natural. SO many times I found myself realizing how horrible I was standing, things like that. AND I got to the end of the day and poked around online and realized that not ONCE had I thought to do some Hoedowns to deal with my raised blood sugar. I have been getting into the habit of doing PBS (Primary Back Stretch) before bed hoping that will help my back. But had I been standing tight and tucked to protect my back and ribs up, lats set I would have had much less back soreness today.