Seven Months of Progress

I started this particular journey back in January of 2010. I set two goals for myself. One was to lose 20 pounds by Christmas of this year. I see now that will never happen. Plan B was to lose 12 pounds by Christmas. That one didn't seem so challenging, yet still a worthy goal. If I could just buckle down I might be able to accomplish Plan B. Since January I saw a steady one pound a month decline in my weight. Then in June I slacked up on my efforts and my weight bounced up. I'm back to losing but I haven't caught up with my lowest number. I feel like I've got some momentum back now, so by the end of August I think I will be out of the red.

I hate counting and keeping track of calories, but I decided to give it a try in January. I think I started feeling a little too confident, and in June and July I tried to simply eat sensibly and forget counting calories. The chart shows where that got me. I'm back to counting now, and I've already seen some progress with the scale.

Fortunately I've discovered, through trial and error, that I'm the kind of person who does best with taking baby steps. With all the times past that I've tried and failed with diets, I'd restricted myself to a thousand calories each day, and sometimes 1200. It was just too hard and I'd "fall off the wagon" over and over.

The success I've seen this year is due to a much more manageable plan. I've tried to shave off a few calories here and a few there by eating smaller meals and being very careful with snacks. On days I give in to myself and take a second or third helping at the table, I'm much less likely to stay under my calorie limit. If I feel like sitting in front of the TV for an hour with a bag of potatoe chips or other crunchy, salty snack, and give in to that, I'm doomed. I don't know how to stop with a few bites.

My current plan, the one that has helped me come down slowly this year, has been to try and stay between 1500 and 1700 calories a day. I expect to reach a plateau with that, and I'll have to adjust my calorie limit at some point. But its something achievable, doable, and as long as I see a one pound loss each month, I'll stick to that.

The Original Allegory

I've been wading through the amazing book, Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. The man called "Christian" sets out to find the Celestial City, leaving everything, even his wife and children behind. He runs into one obstacle after another. He gets discouraged, tempted, and distracted. He makes one or two decisions that later give him regrets. He nearly gives up the goal of ever getting to the Celestial City. He's captured by a giant and tortured. He almost drowns in a river. His friend and companion is killed. But he finally does reach his destination.

The book is an allegory about man's quest to reach Heaven, but there's so many examples that remind me of another quest; mine to lose weight and gain better health. Just like Christian, every day of my journey I'm met with roadblocks, temptations, discouragement, and doubts that maybe I never will reach my goal. But fortunately there seems to be some little spark inside that keeps me pressing on.

Like Pilgrim, I believe in my heart that the goal is attainable. As with Christian, there is an enemy that desires my failure and who will pull every trick he knows to stop my progress. And some days, maybe most days, I am my own worst enemy.

Pastor's sermon today was about our bodies being a temple. I jotted a few notes and Scripture references on my bulletin. I wrote,

"Ro 12:1-2, present our bodies as a holy and acceptable sacrifice; Ro 8:22-23, we suffer and groan in these bodies as we wait for our new ones; 1 Cor 9:27, I need to be a tough slave-master of my body, disciplining it into submission and not allowing it to rule the roost and have it's own selfish way; 1 Cor 6:12, don't be mastered by things that do not edify, things that are not profitable; 2 Cor 10:15 take every thought captive - learn to say no; Ro 6:12-13, don't allow sin to reign in my body."

Today's message seemed like an arrow aimed right at this issue of discipline with my diet. Not only do I want to lose weight for my health and self-worth, God wants me to be healthy, and keep His temple in good condition. The desire of my heart is constantly foiled by the desires of my body, and too often it wins the battle. I need to learn to be tough and say no to those lustful thoughts toward food I don't need, toward second helpings, toward high fat and high sugar foods that satisfy for a mere moment in time. Being overweight is not edifying nor is it profitable. Getting to a healthy weight would make my life so much easier and better. And I'm on my way down! Tomorrow I'll journal a bit about the progress I have made.