Aug 11^th, 2014

Today starts a new chapter of my life. All my life I remember struggling with weight, although looking back at some points I was struggling there was no reason, I was a healthy not overweight person. I feel at this point in my life that this battle has come to an all-time raging war. In my lifetime, like every over weight person, I have tried every diet and started every Monday with “This is the week I am going to do it!” I have worked with friends, family, joined gyms, bought videos, taken pills, bought devices, and drank shakes, you name it I have tried it. The sad part is I am very well educated, I love learning about fitness and nutrition. I find how the body works to be fascinating. Yet what do I do? I have filled my body with pop, fast food, pizza, dairy queen and foods that give that instant high. I struggle with not feeling like enough, I am always worried that if I don’t do things for people or don’t do enough for people they are not going to be my friends. I have anxiety of dying from cancer or a heart attack and leaving my 4 precious babies and my amazing husband, so what do I do with all this hurt, fear, and anxiety? I feed it sugar, fat, and sodium each night after those beautiful babies go to bed. I dream most of the day about that moment of sitting down, watching TV, and getting that uncomfortably full feeling. These bad habits are leading my life towards the things I fear the most and I am doing it one French fry and diet coke at a time. So why am I writing this? I realized that I am almost 32 years old, (1 year away from the age my father had a major heart attack) I have so much to live for. I was worshiping in church yesterday and the message was a really good one. The pastor had us close our eyes and gave us a visual of being in the desert and being hot, sandy, sweaty, and beyond thirsty. He said imagine there is a big waterfall coming from the sky and what a lot of us do is just splash ourselves with the water rather than jumping in and being consumed by the water. Of course this was a metaphor for our pray life with God and being somewhat in His presence vs being consumed by His presence.  I know exactly what he meant because it feels like it has been forever since I have felt God consume me. I do the prayers, listening to Christian music, listening to sermons, going to church, and reading my Bible, but I have not felt God’s all consuming, feeling like your ribs are going to break from God’s presence in a long time. I have been splashing myself with the water. So me and God spent some time talking yesterday. I asked Him why can I not get to that place of feeling Him so strongly. What in my life is holding me from Him? He clearly reviled that it was the way I was living my life. Food has become my idol. If I am sad I turn to food, if I am bored I turn to food, I find joy and celebration in food. Food has replaced the role God should have in my life. So I felt happy to know what was keeping me from God but really sad to know I was going to have to give up the one thing that has always been there for me. When in reality that is what God wants to be for me, so I confessed to my husband what God had spoken to me and we both agreed things needed to change. Then we watched a documentary called “Hungry for Change” and I saw what God had told me earlier is going to make my life so much happier. My body is craving to be healthy. It is longing for nutrients; God designed our bodies to be healthy, strong, and our spirits to be full of joy. He gave us foods to do that. So today I start a new journey. It is not going to be an easy one, because with every sin you have to go through the fire for God to refine you and get you back to the beautiful path He designed for you. I am going to go through withdrawal for the addictions to sugar, fat, salt, and other chemicals. I am praying that God gives me strength to get through the fire to get to that beautiful end goal of filling my body with the food God has blessed me with and feeling amazing from it. Why do you ask am I writing and sharing all this? Because I don’t believe I am the only one filled with hurts, anxiety, and other negative emotions and our idol and drug of choice is food.  I am writing to keep myself accountable and to invite others to join with me. Let’s find out what our sick out of shape bodies can feel like when it is healthy and full with God’s love and the food God has blessed us with. Let’s jump into the water and have God heal the wounds of the past rather than the pizza heal us, let’s let the joy of our life be enjoying the friends and family God has blessed us with and not the ice cream. Let’s start living the life that God gave us and not watching it pass us by in a mental fog. Now to do that, I have to make some serious changes and set myself up for success. So here is my action plan. Step one is admitting that food is a serious problem for me, it is not just something fun to do with friends it is ruining my health and stealing joy that I could have. Second I know a lot but I am going to get a personal trainer to really help me and hold my hand through the process, I am going to enter into counseling to find new coping mechanisms and work through things in my past that could be holding me back, and lastly and most importantly I am leaning on God to carry me through this journey. So if you want to join me I am going to try to Blog my journey every Monday with how the week has been, recipes I have tried and liked, what I am doing for exercise, Scriptures that have helped me and really just where my journey is going. I hope to do this every week but I do have 4 small children so that may not happen.  I do feel this is an issue so many of us struggle with so why not be honest with where we are at and work together to heal the hurts and achieve the joy God can give us through the foods He has blessed us with. Have a great week and here is to a new life!

Starting Weight: 192 (pretty humiliating but I want to be an open book on this journey and be completely honest with where I am in my life)