Thursday, December 27, 2007

In the beginning....

.....there was me in all of my glory and not overly happy about it. I tipped the scales at 297 yesterday. I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I would never weigh 300 pounds again. Thankfully, I had already found "the word to deliver" just over a week ago. P.C. was finishing a series titled "30 Reasons We Know God Wants Us Healed Now" and one of those reasons was the simple fact that the bible states in 1 Corinthians 6...

"19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

His sermon was on healing, but God had a different message for me. I have spent just over 16 years serving Him in Spirit, striving daily to do the things that I believe please Him, not to perfection, not in any way close to perfection, yet striving. I have read these verses time and time again, heard them preached and never one time did the "light bulb" come on like it did this night. Suddenly it became clear to me that He was very specific about glorifying Him with our bodies, it was bought with a price, a price of unconditional love and sacrifice, so that I would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that when this body no longer lives that my spirit shall live for all of eternity with my God. That being said, the clarity in my mind's eye was simple, how can I glorify Him with my body when its in terrible shape, I have no energy, I don't feel good more often than I do, my cholesterol is high, my triglycerides are high and obviously these things put me at risk for health issues that I'd just assume not even mention. So, now what do I do?

I prayed, I sought, I cried and finally I felt like step 1 was to find my hunger point. Fast until I knew for certain what it meant to be hungry. My body was created in His image, its smart, it has the ability to alert me when it needs fuel. Funny, I think somewhere along the line I forgot that. Rarely in the last 6 months have I felt truly hungry, there was no time to feel hunger because I was constantly eating. I made sure there was food for breakfast, morning snack (when I felt like I needed or wanted one), lunch, afternoon snacks and of course food for dinner and ice cream for late night desert with my hubby. It was never ending and in the last 2 months it seems that I've had more upset stomachs and often felt like I was going to explode after eating than I have in a really long time. Basically on the physical level I've been miserable. Yet, I kept eating and quit exercising. I've been known to overanalyze, so I don't think that I'm going to try and figure out why I have basically sabotaged all the good that I did from 2002 - 2006. So, I'm just going to move forward and start from scratch.

So that means yesterday was Day 1 on this new pathway and I did not eat until I was positive that I knew what hunger was. I surpassed hunger several times during the day and finally about 5:30 yesterday afternoon I was certain that I knew what hunger was. Now the goal is to eat when my body says it is hungry the next step is figuring out and paying attention to when I've had enough. I am going to focus on the not overeating part of this journey for about 10 days or so and then I'll work on exercising and getting my energy built up so that when we leave for our cruise in February, I'll be ready to enjoy 5 days of relaxation, excitement and an active excursion the day we are in Cozumel.

I'll post a "Before" picture when I can get my hubby to take one this weekend. So I can track my progress by sight as well as by weight.

I will be Fabulous by Forty!

p.s. My boss just came through my office with a Godiva Dark Chocolate Candy bar and gave me half of it. I am not hungry...so it is sitting on my desk and not being eaten at the moment. Hopefully when I get hungry at lunch I'll pay attention enough to know when I've had almost enough of left over chili & rice to stop so I can have at least a part of this candy bar that I'm certain is awesome. So there ya go my first Non Scale Victory (in the future shall be known as an NSV).

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