I've Got Issues!

I’m sure there are many people in my life that would have loved to tell me that I use my “spirituality” to cope. However, I have met someone who apparently has nothing to lose by telling me that. There were two main questions in my Weight Loss homework for this week.

1) List your three most important values (and I was to choose from a list they gave me).
2) List four obstacles that always stand in your way and prevent you from keeping weight off.

Little did I realize what all would come out of answering these two questions. On the first question, my health was certainly not on top priority of values. To which the doctor asked me, “So without your health…or if you are in a hospital because of poor health, how will you be of any value to the three things you listed?” It was a good point she was making. To which, I had nothing to say.

As for the four obstacles, I will share them with you and see if you can relate:

1) Feeling that I am being deprived of what I want
2) Justifying an indulgence and making excuses for doing so
3) Once I plateau, discouragement sets in and I convince myself “this is ridiculous; I’m not going to continue this”
4) Comfort foods to compensate for a loss

So, here I am being honest and transparent with the doctor and nurse (as well as you) and she says to me, “So, you are self-indulgent and you rationalize. You need to continue to delay gratification and even make sacrifices. If you go into a Third World country, there you will find true deprivation, malnutrition and poverty. You live in the ‘land of plenty’ and that is one of the problems of obesity. You are experiencing withdrawal from the food that you have habitually comforted yourself with. This is an addiction and it takes time to break habits and addictions. This is why the 6-week rehab of ‘resting your stomach’”. Yeah….that’s another thing she told me. Much like we need a vacation from our daily stresses and time to rest and allow the mind to rest, so does our stomach need a vacation. So , I am to continue on without indulging in foods I want and crave and give my stomach a vacation. (Have you ever heard of such a thing?) But, I am telling you as I was sitting there, looking her square in the eye, it made so much sense. She brings her chair right up close to me, looks over my homework and then begins to speak very boldly into my life. She is not afraid to do so and is not concerned with hurting my feelings. She is an amazing lady and I respect her. At one point, I gave her the indication that I knew better what I needed. She smiled and never lost eye contact. You know what her smile was asking? “Are you going to let me be the doctor?” And to her smile, I answered, “If that is what you think I need, I will do what you tell me.” You just know when you are in that kind of position to simply bow in submission and say, “Yes ma’am.”

Another thing that was very interesting to me. They asked me to think of what I most crave right now and then tell them how that food relates to my childhood. Do I remember having that often as a child? Did I never get that as a child? Was having that food as a child related to a special memory or occasion that I found enjoyable? So, as I thought about the question, I realized that we never had chips and salty type snacks available to us as children. I asked my Mom to confirm this to me and she said it just was not something they purchased and had in the house. What is happening is that emotionally I want/crave that which I could never have growing up. I want to self-indulge and satisfy that craving now as an adult. I learned at some point to comfort myself with that particular type of food once I could control what I could have.

So as you can probably see, today was another one of those “heavy processing” days for me. I will continue to process and think about these things because I know that it is helpful for me to do so. I went away with the resolve to continue on. Push through the craving and temptation times; continue to delay gratification; remember that it is the children in Africa and other Third World countries that are truly deprived. All of this is such a mental exercise. As Joan of Arc said, “All battles are first won or lost in the mind.” It really makes a difference to have someone who knows what they are talking about to speak boldly into your life. Today I just need to stay focused. Stay on track. Keep peddling. Even though all this sounds like “doing” and “working”, which is so against what I teach about grace and resting, I realize that actually this is cooperating with the truth of what I already know to be true of who I am in Christ. So, I will continue to cooperate and be a participant in this miracle.