Most of you know I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes when I was about 30 weeks pregnant with Lucy. Thankfully my blood sugar levels returned to normal after I had her, but as my Doctor said, this is a "shot across the bow" for my health. It indicates a genetic propensity for Type Two Diabetes later in my life, and he encouraged me to work at getting healthy and losing weight.
So, for my birthday my parents graciously bought me a BodyBugg. They wear these on the Biggest Loser, and it's a device that tracks with 90% accuracy your calorie burn for a given day. Then you input your food into an online system and can see how much you burned versus how much you ate. It's the simple law of thermodynamics - energy is neither created nor destroyed, it is either burned or stored in happy fat cells.
I'm excited, and I'm nervous. I have been on some sort of diet off and on since the fourth grade - Weight Watchers, Curves, South Beach, Atkins, semi-starvation...I've tried them all. I have lost and regained weight more often than I can count, and that makes me a pessimist. But I have never had the right motivation. I've wanted to fit into a certain brand, get a boyfriend, look better for equestrian events, feel beautiful. All have been self-absorbed motives, and perhaps that is why all have failed.
I was very convicted a few months back when I was reading Piper's fourth book in his The Swans Are Not Silent series. He was discussing that J. Machen was always about twenty pounds overweight. Machen died fairly young, and though Piper recognized the sovereignty of God, he wondered what Machen might have achieved for God had he been healthier and more disciplined. Ouch! As I work for a more service-oriented perspective on my time and life, and I look at my husband and two sweet daughters, now I desire healthy vigor to spend it for those around me. I want to be fit so I can wear myself out for Christ. I want to be healthy so I can, as much as is within my power, be all here to raise my children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. I want to be a beautiful crown for my husband.
Accordingly, please pray for my discipline. I am so weak in this area. It is frustrating - it is humbling for someone who thinks she is so controlled and organized. Pray that I will have self-control to say no to food - to the pleasure of the moment - for the greater good. Pray that I can buffet my body, prioritize exercise over the millions of things that need/should/might get done each day, and ENJOY it. Stick me in a weight room for an hour or give me a Pilates class and I'm happy. Throw me on a treadmill for five minutes and I'm crying like a baby. I have done hard physical work in the past (UW Crew tryouts, anyone?), and I'm not afraid of pain, and God's glory and working in His service is the best motivation I can have.
Thank you for your support. This makes me accountable to you. Please say something if I reach for a doughnut. I might rail against it in my heart, but I know it's right, and I know I need help.
3 comments:
Leila,
I was just reading "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller. He gets in shape for the first time in his life because he wants to hike the Incan Trail. What he says is something along the lines of "I never had the right story to motivate me to get in shape before." When he didn't feel like exercising, he googled "Incan Trail" and "excruciating" to remind himself he needed to prepare!
I think you might have the right story that getting in shape is a part of now - a story of family and serving God! Maybe you just need a daily reminder of that :)
Lisa :)
Great, brutal, humble, and positive post (albeit with your admitted pessimistic undertones). If Fat Sean were here, he'd say it's long, hard, and totally worth enjoying the process.
Dear Leila,
Mom here, as you know, I'm not much of a blogger, but also wanted to encourage you here, and you know we're praying for you and cheering you on! In your life, you've not shrunk from hard tasks, physical or otherwise, and once you truly accept a goal as your own, not only because it's something someone else desires for you, you've gone after it, even when you didn't think you could do it, you persisted. Doing the hard things in life that take discipline and commitment, when no one else is noticing, starting with yourself, not only helps you and your family in all the ways you've stated, but also serves as a living example to your children and their children (hard to believe isn't it?) of not only eating healthy, striving to excercise (I struggle with this one!) but setting a goal and going after it, even when it's hard and seems overwhelming. When your children run into discouragement about challenges that seem insurmountable, your living example, day in and day out of, not just a one day or one month successful or temporary setback, then getting back to it, but an overall life pattern and comittment will have the biggest impact and encouragement in their lives. You are a sweet testimony to God's power and work in your life and He will give you the strength and focus for each day.
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