Can you do this?

Hello all. My name is Erin (for those of you who don't know me!). I'm 6' tall and overweight. I have struggled with my weight my entire life. I was blessed to grow up in a house where "organic" and "natural" were all over the foods we ate. My mother did not allow Oreos, Sodas or White Bread. I remember being the only child in 5th grade who knew that pumpernickle bread was not really chocolate cake in disguise (although American pumpernickle bread can contain some cocoa powder!), and that milk was for cows, not for little girls. Both of my parents are excellent cooks, and neither gives into the average run of the mill recipe, every ingredient was substitued for it's healthier alternative. My mom shopped at Trader Joe's (yum!) and my father worked for a German meat store, so we always had quality food over quantity. We also got into juicing and it was a routine thing to have beet and apple juice, even if I was in the shower and my dad didn't realize that I had now set boundries for daddies to NOT come into the bathroom and hand me the juice he just made, even if his eyes were closed. (I *was* still young, for those weirdos out there.) I knew what "whole wheat pasta" was before it tasted good (like they make it today!) and often found carob chips in place of my favorite semi-sweet chocolate chips in the "healthy" cookies my mom baked up. We always had our vitamins in the morning and before bed, brushed with all natural toothpaste and washed our hair with all natural shampoo. I felt important using things that you couldn't find in the normal store, like I knew some secret that all of these other kids were missing out on, and I did, thanks to my mom's dilligence in learning about a healthier lifestyle. I have carried over these concepts into my life now, especially with having my own children. I often get picked on for the "Organic Apple Juice" that sits in my refrigerator or the "Double Fiber Whole Grain Bread" we eat, but that's all I know, and I love it that way.

I also grew up with plenty of activities in my life. We always owned bikes, in fact my first bike was all pink and had a pink and white polka dotted banana seat and a pretty little bell attached to the left handle. The summers were filled with swimming in the community pool (which was by far the BEST pool I have ever seen!) and the winters were consumed with sledding and hours building snow forts and snow familes. I also was apart of a basketball team, so for a while I could honestly say "yes" when ignorant folks looked up at me from their small frames and asked the worst question ever "woah, you're tall - do you play basketball?". However, even with my height, I was incredibly clumsy and often got hit with the ball, so my basketball career was short lived.

So, with all of this healthy eating and constant activity, how did I gain weight? Why did I continue to gain it? Where is the flaw in the system? Is it me? The most amount of weight I had ever gained was with my first pregnancy and that was due to a poor diet and lack of movement. I felt that sitting on the couch and eating ice cream with my sister was much more fun than trying to do Pregnancy Yoga. I'm so glad that there are people out there who can still stretch with a 7lb baby growing in their stomach, but NOT me.

I went on a program with all my food delivered to me, and it worked like a charm. In less than 6 months I lost 70lbs! It was such a great feeling. However, over the course of the next year I gained 30lbs back. How depressing to have such a great sucess to only follow it by such a terrible failure? All of that money, time, willpower... wasted. I didn't know how to transition from such a regimented way of living to a normal life, because my "normal" life was why I needed to be on the diet in the first place!

So, through this blog I am attempting at recreating a "normal" life. Dictionary.com defines a "Diet" as the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group. I am not here to "go on" a diet, I am here to create a "diet". Create a habit of foods eaten that are healthy and normal and work for my body. I don't want to have a catagory of "bad" foods a mile long. I want to realize there are foods you can eat more often than others, but that very little is really harmful for my body in the correct portions.

Ahh... portions. That will be another lesson I will learn. The infamous "portion control". We've all heard the saying "too much of a good thing is bad", that is lack of portion control! A slice of cake is "ok" but 2? Not so much. How often do I go back for seconds? Too often, obviously.

Most importantly though, I am recreating this way of thinking because I am a child of God, and being a "glutton" is not a virtue by any sense of the imagination! Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 1 Cor 6:19. Over and over God speaks out against Gluttons, often putting them in the same boat as "drunkards" Prov 23:21 and Matt 11:19. Why is this? It is because it is such a visible sign of our lack of self-control. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Gal 5:22-24. As children of God, we are given a spirt of self control! We have it in is! And as we are reminded: For Nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1:37.

It is not ok to be overweight. No matter how much you want to tell yourself it is so that you don't have to work towards bettering yourself, it's NOT ok. It's unhealthy and it makes you unhappy. I know it does, because it always makes me unhappy. However, our happiness has to be derived from different areas than before. When I lost those 70lbs, I was finally happy because I could fit into the jeans I wore before I was pregnant. I failed to realize that I needed to be thankful that God blessed me with such a dramatic weightloss and that I was now healthier. I now was less uncomfortable, but no, I kept my happiness based on the clothes I wanted to wear. This time around, I'm basing it on deeper things. My happiness will be based on my Saviour. I will not lose weight soley for the jeans that have stayed folded in my drawers for the last year. I am losing weight for my health, for myself, for my ability to be more comfortable both physically and mentally. I am losing weight so I can do my part in living a longer life for my husband and for my children, so that I can build up my immune system. I am losing weight so I can be a stronger person, so that maybe, when all is said and done, I can do a real push up! I am losing weight so I can do more with my children, so maybe I can actually take my husband up on that offer to go hiking for the day, and so I can take control of a part of my life that is in desperate need of it. Perhaps through controlling an area that I have never been able to, maybe that control will flow over to other areas in my life. But most importantly, I'm losing weight to get closer to my God.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Phil 3: 12 - 14.

Our ultimate Goal (like my mother used to always tell us) is HEAVEN, but we all have other little goals in between now and the day we meet our Creator. What's your's? Is it to lose the weight? To strengthen your body? To organize your life? To better your marriage? Find your weakness and put your heart into it. Work on overcoming what has overcome you. Take control and do not give the devil a foothold (eph 4:27)

I CAN DO THIS.
YOU CAN DO THIS.

So... let's do this!