Ever see one of those diet program commercials on television?
Of course you have, and if you’re like me, the inner turmoil they tend to generate can make you want to flip to the next channel.
Watching one of those things can make it seem like all you have to do is let one of program’s weight “consultants” wave a magic wand over you, and send you some pre-packaged meals and you’ll soon be ready for the cover of Vogue.
The commercials usually include photos of what someone looked like before they lost the weight and after they lost it. They’re the “proof of life” for the product -- the selling point.
I always wondered why in those ‘before and after’ spots the ‘before’ photo was usually so distant and fuzzy, and the ‘after’ photo was so up-close and clear. I used to think it could’ve been a photo distortion trick used by the advertiser just to make you think it was really the same person in both photos (you know a stunt double kind of thing).
Then – this thought occurred to me – a lot of overweight people really hate having their picture taken, and they may not have too many “up close” photographs of themselves to offer for the ‘before’ photo.
I completely understand that. Even on my best hair and body day, I’m not crazy about having my picture taken. In these days of instant digital photography, when I look at images of myself I can see every line in my face and every gray hair in my head. ‘Makes me want to hit the “delete” button on the camera. I’ve done it a few times.
With the photos in these commercials come the testimonies, and they are usually similar from claimant to claimant:
“That was me 100 lbs. ago. The program works and now I’m a swimsuit model!”
Ok, that may be an exaggeration of the testimony, but you get the point the advertiser is trying to make: “This program works!” The rest of the story is this: “It works if you’re willing to work the program.”
Or read between the lines and hear the truth: “That was me 100 pounds ago. The program works and with a drastic change in my eating habits, exercise and lots of sweat, frustration and patience, I was able to lose the weight.”
There was a time when I was close to 100 pounds overweight and when I saw these things, I’d find myself somewhere between guilt and a chocolate cupcake! Or maybe it produced the desired effect because it did make me want to run out do something! Anything! Because I needed and wanted desperately to lose weight.
And, seriously: That WAS me 100 pounds ago. I did lose the weight and here’s my story.
About six years ago I embarked on a journey of weight loss that took me down a long hard road of sweat and tears (No blood, thankfully, unless you count the couple of doctor-ordered blood tests I had to take along the way.)
At the beginning of the journey, I was 41 years old and weighed in at 234 pounds. I’m not proud of it, and never would have broadcast my true weight six years ago. It was emotionally painful and physically exhausting.
I couldn’t climb stairs or walk any distance without breathing heavy. I hated having my picture taken, and usually tried to be the one in the back so no one could see me. However, at five feet, three inches, I’m usually one of the shortest ones in a group photograph and generally told by the photographer to stand in front.
Worst of all, I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. I would tell myself that I didn’t look as big as the scale said I was. I told myself that I didn’t look that bad. But I knew the truth. The mirror didn’t lie and deep inside I was dying. I hated who I was. Period. I thought my fat was ugly, and I thought losing weight would change everything that was wrong in my life. And, so, I tried. And tried. And tried to lose weight.
Like so many, I had lots of stops and starts on the weight loss journey. Lose a little – gain a little. Lose a little – gain a lot. Two steps up and one step back. One step up and two steps back. I believe it’s what they call “yo-yo dieting”. All this yo-yo-ing served to do was raise my hopes, and then leave me feeling frustrated, defeated and hopeless. This went on for years.
To get to the part where I actually began to steadily lose weight, I have to go back to the beginning. I believe that would take me back to the summer before the fifth grade – the dawn of pre-adolescence when I began to go through what parents call that “chubby phase”. Truthfully, it didn’t phase me much until some “thoughtless” classmate on the school playground called me ‘fat’ for the first time. Along with the excess weight, that painful label burrowed its way into my being and followed me all the way through high school.
In college, I lost some weight. I think I did the reverse of the “freshman 15”. I called it the “work hard/play hard” diet. I took 18 hours of classes, worked 20-30 hours a week and partied hard on the weekends. I was on the go a lot, “drank” a lot of meals, and didn’t have much time to think about eating so I “slimmed up” a bit.
After college and into marriage, my inner self grew and changed dramatically when I became a Christian. Unfortunately, so did my outer self.
I got married and was pregnant with my first child at age 25. During the pregnancy, I held down a 40-hour week job and had eight months of constant morning sickness. Still I managed to gained 65 pounds. It was a downhill slope from there that consisted of out of control eating, inactivity, life stress and two more pregnancies. My body just continued to grow.
This brings me back to the mirror at age 41 and 234 pounds.
At this point on the long, rocky journey of life I was tired. And fat. And tired of being fat. I felt defeated, physically and emotionally hopeless, like I couldn’t change. I didn’t know where to begin or what to do to change. I was embarrassed to admit I’d never learned how to eat right or responsibly, and I felt awkward and clumsy trying to exercise. I just knew I wanted to change.
Finally at a crossroads of do-or-die, I decided to take one more risk and give another weight loss program a try. I enrolled in one of those medically supervised hospital-run programs. It was expensive and very involved but offered some successful and dramatic results if I stuck with it. The “expensive” angle was the hook because I’m a true penny-pincher at heart and knew that if I invested a lot of money in something, I was gonna make it work or die trying.
After nine months of working the program, I lost 85 pounds and felt satisfied with the accomplishment . Several months after that program ended and I felt my weight creep up again, I started going to Weight Watchers and lost another 30 pounds, netting a total of about 100 pounds (depending on the week). I reached a goal weight, or what they call a “lifetime” weight at Weight Watchers and, by the grace of God and a little hard work and dedication, continue to remain at goal weight today.
Little did I know – reaching a weight loss goal was only the beginning of the journey.
Was I proud of myself? Heck, yeah! And still am. Did it change my life? Yes, but not the way I thought it would. There are some life lessons that I’ve learned that I’d like to share.
First, if you want to begin the journey of weight I think it’s important to recognize that the process has several phases, and it’s good to know which phase you’re at. To help, I’ve given each phase a name:
1) Contemplation – when you begin to think you might possibly need to make a change but aren’t quite ready to commit.
2) Conviction – when you know you need to make a change and begin to think about how to do it. (Also, I believe, this is the phase at which those commercials on TV begin to make you want to change the channel.)
3) Execution – when you are actually working toward a goal.
4) Completion – when you’ve reached a weight loss goal.
And finally in keeping with the ‘–tion’ words – the last phase – and I believe the hardest phase of all is the one I call:
5) Sanctification.
The word ‘sanctify’ or ‘sanctification’ is most often used in Biblical terms and has a dual meaning: (a) to set apart to a sacred purpose or to religious use, and (b) to free from sin or purify. It implies a “working out,” progression, or constant process with a set goal in mind – becoming more like God.
Sanctification in weight loss is the phase in which you have reached a goal and now must continue to “work out” your lifestyle change over the long haul. It’s the phase where you need to keep the lifestyle in check. At this point, while you may stumble along the way, good eating habits and exercise have become a way of life.
And if you haven’t experienced ‘physical sanctification’, it’s a lot harder than you imagine. Even after six years, there are days when I would consider throwing it all away for a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts or a stuffed crust Pizza Hut Pepperoni Pizza. And I still don’t like to exercise.
While I “keep on keeping on”, the newness has worn off and the lifestyle has become a reality. This is where the real life lesson hits home for me, and what losing 100 pounds actually did for me physically and emotionally.
· I didn’t have to worry about having to pay twice as much for a seat on an airplane.
· I became more healthy, and lowered my blood pressure, blood sugar and/or triglycerides .
· I no longer feel the compulsion to move to the back row in a group photo.
· I don’t worry too much about breaking any piece of furniture I happen to sit on.
· I stopped shopping in the Plus Size department at my local department store.
· While I have no delusions about becoming a swimsuit model, I do sometimes contemplate putting on a swimsuit.
And here’s what I discovered that losing weight hadn’t done for me that I thought it would:
· While friends and acquaintances may have truly admired me for the accomplishment, they didn’t seem to love, or even like, me more. The people who love me, still love me the same, and those who don’t, well, they still don’t send me Christmas cards.
· Inside, I didn’t feel any more valuable as a human being than I did before the weight loss. It didn’t make me a better person.
In the beginning, this was a let down and I couldn’t understand why I didn’t feel any more valuable on the inside.
That’s because change – the transforming kind -- doesn’t work its way from the outside in. It works it way from the inside out.
You see, God created you in His image. You are more than a number on a scale. So much more.
Before you can successfully begin the process of weight loss, I think you need to come believe an essential truth:
While others may base their opinion of you on superficial things like outer appearance, there is a God who loves you just the way you are, no matter where you are or who you are, or what you look like.
His Word says:
“God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”
Genesis 1:27 (New International Version Bible)
And He gave us a cause to celebrate that creation:
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.”
Psalm 139:14 (NIV)
There is a beautiful inner core or soul in your being that surpasses anything on the outside. That’s the part that God created to worship Him and reflect His glory. Nothing on the outside can make that part ugly unless you let the outside work it’s way inside. And nothing can make that part ugly if you give that part of yourself to God because when you do, He gives you the Holy Spirit to “seal” and protect it. It will always be beautiful to Him.
But life can do a number on us. So often we allow a society bent on idolizing outer beauty to affect the way we see ourselves. Still, to this day, I can still look in the mirror and feel “overweight”.
I don’t regret losing weight for a minute, but it didn’t give me the inner peace and self-satisfaction I desperately sought. It simply made me healthier and perhaps (arguably) look a little better on the outside.
Let me make this clear:
You will never be thin enough, beautiful enough or wealthy enough to satisfy your inner self. Many women and men have literally died trying. Rehab clinics are filled with people who have sought inner satisfaction from things like drugs, alcohol and starving themselves to death. I believe that God created us with an inner longing or emptiness that only He can fill. Once we begin to understand that and allow Him to permeate our lives we become satisfied and fulfillment works its way from the inside out into our lives. At that point, our weight doesn’t determine our value as a human being. It is simply a number on a scale.
So if losing weight doesn’t solve all of life’s problems why should you do it? Why not just eat what you want, when you want as much as you want?
Here’s a reason.
God gave us only one physical “walking around” body for this lifetime. Your body is a gift from Him. It is one of the most natural resources on the planet and if you were going to get excited about conservation, in my opinion, the body would be the first and best place to start.
The Apostle Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 6:19:
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (NIV)
The body is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit and it is the primary vessel that God has given us for serving Him. I believe if our bodies become unhealthy due to lack of care, it’s possible that God may not be able to use us to our full potential. I lived that out. Being overweight made me tired and weak. Many days I didn’t have the energy to do all the things I felt called to do as a woman, wife, mother, friend, etc. Taking an afternoon nap became a daily priority and it often came before the calling.
Please understand this: God can and does work through weak (and overweight) bodies. In fact, the Bible says He prefers to work through our weakness to demonstrate His power.
But like everything else God provides for us, including our time, money and talents, I believe God expects us to take care of and use our bodies wisely for our good and His glory. If we look at weight loss and body maintenance this way it becomes a spiritual act of stewardship and we realize we are more than just a number on a scale.
I believe having God in your life while trying to lose weight gives you a supernatural strength that is beyond description. Like many things you can probably do it without Him in your life, but having Him adds an element of enrichment and fulfillment that makes it much sweeter and gives it greater meaning and purpose.
Looking back, one of the things I remember most about starting the process of weight loss, was my dietician in the hospital program telling the members of our little support group that it was important to have a “reason” for going through the process – something beyond just wanting to lose weight. It needed to be a specific reason.
She said it didn’t have to be something epic or monumental. It could be something as simple as wanting to look good for your 25th high school reunion, or desiring the ability to take a walk with your child or grandchild without becoming winded. Or if you believe in a “higher calling,” it might be a desire to serve God better with your physical body. In any case, the reason is important and you need to keep it front of you as a focal point.
Here’s why:
If you’ve ever done it – started a diet – or set your feet in the direction of a lifestyle change -- and, seriously, who among us hasn’t – you know there are days when you just want to quit -- to go back to “Egypt” – to the days of enslavement to indiscriminate eating and not caring what or how much we eat. Just a longing to satisfy the palate with delicious comfort, or in less poetic terms, grab a family size bag of potato chips and go to town! Those days are tough and can occur frequently in the process, and as the saying goes: “Some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you.”
It’s those days that ‘the bear gets you’ that you need to look to that reason and say: “I’m not gonna quit!! I may be down, but I’m not out! I need to keep my eyes on the prize!”
The Apostle Paul gave us a challenge and a mantra for this direction. He said:
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”
1 Corinthians 9:23-25 (NIV)
Metaphorically speaking, life is a race. We all run it. We all stumble. We all fall down occasionally. It’s what we do afterward that speaks volumes about us. God can give us the strength to get back up and begin again.
The journey of weight loss is also a race. I am living proof that weight loss is do-able and also living proof that the runner often stumbles.
Weight loss is a race that begins like all races -- with many runners, different in size and shape, but all there for the same purpose – to finish the race. Some of us runners are more experienced than others, but we all put one foot in front of the other and try to keep going straight toward the finish line. When we veer, we need get back on the path and not look back. And we need to look to our fellow runners for encouragement.
But most important, no matter the distraction or the discouragement, no matter how hard or high the climb: Don’t stop running!
