December 5, 2008

• Shopping In My Daughter’s Closet Part 2

  It’s not easy and it isn’t fast.  This explanation is going to sound like AA at times, I’ve never been, and it’s going to sound like boot camp at times, never been there either.  For those of you who messaged me about how I did it, I’ll give you the whole skinny (pardon the pun), but first I want everyone to stop giving me kudos for being anything but selfish and determined to do something for myself and to feed my pride.  The more noble reasons came along during the process, and I’ll tell you why as I go along.

  The first thing that I did was sit down with my husband and talk with him about what I wanted to accomplish and what I thought I wanted to do to get there.  We also talked about the role that he would play in this whole adventure.  This is essential to weight loss, I think.  Discuss it with someone who is going to be there for the whole process.  Ideally a spouse is you have one.  Someone who knows you the best and who is going to be honest with you.  The next big and most important thing is honesty.  Be honest with yourself and with your spouse. 

  By honest I don’t mean with how much you weigh and how much you want to lose, although that is important.  But be honest with your reactions and what you expect of them.  If you want them to help you with portion control at mealtimes then don’t get offended and ignore them when they do their job.  If you want them to encourage you about exercise then take their encouragement and act on it, don’t get all bent out of shape when they say that you haven’t worked out in three days or that you just cut your workout time short and you need to go a little longer like you planned.  That is the kind of honesty that I mean.  That was one of my major obstacles.  I knew that I was fat.  I knew what parts of me were the worst to look at.  But don’t tell me about it ’cause I would have probably taken a swing at you and I have a formidable right hook.  No joke!!!!!

  The next big thing is to bring your spiritual life into line.  What has this got to do with weight loss you may ask?  EVERYTHING!!!!!!  I cannot emphasize that enough.  I am not a bible scholar but it says countless times and countless ways in the bible that God won’t give you anything that you cannot do without His help and that nothing is impossible with Him.  Even now I see a direct correlation between my prayer life and how well I keep up with the housework, control my eating, keep up with exercise, stay on top of Matthew’s school work, and everything else in my life.  In order to lose weight by whatever program that you use, you first have to have a regular prayer life, or if you don’t want to call it that, devotion time.  God sends his graces in abundance when you ask for them regularly.  The analogy that I use with my kids is that you have to keep reminding God that you want and need his help, not that he needs to be reminded but that you need to be reminded.

  The last preliminary is that you must involve your whole family.  That doesn’t mean to publish the fact that you are on a big weight loss program so be nice to me and don’t cook anything good while I am doing this.  But rather, please be patient with me, pray for me, encourage me, let me know when I am being a jerk about it, and otherwise treat me like a normal person but this time it is going to work because this time I have God on my side.  Yes, you will stumble, you will trip and fall, you will have times when you gain instead of lose, but overall you will be succeeding because this time you have chosen to succeed.

  More to come.

  • 3:17 pm
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