The Lord God Made Me

My thoughts from Beth Moore's event in Las Vegas in 2003: The Lord God Made Woman.

Early in her lecture, Beth references I Thessalonians 5:23.  Wanting to know the context in which the verse was set, I began reading my way back through the chapter.  I love how God's Word is new and fresh even after reading the same passage for many years!  Here's the breakdown of the first portion of I Thessalonians 5 along with my thoughts in italics.  Understand that Paul was writing to the church in the city of Thessalonica regarding how they are to live in light of the times and Jesus' coming (the day being unknown).  He is not speaking about body image or weight issues, but it surely parallels so much of this struggle.  This struggle with my flesh IS a spiritual issue for me, so it makes sense that God uses these verses to teach me more about Himself and how I can bring my flesh under the authority of His Spirit.

 6So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.

Okay, wake up and get out there to get exercise.  Don't stay up 'til all hours and don't sleep in, being lazy.  Self-control.  Same regarding food.  Don't mindlessly eat.  Stick to a plan.  Eat with a purpose.  Be alert.

8...let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. 

There's that self-control again! 

14And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle...

Scripture makes it clear that idleness is not okay. This is just one of quite a few examples.

16Be joyful always; 17pray continually; 18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Be joyful. Don't complain about being tired or too busy to get out for a run.  If I need encouragement, pray, seek God's word. For inspiration, watch something like this or this as a reminder to be joyful in everything.

19Do not put out the Spirit’s fire;  

The Holy Spirit is stirring this desire in me for a reason.  I can't brush it under the rug and pass it off as just a pipe-dream or unimportant to God. What if we had ignored the Spirit's stirring in us to work on our marriage or get out of debt or to adopt?

20do not treat prophecies with contempt.

When I think of prophecies related to this topic, I think of one of my husband's favorite sayings: "If it's predictable, it's preventable."  If I continue on the path of weight-gain, I will end up fat, unhealthy and miserable.  It's a foreseeable problem that is not to be scoffed at. 

21Test everything. Hold on to the good.

No fad diets or get-skinny-quick gimmicks. 

NOW for the main portion, what I'd call the "meat" that Beth refers to through the rest of her lecture.  This passage is the whole reason I read back through the first portion of chapter 5:

23May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

Through and through.  Through and through.  Spirit.  Soul.  Body.  All to be kept blameless.  Not only my spirit and soul, but my body.  He commands it.  He calls me to it.  And He is faithful and will do it!

The Plan

For now, I'm keeping it simple.  I actually had more to it, but Ken told me to cut out most of the stuff about food and focus on the exercise, so I did.

This week I will:
- Get up before my family to run or run/walk for 45 minutes. 5 days.
- Wait to eat only when I'm hungry.  (I know I'm truly hungry when it's been several hours since I last ate and when my stomach growls PLUS I have a burning feeling in my throat. What stinks for me is that, for now, it will take many hours between meals for me to truly feel hungry.  But it will pass.)
- Blog about at least 30 minutes of The Lord God Made Woman.

There.  Simple, right?  I wish!  Oh, and everything IN me wanted to draw up a very impressive, complex plan.  Because I LOVE to plan.

Work The Plan and The Plan Works

It's time to develop a plan.  I love planning!  In fact, here are some truths about me:

I'm a dreamer and a planner. I enjoy looking up ideas, inspiration, and sample plans online. (school schedule, running plan, eating plan, etc.)

I'm a procrastinator.  I can be very lazy in my procrastination.  I set up wonderful plans, get everything organized, but not always good with the follow-through.  Case-in-point: I planned to post this last week.  Didn't do it.  I planned to listen to all of The Lord God Made Woman.  Listened to about 40 minutes. I planned to run 4 mornings last week. Ran Sunday and Monday.

I need accountability.  A running partner.  A class full of regulars who will miss me if I'm gone.  Or maybe just something that sparks inside ME to make me get out there despite outside resources.  What's YOUR motivation?

I do best when a deadline is hanging over my head.  An event.  A date on the calendar.

Here are some more truths about me that do (and will) effect my goals:

I love to exercise.  Truly.  I enjoy running.  Weight training is addictive to me.

I make it very hard on myself to get out the door to get the needed exercise.  I feel guilty for leaving in the early morning because I know Tian will wake when I'm gone and I don't want Ken to have to worry about it.  If I miss the morning workout, then I feel guilty for not just taking the kids along with me to ride bikes or run around at the park.  Note that I said I make it hard on MYSELF.  Ken nor anyone else puts that guilt on me.  In fact, he's sick of me talking about going.  He just wants me to go.

I love food.  Especially sugar.  Sugar in coffee, sugar in sweets, sugar on white rice.  Sugar.  It just sounds precious, doesn't it?  I mean true Southern precious.  "C'mere, Sugar, let me bake some cookies for you."  My problem is that I've let the food end on itself.

With those things in mind about myself, it's time to make a plan that I know can work with these aspects of who I am now.  Without a plan, I have nothing to work, so nothing WILL work.

Are you yelling at your display, "Then where's your PLAN, Sarah!??"  It's coming.  Really.

My Idol

If you haven't figured it out by now, my weight is my idol.  Food is my idol.  My self is my idol.

Last Sunday at church, Matt taught from John 4, when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well.  He named three wrong "wells" that we tend to dig from.  We seek comfort, satisfaction and pleasure from these wells when they only satisfy for a moment and often leaving us with more longing and greater frustration.  The "wells" he named were 1. money/comfort  2. relationship/sex  3. respect/acceptance.  I guess this idol of mine, my "well" if you will, could fit under all three categories.  Matt said money is often a means that leads to comfort, but my means is often food.  And my desire to be thinner often relates who how I believe others see me.  It certainly affects my relationships, even if it doesn't appear that way on the surface.

Another way this issue has become my idol is by becoming consuming.  I think about it constantly.  Just today, Ken took a video of our 3 year-old son sitting on my lap and counting, signing "1--2--3!!" in anticipation of me dropping him nearly to the floor.  When I watched the video, my thoughts went like this: Look at my chin!  I can't believe I've gotten so puffy in my face again. And look at my arms! Geez, I better not wear sleeveless shirts, that looks horrible.  I am SO thick!  I hate my body.

Okay, I couldn't help but smile at how utterly adorable my son is, but the majority of my thoughts were on...mySELF.

Another thing Matt often teaches is how God's creation isn't meant to end on itself.  God didn't simply put things on earth for our enjoyment, but for our enjoyment that then compels us to worship Him.  Matt uses many things as examples, but one stuck in my mind: food.  God didn't simply create flavors, smells, colors and textures of food for us to enjoy.  (And of course, for us to fuel our bodies and survive.) We don't eat and the purpose of food ends there.  We eat, enjoying the flavors, thanking God for His provision, creativity, fun, brilliance.  When we eat just for our own pleasure or to fill some other kind of void (loneliness, stress, sadness, etc.) we are abusing food, God's creation, in the same way we can abuse sex, money, or any number of things that began with God's design and provision.

So, before I list my goals (which I intend to do this week and will post them here), I need to understand my purpose.  I need to understand the reasons, even the ugly reasons, why I so badly want to take this weight off and keep it off.  Why I am so quick to despise my body.  Why I don't. follow. through!
This week, I will be listening, again, to "The LORD God Made Woman" by Beth Moore. As described, on her website "The LORD God Made a Woman is a 2-cd message from a portion of the Las Vegas event. In a culture of extremes, we choose balance in health and fitness, and avoid food-related obsessions when living under the authority of the Holy Spirit within us."

Time to get to work.

Making It Stick

The Hide

These pictures sum up the past few years. I’ve become an expert at hiding behind my family in photos or cropping pictures in just the right places.  Seeing pictures of my regress, yet again, back into “fatland” makes me want to gag. But it still hasn’t been enough to provide another breaking point.  I want to gag, but I don’t want to drag my butt out of bed at 5:30 in the morning.

Consistency has been my major struggle in many areas of life over the past several years.  I’ll start running, start training, start a particular workout program, start changing my diet...then I’ll simply stop after a few days or weeks.  The same pattern carries over in regards to starting a Bible study, starting a more structured schedule with the kids’ school or housework.

This pattern reminds me of this verse from James:
Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

Creative cropping + "the hide"

I get fired up and excited, making decisions and plans to change things, then wake up in the morning, forgetting (or ignoring) everything I had been excited about changing the night before.

Ironically, after typing and editing this post, I read this relevant post by Jon Acuff that is providing some inspiration regarding my consistency struggle.

In Beth Moore’s “The Lord God Made Woman” audio lecture, she says, “Don’t make a new decision every day.  Decide you’re going to do something, then just do the thing!”  She actually says “thang” in her southern drawl, but I digress.

That’s my backstory.  It’s all future from here on out.  I’m seeking a way to find a place of freedom regarding my weight, my body image, food, and exercise.  And most of all, this time, I want to make it stick!

Everything's Bigger In Texas

I took that as a challenge.  In the first 2 years we were in Texas, I managed to pack on over 20 pounds.  If you’re doing the math, that means gained over 35 pounds in 4 years.

I had thought about losing weight, signed up for a half-marathon I didn’t run, trained for a marathon I didn’t run, dreamed about losing weight, read about losing weight, thought about eating better and attempted numerous exercise routines.

Thought...dreamed...trained...sulked...complained...self-loathed...whined...but didn’t DO anything. Oh, I would start, but never follow through.

Then, two years ago, I decided enough was enough. I started going to boot camp three times a week and logging my diet on “My Daily Plate” on the href="http://www.livestrong.com/">www.livestrong.com site. Eat less, exercise more.  Plain and simple.

From the tail end of 2009 to the summer of 2010, I took off about 25 pounds and was getting back on track.  I worked so stinkin’ HARD for every one of those pounds, waking up before dawn to meet my workout buddies in the church parking lot.  This time, it was a healthy and appropriate weight loss, working out surrounded by Godly “Temple Keepers”.  I didn’t obsess.  I didn’t freak about the foods I ate, but simply paid attention to the number of calories I took in every day.  This time, it was going to stick!  I just knew it!  It had to this time.  I was doing everything right.

Checking out my outfit and feeling sassy last summer.

I spent the second half of 2010 putting every single pound back on.

All or Nothing?

This picture was taken as Ken and I headed out for our 8th wedding anniversary date, January 4th, 2005.  We were digging our way out of a major crisis and I was trying to get my priorities straight.  My self-focus had caught up with me and wreaked havoc on those around me.  Thank God I have a husband who was willing to stick with me through it all.

After that year, I gave up weight training at the gym, but kept up running. I truly loved it and looked forward to heading out to meet the sun every morning.  I had an awesome running partner and dear friend I would meet many of those mornings. Even in the bitter cold (yes, Vegas is bitter cold in the winter, especially before sunset), I’d bundle up and I’d see her dark figure under the orange street lights, running up the hill to meet me.  My heart always skipped a beat, preparing in my mind what I’d do if the dark figure WASN’T Beverly.  But it always was.  I relished running and saw daily improvements (because I was so slow to begin with) in my pace and distances.

My winning day

At one point, I even placed third in my age group during a 5K.  Don’t ask me how many runners there were that morning.  It doesn’t matter.  I got third in my age group!  :)

Despite the running, I began to eat freely and often.  The weight slowly started creeping back.  Once the weight began coming back on, my running slowed down.  After a 13-mile training run, feeling worn completely out and disappointed by my pace, I stopped being so excited about running.  My running partner had been expecting and had just delivered her sweet baby, so I had less motivation (and no accountability) to get out of my comfy bed every morning.

By June 2007, when we moved to Texas, I had gained almost 15 pounds.

Looks Are Deceiving

Having 3 kids in 3 1/2 years caught up with me a bit.  I had kept on about 20 pounds of pregnancy weight after TJ was born and felt frumpy and flabby.  Body image was still at the forefront of my mind.

Sadly, I became too focused on my self and started weight training obsessively, spending 12 hours per week at the gym, insisting that I be in bed at 9:30 so I could get up at 4:45, and basically ignoring my family so I could do my own thing.  I got in very good shape, but wasn’t the person I wanted to be, nor the person God purposed me to be.

Looks are deceiving. Every day I heard compliments about how great I looked.  No one had any idea that I was at the lowest point in my life.  This proved to me that it couldn’t just be about my body.

Turning Point

Holding Hannah, feeling good

After Hannah was born, I was determined to take off my excess pounds.  God led me to Gwen Shamblin’s book The Weigh Down Diet,   Gwen’s program was still fairly new.  (Disclaimer: She has since gone off the deep end, so I can’t recommend HER, but I found her first book helpful after years of useless dieting.)

Reading her book was enlightening.  Freeing.  It was an epiphany for me: God made my body.  He made it to work correctly.  When you are hungry, you’ll feel it.  Eat.  When satisfied, stop.  Don’t eat again until you physically feel hunger.  Eat whatever sounds good.  Your body will naturally crave variety.

This was too easy.  Surely I couldn’t lose weight without writing down my calories and fat grams for the day.  Surely must eat only diet foods and stay away from the fattening “bad” foods.  It seemed too easy, but it also made sense.  I knew it would work.

It did.  Over the next several months, I took off 40 pounds.  I wasn’t following Gwen’s advice to the letter. I didn’t just eat “whatever”.  I was already accustomed to healthier foods.  We didn’t eat fried foods.  I was still a vegetarian.  I did, however, enjoy desserts or other traditionally “bad list” foods, just doing so rarely and in small portions.

Gwen also says there is no need to exercise.  That part didn’t make sense to me.  I knew God designed our bodies to be active and useful.  This was the time of my life that I discovered running.

Running with Hannah (just a few months old)

Eating less and running more, and doing some weight-training led to a 40-pound weight loss within about 9 months.  I kept it off for over 3 years.

Breaking Point Number 1

Love of my life. Had no clue I hated my body.

On my wedding day in January 1997, I weighed more than ever.  At 22, I was 5’5” and weighed over 180 pounds.  I was so disappointed that I hadn’t lost weight even for my wedding.

My sweet new husband would wonder why I wanted to keep myself covered up all the time.  Goodness, here he was, finally married and allowed to look at a naked girl, and all his wife wanted to do was hide her mid-section.  He loved me and didn’t see me how I saw myself.  That was beyond belief for me at the time.  I didn’t understand how he could look at me and NOT see “fat”.

The poor guy.

During our first months of marriage, I decided that it was crazy for me to be 22, the age older women covet, the age older women look back on and wish their body could “look like that again”, and be so much over weight.

I tried Oprah’s new book she had written with Bob Greene.  It worked for a few weeks.  I was still overweight.  I followed Richard Simmons’ point system.  I was still overweight.  During all of this, I worked out, mostly weight training, on a fairly regular basis.

Then I read a book that would change how I ate for years to come.  I read Fit For Life by Harvey Diamond.  I started experimenting with a vegetarian diet and food combining.  I ate only fruit in the morning hours.  I would never eat carbs with proteins.  I continued to work out in the mornings, but with even more regularity.  I was still overweight.

For a couple of years, I remained an overweight vegetarian.  I still ate too much.  I followed Marilu Henner’s “Total Health Makeover”, still food combining and becoming totally vegetarian and non-dairy.

During this period, I read books about weight loss, books about food, books about working out.  I wrote down everything I ate. I talked about diets. I shared with everyone why they should be vegetarian.  Basically, I was obsessed and definitely annoying.

Then in 1999, I got pregnant.  I decided to eat well during my pregnancy and lost a lot of weight (healthily) during my first trimester.  My doctor was happy.  So was I.

When I was nine months pregnant with Hannah, I weighed exactly 180 pounds.  Less than what I had weighed on my wedding day.

My Big Fat Story: Part 4

You’d think that during these years of hating my body, I would have tried to stop eating.  Nope.  If it ever even occurred to me until a few years ago when I did stop eating for a month.  But more on that later.

During high school, amazingly, I didn’t develop an eating disorder.  I never binged or purged.  I didn’t try a carrot-only diet.  I tried Slim-Fast.  I liked them so much, I wanted a shake with every meal. Ba-dum-bum

No, controlling my food was not fun and not worth it.  I liked to eat and always ate just a little more than I really should have.

See?  No eating disorder.  No medical problem.  Not obese.  No dramatic story of being teased mercilessly.  No lonely weekend nights with nothing to do.  No halt of daily life activities.
This sin of self-focus simply creeped quietly into my daily life, allowing me to brush it off as “nothing” while it consumed hours and hours of my thoughts.

My Big Fat Story: Part 3

Not a wallflower

Throughout junior high and high school, I continued to compare my body to that of everyone around me.  I always felt that I came up short...and fat.

Now, you’d think, by reading so far, that I was a quiet wallflower who stared at my classmates in the halls, talking to no one and hating myself all day.  On the contrary.  I had lots of friends, even more boyfriends, and was quite satisfied being me.  Except.  I wanted a different body.

Yup, that's me in the glasses. *coughdorkcough*

I had always enjoyed playing sports, either basketball or track (believe it or not) but in high school, I began dieting and weight training.  I worked out several times a week and stopped eating sugar for over a year.  My arms quickly shed fat, uncovering the muscle beneath.  My legs, which have never been where I gain weight, looked better than ever.  My mid-section, however, was still a battle.  So while I felt better, satisfied I was not.

My Big Fat Story: Part 2

My 7th Birthday (that's me in the yellow)

30 years.  Looking back, I was about six when I had my first thoughts of dislike for my body.  I vividly remember sitting in a tiny wading pool, thinking that my belly was round compared to my flat-stomached friend, who was wearing a two-piece.  I was SIX!!  I also remember thinking my skin was too white.  I wanted to be thinner.  I wanted darker skin.

Looking back, like at this picture, I see that I wasn’t the ginormous kid that I imagined in my own head, but I was “above average” one could say.  My school friends didn’t tease me or call me “fatty McFat”.  That was reserved for the really blubbery types.  Thus began the fear.  What if I get fatter and they start teasing me?

My Big Fat Story

Distorted

Having a distorted view of myself.  Yep.  That's me.  This is about a topic that effects most women at some point in their lives.  Body image.  Weight.  Exercise.  Food.  Mirrors.  Changing rooms.  Changing seasons.  Clothes.  Reunions.  Old friends.  Vacations.  Swim suits.  Hiding.  Shame.  Obsession.  Fear.  Procrastination.  Apathy.

How quickly the train-of-thought can turn ugly.  It’s true that there are some women, although I would venture to say very few, who, no matter their size, feel hot and sassy all the time.  Maybe THOSE ladies should write an online journal.  Maybe they have and I’ve just not run across it. This journal is for those of us who struggle with feeling comfortable in our own skin.

So why am I doing this?  Why do I plan to post thoughts that have, thus far, been shared only with a few people?  Even then, only bits and pieces with any given person.  Two reasons: accountability and motivation for the reader and for myself. Insight would be a nice side benefit as well.