Diet & Wisdom Appetizers

It’s happened again. Somewhere between my waking and my sleeping there must have been some sort of shift to the Earth’s axis; Mars and Jupiter are out of synch; the hole in the ozone stretched a little wider or there was an earthquake in eastern China upsetting the space/time continuum … I don’t know and I don’t particularly care.

All I know is I woke up this morning needing chocolate. Even before my feet hit the floor my brain was set to overdrive mentally inventorying my pantry, fridge and freezer desperate for the knowledge that somewhere within the confines of my house lay sustenance to appease my massive craving.

I’ve done a fairly thorough housecleaning with regards to stripping the shelves bare of any and all junk food contraband. Trying to locate anything even remotely chocolate in my house these days is much tougher than it used to be. Luckily for me, I happen to reside with a bunch of cereal killers capable of laying waste to an entire jumbo box of sugary cereal in one fell swoop, so it behooves me to have a secret stash of chocolatey crunchy cereal for just such an emergency. (Remembering where I hid my booty often tends to be a bigger problem as this old girl memory of mine ain’t what she used to be.)

After a series of failures, I finally managed to uncover a treasure trove of chocolately goodness under stacks of cake plates and Corningware bake ware – a place no one ever thinks to look, especially me since I rarely bake during the hot summer months.

My box of Cocoa Puffs presents a real challenge for me as I’m struggling with lactose intolerance. For me to succumb to the seduction of the chocolately puffs puts me in that category of being completely “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” because by choosing to eat them I’m subjecting myself to the discomfort that goes with consuming milk.

My love for Cocoa Puffs is actually twofold in the fact that the crunchy breakfast cereal not only satisfies my need for instant chocolate gratification, but the Cocoa Puffs turn the milk chocolatey so I have an extra taste treat once I’ve consumed the cereal.

A week ago I publically bragged that there was no food worth the pain that fills my stomach if I know I’m going to have a reaction to said foods. I stand corrected when it comes to chocolate. It’s a proven scientific fact that the human body (especially the FEMALE human body) must ingest chocolate periodically to maintain normal and healthy brain waves keeping our hormones and sanity triggers perfectly balanced thereby protecting the masses from our psychotic hormonal rage. (I don’t know, it might be true. But whether it’s true for all women or not doesn’t matter, as it’s true for ME!)

There have been reports published recently that consuming small quantities of dark chocolate is in fact good for our hearts. Because it was printed on the internet it MUST true so I’m doing my part to maintain optimal health by eating a measured amount of chocolate monthly. Now I know the reports suggest dark chocolate is preferred over milk chocolate and I’m certain Cocoa Puffs must fall within the parameters of that study because of the color of the puffs, so I’m sure I’m doing my body a service by eating my chocolatey cereal once a month. And I’m definitely getting better because I’m now able to limit miyself to one measured serving without consuming even one puff more than absolutely necessary.

Hey never let it be said that I’m not a health-conscious individual. Me and my Cocoa Puffs - I’m just doing my part for science.

There are four basic food groups: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles. ~Author Unknown

If you get melted chocolate all over your hands, you’re eating it too slowly. ~Author Unknown

Chocolate is an antidepressant, which is especially useful as you start to gain weight. ~Jason Love

16 Do you like honey? Don’t eat too much, or it will make you sick! Proverbs 25:16 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord, I thank you for the invention of all things chocolate. Thank you Lord that I can practice restraint; thank you for healing me in the fact that I can control my flesh and not bow down to my fleshly urges and eat chocolate with limitations. Thank you Lord for working on my behalf; please continue to give me strength. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Back in January when I started my weight loss journey I’m convinced I didn’t go into it with my eyes wide open. I thought I’d hop right back on the weight watcher wagon and reach my goal weight by the time spring rolled around.

Spring rolled into summer and now summer is at its pinnacle with fall not too far around the corner and I’m still a long way from being at my goal weight. I may not be where I thought I’d be at this point, but in some ways I’ve far surpassed my expectations.

While I expected I’d lose weight, I never expected to become mentally strong enough to deal with what was at the core of my eating issues. That saying, “it’s not what you’re eating, but what’s eating you” now has a brand new meaning.

After decades of being in denial about my food addictions, I’ve finally uncovered what was eating me. For so long I’d convinced myself that I didn’t have an eating disorder but merely enjoyed eating food – lots of food and a great variety of foods. Everybody likes to eat. What’s wrong with that?

The fact that I was eating in secret, hiding the remains of my binges, spending hours exercising to counteract the foods I ate and then lying about the quantity of foods consumed, never struck me as addictive behavior.

When I joined a food addiction group back in February I continued in my denial that I had a problem, even questioning my need for the group altogether. Now here it is months later and I’m finally on the road to recovery, having dealt with the problems that haunted me since childhood.

I can say with all confidence that surrendering to God and facing my problems with His help has lifted a huge weight from my shoulders and my heart. For the first time since childhood there’s a lightness in my spirit I’ve never experienced before. I’m sad that it took me so long to realize I needed help and then even longer to accept help.

God doesn’t intend for us to live in bondage. He sacrificed His Son on the cross so that we might have and enjoy our life. Living with secrets, covering up our addictions, making excuses for why we are the way we are is anything but enjoying life.

I can’t get back all those years I wasted in denial but I can look forward to the future with a new attitude, freedom from the past and enjoying every day I have left. Surrender does lead to freedom, and being willing to admit we need help is the first step towards healing.

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10 (NIV)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord, I thank you for the freedom I’m currently enjoying. I ask that you would help me to surrender my issues, my worries, my fears and anything else in my past that might be hindering me from living in total and absolute freedom. Thank you Lord for loving me enough to stand beside me and walk this difficult journey I’ve been on and for never leaving me or forsaking me. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

As a little girl my father’s favorite term of endearment for me was “Butterball.” (Yes, I was a chubby little thing.) Being too young to realize that being compared to a fat round name brand turkey was more of an insult rather than a compliment, I was grateful for any attention from my father.

Even though my dad passed away over 10 years ago, there are still days I wake up and feel like Daddy’s fat, round Butterball little girl that didn’t have enough sense to know she was being ridiculed. In all honesty, I don’t think my dad called me that to be intentionally cruel. His was a different generation than the one my children are growing up in. It was simply his way. In those days, being the shy insecure girl I was, even negative attention from my dad was better than no attention.

Its funny how I can be trucking along feeling like a strong, confident woman who’s in charge of my own little block of the universe and then seemingly out of nowhere there’s a slight shifting of the sun, moon and stars and I wake up feeling like the Butterball girl. Those old insecurities resurface, I feel shy and hesitant unable to make concise decisions. I flounder in my feelings and convictions and would prefer to run and hide and make myself invisible – a neighborhood I’m quite familiar with.

I’m sure this Butterball feeling is directly related to a hormonal shift and the tiny zit forming on my upper lip. Perhaps the mass of freckles dotting my face; the direct result of my daily swim in the sun has propelled me back in time, as each time I look in the mirror I’m reminded of the 12-year-old girl I’ve tried so hard to forget. (Seriously, a woman of my advanced age should not have a face full of freckles. Although I suppose that’s a far better option than wrinkles.)

Perhaps it’s the melancholy that hits around this time each year as the kids prepare to head back to school and I’ve got another birthday looming in the next few weeks – another painful reminder that I’m not a young woman anymore.

I suspect the real culprit for my Butterball mood is simply my body’s way of reacting to what was a very positive upbeat weekend. I spent the whole weekend being “up” because I was invited to do a book signing for my novel.

Two days of schmoozing and chatting up my book and having people tell me how much they’ve enjoyed my book and I was floating on a cloud of self-importance and feeling uber confident. When you spend two days being that “up” the only place for you to go is back down again.

There’s nothing wrong with being pleased with our accomplishments and celebrating our victories. I do believe that God in His infinite wisdom is reminding me though that I need to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground and my head out of the clouds. I believe the Butterball image is a necessary reminder that GOD has brought me a long way and without remaining grounded in Him and firmly planted in the Word of God, it’s a very short fall back to being the Butterball girl.

I’ve worked hard to exorcise that Butterball image from my head but perhaps I’ll let it stay and visit to remind me of who I am and that I’m a long way from being “all that.” I’m still a work in progress and God’s not done with me yet. I’m forever being molded into the image and likeness of Christ and so enormously grateful that He loves me, Butterball and all.

What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now. ~Author Unknown

12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Philippians 3:12-14 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord, I thank you for keeping me grounded and on firm footing in Your Word. I thank you for occasional reminders from the past, but help me not to dwell in the past and focus on painful reminders. I’m no longer that person and you’ve brought me forward and are helping me to become the person you created me to be. I thank you that you are continually at work in my life. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

There’s no such thing as being too thin or too rich!”

I’m not sure who said this, but most likely it was one of those those rich, skinny girls from Sex and the City. I really have never had an issue with either one of these things over the course of my life so I wouldn’t know firsthand. Somehow I can’t imagine that I’d mind being thinner or having more money, but those are two separate fantasies to be sure.

Of the two though, I can speak to the too thin issue as I watched my mother struggle with hyper thyroid problems. I, on the other hand battle hypo thyroid issues. For those of you who don’t know the difference: hypo thyroid is your metabolism is in a coma and when it does work it’s like sludge through a pipe on a cold winter’s day; hyper thyroid is like the Energizer bunny on crack.

My 5’4” mother couldn’t gain weight no matter what she ate. She never topped the scale higher than 135 pounds throughout her whole life. (At that weight she thought she was a cow.) The last few years of her life she averaged about 110 pounds and hugging her was like hugging a bag of bones. You literally could feel every vertebrae in her spine.

My daughter has a co-worker struggling with the same over active thyroid problems. This woman weighs 107 pounds and despite her record breaking eating binges, she cannot gain weight.

While those of us carrying too much weight wish we could trade places with these people, not being able to gain weight is every bit as serious a health risk as obesity. Just hearing about the things this little tiny woman eats hoping to gain weight makes me cringe, as she’s filling up on giant burritos, onion rings and French fries. Overeating fried foods in order to gain weight is extremely unhealthy. Simply because someone is very thin is no guarantee that they are healthy.

Regardless of the fact someone may be underweight, filling their bodies with high fat, fried foods can still damage and clog arteries and cause blood pressure issues, not to mention putting them at risk for heart disease or strokes.

Clearly there must be balance whether we’re too heavy or too thin. Yeah, I’m not going to lie to you; if I could bribe my thyroid into being hyper for a day or two, I’d probably jump at the chance. (No, probably more like a few weeks.) Realistically, I’d rather my thyroid functioned normally without the help of medication. In a perfect world, we’d all have properly working metabolisms putting us all on the same playing field, but as most of us know, life is rarely perfect or fair.

If you’re not sure what your thyroid is doing, a simple blood test can give you a better idea. Malfunctioning thyroid problems are responsible for a host of problems in our bodies. If you’re past due for a check-up or physical, make an appointment soon. You can’t fight the battle if you don’t even know there’s a war going on. Be informed and take control over your own health before it’s too late!

The greatest wealth is health. ~Virgil

19 And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life—this is indeed a gift from God. Ecclesiastes 5:19 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord, I thank you for preventative medicine that allows us to track health issues and deal with them as they arise. Help to make me a good steward of this body you have entrusted me with. Help me to always do my best to care for it and be a living example of the grace of God in my life. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Like many people, I’ve been on just about every diet program out there over the course of my dieting career. There’s no denying there are some great programs out there that all work well when the right amount of effort is applied. Most of us know about Weight Watchers®, Jenny Craig® and Nutri-System® to name a few. Those are all excellent programs with great success stories.

I’ve been on a few other weight loss programs which you may or may not recognize as well, such as the Seefood diet. This of course is the ever popular program that literally translated means if you see food – you eat it. I’ve been on that diet innumerable times and while the program achieved the results one would expect given the name, I can’t say as I’d recommend this program.

Another popular program is the No Holds Barred program, which is code for get out of my way before I stab you with my fork program that is a license to do bodily harm to anyone daring to cut in front of you in an all-you-can-eat buffet line. Again, I can’t recommend this program either.

One of my favorite programs was the Amelia Earhart Diet, which basically was me committing to a program and then getting lost along the way, never to be heard from again. As you can imagine, this is not a great program because too many people were constantly bugging me about “What ever happened to that diet you were on?”

Without a doubt the most popular diet program available may be one that I’ve been on repeatedly throughout my life. Thousands of us have been on this diet without even realizing it. I call it the “Wonder Diet.” This is EVERY program rolled into one, which has us crying out to God and praying and hoping … I wonder if this will be the program that finally works for me?”

If we are honest with ourselves, this is what we’re ALL thinking each time we invest money in a new diet program, diet pill, exercise program, exercise equipment, etc. Aren’t we ALL secretly praying that THIS TIME we will have success?

The bottom line is diets all basically work IF YOU FOLLOW THE PROGRAM! Clearly it’s not rocket science, but when you restrict your calories and increase your activity level you’re going to lose weight. Period, end of story.

Most of us know diets don’t work long-term because they are so restrictive and most of us don’t like to deny our flesh on a long-term basis. When the body is denied something it really likes for long periods of time, it tends to became like that forbidden fruit thing and the more we deny – the more we want it. Which is why making long-lasting lifestyle changes is so much healthier and smarter for us.

When we get too far out of balance one way or the other, we end up snapping which oftentimes leads to a bingeing meltdown. Or in my case a full blown incident of stabbing people with my fork. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

Balance and moderation will go a long way to seeing you through to a happily ever after success story and hopefully will keep people from asking you, “So … whatever happened to that diet you were on?”

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. ~Mark Twain

27 And it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline. Lamentations 3:27 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord, help me to submit to Your will and live in balance and moderation with both my eating and exercise programs. I thank you for the many varieties of food available for us to eat. May I make an effort to mix things up so I won’t get bored eating the same things all the time. I thank you that eating healthy and cutting back for a season doesn’t mean I will never be allowed to indulge in treats again. Help me to accept that for this season I must abstain to gain control over my flesh. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.