Cynthia's Pride and Joy

Wow!! I just love that everyone seems to be looking at this as part of the spiritual journey and not just a physical improvement project. I agree with Heather that it is a lot easier to convince myself that I have control over this body than to recognize that everything in my life is connected to my personal relationship with the One Who Gave His All For Me. I can blame it on genetics, or will power, or health issues, but it all boils down to I Cor 9:24-27 NKJV "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to other, I myself should become disqualified." I joined this project with no hope of winning the prize, but realizing that the race itself was and is the real treasure, to be able to join my loved ones in a concerted effort to break the bondage of obesity and poor health habits that are so easy to fall into and so difficult to overcome.

As far as addiction or not, we can not live in this world without food, so it is not the same as drugs or alcohol that you can totally eliminate from you life. If we all could "eat to live, rather than live to eat" it would be victorious living. I myself have hesitated to do any weight loss effort in the past because I have been aware for years that every time I try to lose weight I become "obsessed" with food. When I make no effort or show no concern for weight loss then I find that I just it whatever tastes good or suits my fancy when I am hungry or have a craving. But, when I try to control my eating it becomes more and more of a constant thought and focus.

I have found for myself that the best way to overcome this is to develop a routine of what foods I buy and what I eat at each meal then I spend a lot less time thinking about food. My routine is pretty much fixed from breakfast through the time I get home from work, but having to decide what to eat for supper and and evening snacks, leaves me vulnerable to cravings and obsessive thoughts about food. I have found it difficult to overcome the impulse to eat whatever I think about or see in the evenings and on weekends, but I am trying to develop the same type of routine for those times that I have for my other mealtimes and snacks. I eat when I am hungry but I know in advance what I will be eating at each meal and snack. This allows me to not think about or focus so much on food, and it only comes to mind when my body is actually hungry for sustenance.

I am so proud of you"kids" when I see the Fruits of the Spirit in your postings and thought patterns. It is really rewarding to realize that dragging you to church and feeding you The Word has helped you to develop an appetite for the things of God. "For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you."

Everybody keep up the good work and keep growing deeper and wider in the abundance of God's grace and less mired in the trappings of this fleshly body and of this world. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say REJOICE!