Tag Archives: weight loss

Solitaire?

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Le Shrinking, Reflections

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I’m the only one who can live my life.

That has got to be the scariest thing I’ve thought about in a long while. Whereas it’s indisputable that I’m, at heart, a loner, there’s phantom comfort in knowing that looking around does not yield a barren landscape. I’m so used to living on the fringes of my world (my sister would say the problem is that I have a world…:P) that I don’t often spend time in it. The price paid for that tends to be total disrepair.

Change is hard…and I have to change. As great and supportive as people are/can be, and as grateful as I am for the amazing people in my life, no one can do this for me. No one can hold my hand through the process of learning to breathe…not to the point that they can make me function in ways I refuse to. No one can make me get up one day and decide to do more than take fleeting glances at what it means to live. I want no one to.

I’ve never been that person who can’t be alone, who doesn’t know the value of silence, who finds the company of self to be petrifying. In the same breath, the alternative leaves me most out of my depth. This is who I am. Just a weirdo trying to glean lessons without having to be knocked senseless first. I’m no superhero. I’m not even a real person most days, but I’d like to think I’m learning what that looks like.

This is who I am…and I embrace that fully, remaining cognizant of the reality that I am not static. I will not always be this person, but if I don’t engage in the process, I may not like the person I become.

I’m the only one who can live my life. And, I will.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’

Ezekiel 37:5, 6 (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Waiting for “The One”

23 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in Le Shrinking, Reflections

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You know, despite my sometimes realistic (fine, cynical) outlook, it seems the major part of me is still waiting for “the one”. Now, before some people fall off their chairs, let’s clear this up. We are by no means referring to this one person who is supposed to complete me (*ick*). Not only does no such person exist outside of the fertile ground of the imagination, that is too great a burden to place on anyone’s shoulders. But, we digress…

One of the promises I made in my last blog was that I’d stop lying to myself. Facing the truth is…more difficult than my vocabulary would permit me to express. It seems I’m still waiting for this one great thing that will change me…in ways that the combined efforts of the events of the past 27 years have been unable to.

(The above paragraphs were written on March 4. I’m not even sure why I didn’t finish.) This has been a better week than most, thanks to the sheer grace of God, which led to my admission that all I can do is fail. Like, I’m not sure whether other people have such limitations, but I. Rather. Suck. I mean, I’ll know I have things to do and, if I can’t be bothered, I won’t do them. I’ll know what I should do to improve my health, and just not do it. A fear of negative consequences has never been one of the driving forces of my life. If I’m honest, I’ll say I have no driving forces. See why I need Jesus? Teehee.

But, yes, this week has been good. I’ve been productive, disciplined, wise about my health, and I’ve even been nice to people. That, however, has evaporated, man. I’m just not capable of sustaining all that. I don’t have to–easily the best news ever. Yes, I’m still doing those things ±being-nice-to-people, but I constantly need the reminder that there is no great “one”. No one verse of Scripture that will so challenge my heart that I will turn from the wicked ways I’ve made my refuge…no one song that will so galvanise my soul that I will begin to care…no one teaching, camp, gathering, person, decision, act of the human will with sufficient potency to change the very me that is.

“The one” is both not coming and already here. Maybe “the one” isn’t an isolated act, but a series. Maybe it is not that epic moment, but those tiny moments that shape the fabric of humanity as gently and indelibly as water shapes rock. Maybe it is one day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time, all fueled by grace.

Seems to me God has a plan. HE calls us. He calls us to Him; He says all we need to do is come. God doesn’t need an outline of how we’re proposing to be true to Him in the future. We don’t need to impress Him with our reliability–as if we could. Salvation is a gift, not a loan. We need only to accept His gift and live in, and by, His power to please Him. 

I know not where the future leads. Honestly, based on the mural presented by the past and present, I’d rather not know. What I know is I have today. We have today. We have joys and tears, strengths and failings, and all the other contrasts that make us human. And we have the One who saw us coming. The One who made us, knowing full well how much we would fail, how much we would need Him. And still made us, still loves us. Still delights in us.

We have the God who is Love, the only “One” worth waiting for.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

— “Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing” (Robert Robinson, 1758)

Saying Goodbye

07 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Le Shrinking, Reflections

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Not too long ago, I said goodbye to what was easily my favourite television show. Granted, I do not watch much TV, but it was the first show in a long time to really engage me. It was simply brilliant, which usually means cancellation is only a matter of time, but it was fun while it lasted.

The thing is, I’m not that great at goodbyes. Sure, I’m not one of those clingers, but I’d probably prefer if some things didn’t have to end. Still, goodbyes can be good, and the time has come to bid farewell:

To the pursuit of perfection. I said in a previous post that “For all my talk of not caring, I’m a bit of a paradoxical perfectionist. I’d rather do nothing, than not give something my best (very often, an unrealistic best).” Even if failure is assured, I should still try, for therein lies the true test of what is inside me. 

To the idea that my life is somehow ruined because the past ten years quite drastically diverged from the path projected by the first seventeen. This is where and who I am. I am not an unfortunate tale, not a mass of one “if only” after another. Everyone’s story is different and, ideal or not, I fully embrace this as mine. And you know what? For the first time in maybe forever, I’m excited to see where the road will lead.

To the lies I’m so famous for telling myself. As much as the dark has been my refuge, it makes no sense to keep hiding. God is Light; there is no darkness in Him. Sunrise follows sunset, and I’ve chosen to stay hidden in shadow because it is comfortable. Content to remain in the prison of the familiar, I’ve dropped out of the human race, but no more.

To the belief that I can do this. Maybe other people can, but I can’t–not of my own strength, anyway. I’m much too passive to take life by the reins and send it where I want it to go. I have no trail to blaze; no frontier to claim. I possess no grand dreams of changing the world; no great mark to etch on the surface of history. What I do have is a Saviour who makes all things new; a God who delights in redeeming those who can do nothing but fail. I have friends–amazing ones–and family…people who care, and that rocks.

All I have is grace…and that’s enough.

Our humanity is the perfect canvas on which to display the masterpiece of God’s Divinity.

An amazing young lady I know wrote this song. It has this irksome way of teasing my soul into the light, but I reckon that is a good thing. May God continue to bless you, Sasha.

Facing The Fat

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Le Shrinking

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I’ve never been skinny. Like, never. Perhaps that is why being fat has never bugged me. Or, maybe it is because I never took the time to really look into it.

Whatever the case, I spent three superb months with my sister, and spent two or so of those months attempting to get my health on track. Clearly, two months could have been nothing other than a start, but it was a start I needed. I came home roughly 17 pounds lighter. Whereas that may look small, especially relative to the over 150 pounds of excess weight I carried, the difference was obvious.

Since then, I’ve regained a few of those pounds, lost much of the muscle tone I returned home with, and slipped into a pattern dangerously close to the one I had before I left. For all my talk of not caring, I’m a bit of a paradoxical perfectionist. I’d rather do nothing, than not give something my best (very often, an unrealistic best).

Absolute. Garbage.

If I hadn’t told myself I was too busy, too tired, too insert-adjective-here to hold on to the healthy habits I’d developed, I would have been that much closer to my goal of proper health and fitness. So, maybe I wouldn’t have worked out for two hours a day, but even twenty minutes every other day or ten minutes every day would have made a difference by now. If I had chosen to take each opportunity as an individual entity, rather than summing them up, I would have made more healthy choices.

I rather doubt I’m going to get to a place where I tell myself I’m going to do this for the next year, the next six months, whatever. What I do have is one “today” after another. For today, I can take each moment and choose to be healthy. I can choose to sit around the computer or I can take a series of ten-minute breaks throughout the day…and walk, run, jump, stretch…anything.

Most things in life are like that, I think. Whether it’s staying away from someone you know is bad for you, becoming healthy, getting close to God, or just being more disciplined. Whatever your “fat” is, it doesn’t have to define you or become your prison. If we would take each moment of each today for the chance it is, we would make better choices.

No day is a waste after one bad choice (or even more). There is always hope. Always at least one person we can confess to for accountability purposes. Always grace. Always Strength that is perfect in our weakness.

Honestly, I have no plan. And that’s okay.

So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Romans 9:16 (NKJV)

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. Romans 9:16 (ESV)

Of Fat and Sin

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Le Shrinking, Reflections

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Disclaimer:  This post is in no way attempting to imply that being fat is a sin. That’s a debate for those with enough time on their hands. Teehee. That said…

So, I finally left Jamaica. (I can strike that off my list.) Being here in St. Lucia with my sister is pretty cool, but there’s just one problem: there are too many mirrors in this house, man. Everywhere I went, I could see myself. Seriously? Like, how many mirrors does one house need?

Point? I finally SAW how much weight I had put on. Now, I’ve never been small by any stretch of anyone’s imagination, but this is the heaviest I’ve been in my whole life. In the words of a dear friend of mine, “You’re huge.” Being fat has never bugged me. It has been a part of my life forever, and I was never around people who made me feel worthless as a result, so I guess it was easy to…well, not notice that I was REALLY packing on the pounds, man. (No, no, now is not the time to mention my almost obsessive aversion to shrinking.)

Like, you don’t see the weight going on…well, I didn’t. I rarely ever use a mirror, because I already know what I look like, and, though I don’t have a lot of clothes, I have enough to know what they look like on me. Now, let’s not be silly, of course I knew I was putting on weight. I could also tell that my newly-acquired inactive lifestyle (chores only require so much activity and no more) was affecting me. I used to dance several hours a week, now I can’t easily climb a flight of stairs. Fitness issue much.

So, how did we arrive at the title for the blog post? Sin is pretty much the same way. Just as I knew I was putting on weight, but not to what extent, we know we’re slipping from God and we often don’t realise just how much until we’ve done something we never thought we would do. Like, it’s maybe an ounce at a time, one little misdeed at a time, but we know we’re pretty far from where He wants us. Like, I live on a hill. If I wanted to exercise, I could have. In the same way, we know we can go to God and have Him shape us into His image, but we don’t, for whatever reason. Maybe we say it’s too late, or maybe we haven’t yet allowed that moment of truth.

My moment of truth came last week. How? I bought a scale (a really hot scale, too :P). Now, I had a vague idea how much I weighed, but maybe I was secretly hoping it was less, especially since I’ve been kinda eating properly since getting here. SO, hot scale’s electric blue LCD output hit me for six.

291

Yep, you saw right, Yanique. I used to joke that I’m pushing 300, but seeing it? No fun. I’ve joined a gym at last (we’ll save that for another blog post), and I walk more, so maybe there’s hope. We’ll see. Less about the numbers, and more about getting my health and fitness back. Anyway…

I know people who would probably slash their wrists if they got to my size, yet I’m pretty certain we’re not that vigilant about sin. We’re not that vigilant about the things that are pulling us away from God, one tiny step or giant leap at a time.

It’s not easy to get back on track, but it can be done. For example, I went to a circuit training class last week… A few minutes in, I was like, “I am dead.” Like, I literally said it. My arm muscles were shot and my thighs weren’t much better, but I made it! And, I’ll be going again this week.

So, maybe the road back to God is one tiny step at a time…maybe a crawl, but go. He’s always waiting, arms open. And He’s more patient and helpful than any trainer on the planet, even that nice one who told me, “Don’t watch the numbers, just do what you can.” (Man, did I ever say Amen!) Maybe you’re wondering how you’ll ever get back to where you were, but do what you can. It’s all by God’s strength, anyway, and His grace is greater than our every weakness.

All the best on your journey (back) to God’s heart. In the words of another dear friend of mine, “Let the Spirit guide you.”