I'm Gonna Set The World On Fire

For NOTHING is impossible with God. Luke 1: 37

Last blog, I really cried out and poured out my heart to the world. Last night at the book study, I once again came home and said "I can't do this. I can't keep going in there and feeling like I'm the only one making a fool of myself." Eric got mad. He thought I was telling the ladies that I was a manipulator. Then I got mad because it has always been about that with my family...perception. What others thought. Did you talk too much? Reveal too much? Make them talk about you when you left? The book said to go one day without living with other's expectations. Expectations...spectmatations! BLAH! I've always been The Preacher's Kid. Eric's Wife. Hannah/Alex/Jillian's mother. Sister. Whatever the role required...I was the person. The only thing that did 'expect' ANYTHING from me was food. Glorious, yummy food! Having a bad day...food was there. Wanting a retreat...food was there. Didn't ask anything of me. Didn't get mad at me. Didn't expect anything of me. It tasted good. It looked good. It smelled good.

Now, the sad thing would be that you read this and think..."Oh Kristi, this must be an awesome revelation to you. What a break through!" And I would tell you...NOPE! I've known this for a long time. I've journaled about it. I've struggled with it. I've talked about it with counselors and friends and weight loss groups for years. It's no new revelation, but I keep going back to the devil himself. There are times I've cried as I put food into my mouth KNOWING this horrible thing about myself and my relationship with food. But it was so comforting to have that food, whether it was chocolate or that cheeseburger in there melting whatever was bugging me, that the tears didn't last long.

Today is Day 3 of eating healthy. It is also the week before my period. Men just don't get this time before. Usually the week before, I am a mess. I am a mess of emotions and that leads to eating. PLUS, I am tired which leads to eating. PLUS, all chocolate is magnified and needed and wanted and craved which leads to eating. However, a real miracle has happened the last couple of days. I have not craved any foods. I have not craved chocolate at all. It's not because I do not have chocolate in the house. My house is full of chocolate goodies...Girl Scout cookies, candies, ice cream. Plus, I am a big girl with access to money and can go get whatever my hearts desires. I have not craved an overload of sugar in my coffee. I haven't even had coffee for two out of the three days which is a small miracle in and of itself. I have not craved McD's breakfast. I have in the past looonged for their breakfast and sometimes all I can do to think about how I can taste, even "healthily", a breakfast sandwich. I am hungry but I am not craving and that is a big difference. I feel at peace with what I am doing.

Another area which I have managed a little peace is the scales. In the past, if I would go on a big get healthy, lose weight adventure. I would weight myself in the morning and at night. I didn't set myself any "rules" in this area. However, I am not getting hyper vigilant in weighing myself. I did weigh this morning and according to my scales I am down to 226 which is a loss of 4lbs since Monday morning. It doesn't surprise me since most of it is water weight. I did 'revise' my goal for my doctor because of that new number. Originally, I had that I wanted to weigh 220 on the 18th of April (my next appt), but I really wanted to reach for the stars. So the new goal is to weigh 215 by the 18th. Totally doable!

Now to quit crying and being so dramatic at Tuesday night's women's group. LOL Of course, I did tell Eric I secretly think it helps some of the women who don't have time to read and do the 'homework' by watching me be "pruned" every week by God. Who knows? Maybe next Tuesday I'll make popcorn and sit back and watch myself. LOL

I'm Lost

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ -- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. Philippians 3: 8-9

Today was my first day of eating properly today. There was very little struggle with eating what I should. I was surprised. I thought I would want more and be more upset that I would need to eat more and struggle with the inner conflict that comes every time that I try to become healthy again. This time it feels different.

Of course, I cannot have something "feel" different without contemplating it and analyzing it and wondering what is going on. Always before Day 1s have been "fine" because I have done a lot of planning and anticipating but today just felt different. I have been doing a book study and last week God spoke to me through that book study and told me what He want to chisel from my life and that was my disobedience and using food to replace Him in my life. Yet, today...I still had to think on all of this.

The first picture you saw as me on Easter when I was at my lowest weight. I was probably around 185-190ish. The second picture is NOT my highest weight but is where I tend to hover and that is around the 230 mark. I stayed around the first mark for several years, so I know that I can be that weight and be happy at that weight. It is doable and was not a momentary weight where I just have a few snapshots of me at that "low" weight. As crazy as my life was and there were stresses, my life was 'stable'...just like that weight. Oh sure...I would have loved to be lower, but I was happy.

In mid-October 2004, I found out I was pregnant with my third. I was told after my son that I would probably never have another baby without medical intervention. Here I was pregnant without medical intervention. In late-October 2004, my father was arrested. Those two events threw my life into such a tail spin that life as I knew it was gone. My family as I knew it is no longer. My church family was upset by all that and my own faith in God was shaken to the core.

Until today...as ABSOLUTELY CRAZY AS IT SOUNDS....I didn't realize it. But I was...am...lost. I lost my core identity as a person. Since then, I have not been able to even get close to losing the weight. I have lost my love of teaching. I drift and feel no real connection to the churches I go to. My "AHA" moment came to me today. I. AM. LOST. I had a nuclear meltdown of myself in 2004/2005 and I have been fighting to get myself going again and until today I haven't realized that I was soooo lost. My weight was a barrier to it all. Food was my comforter through it all.

I am afraid to lose weight. I am afraid to get to close to my church family. I am afraid to get to close to my own family again. I am afraid to build it all back up because I just cannot...CANNOT...take another core meltdown like that again! I cannot...CANNOT...take being let down by my family...by my church family...and even feeling like God let me down again. That is what hurt the most...feeling like God let me down.

But it is time to rebuild that core and let God comfort me more than food. What is FEAR? False Expectations About Reality. There are no guarantees in life and I know that. I live with humans. I am a human. However, my food is NOT my God. My food is NOT my comforter. My food is NOT my provider!!! THAT is something I can write with confidence tonight!!

Goals...Goals...Goals

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14

Day 3 of blogging about going toward my pursuit of trying to get healthy and you would think by watching me that I wasn't doing much in that endeavor. Well...that would be a yes and a no. I did several things today to get ready. One was to visit my doctor. Had to get the all clear. That is important. I got the "sticker shock" of weighing 230 on her scales. Did I expect anything less? Golly no! LOL But it was about 8lbs more than what I weighed on her scales just a month ago. Embarrassing...yes! I did not have any excuses for her. I told her that I have spent the last month grieving my life but I was there to move on.  We talked about my eating plan. I told her that I wanted to start eating 'clean' or at least more organic than I have been. I also am going to start following WW point system because even on a cleaner/organic eating plan, a person could really blow calories out of the water. She was agreeable to that.

Now on to goals. All reasonable weight loss plans will tell you that you have to have goals...reasonable, attainable goals. I cannot even begin to tell you all the goals I have set in the past. I have set measurable goals. Goals with time limits on them. Goals that were scale related. Goals that were non-scale related. I am an analytical person. I have had 'schooling' in writing goals. I can 'goal' with the best of them. I have written short-term goals. I have written long-term goals. I have written long-term goals with short-term goals with objectives and time tables as to when I wanted to reach those objectives. Yet, I sit here today never, ever, never, ever having met hardly a one of those thousands of goals I have written in the past. So, I feel a bit of a hypocrite writing another goal or even wanting to think of another goal to reach. BUT I know that I just cannot "launch" myself into space without having something to reach and something to attain.

I do know one goal that I made when I turned 30 that I wanted to meet by the time I turned 40 and that was to run in a competitive race even if I came in last place. I set that goal 7 years ago. IT is still attainable. THAT is one goal I still can meet and reach with this endeavor.

I have another doctor's appt on April 18th. I really want to knock her socks off with my weight loss. I'm thinking 10lbs off by then would be a great attainable goal.

Other than that...my goal is just to start turning to God instead of food. To learn that my life is more important than food. I want God to chisel away at my insane desire to hide from life, from others, from Him by using food and my weight.

One more goal is to just blog every day. I want to hold myself accountable for my own actions. I want my life to be a reflection of my inner self. I want to one day see my inner self stare at me from the mirror and that is not happening right now.

Trying To Leave Egypt

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

I'd like to say that today is the first day of the rest of my "healthy" life, but no...it is not. Even after all the great things that happened yesterday...the blog...the dream/vision...the pics. I still did nothing. I 'thought' about what I was going to do today. I 'thought' about what I was going to change. I 'thought' about what I would eat different. I 'thought' about what exercise I would do. I had residual issues from the migraine yesterday. I didn't get up in time to do what I needed to do before I had to leave to meet someone. So, breakfast consisted of a sandwich from Casey's (not healthy!). I was too tired to eat lunch and when I got up I did not eat healthy. Yet, here I sit typing on this blog. Have I given up already? Am I going back to the addictions? Well, I had another dream. Maybe it was reflective of the books I've been reading lately (The Hunger Game series) or maybe it was God speaking to me but I had to come and tell you my dream.

It was a battle field. I saw the diets that had failed me. Books. DVDs. Videos.Names of websites. But they were not dead soldiers. They were weapons. Some were not good and were broken. Some were still good and could be picked up and used again. I realized that I have never been able to fully cross the Red Sea and get to the promise land. I have seen people do it. I have also seen people cross the Red Sea, get to the promise land and then come back into slavery. They were even more enslaved than they were before they crossed the first time. Even when a knight isn't in battle he still carries his sword with him. It wasn't that I had "lost" the war...I just left my weapons. I let them lay there. No...not all of them are good. Some even harmed me. But some helped me. Some where what I needed to get me to the Promised Land. I need to plan. I need to pick up my 'weapons' every day. Another 'weapon' I need to start doing is to encourage others. I told that to the woman I met with today. When I encourage others, I am encouraged myself.

OK...first things first...go through my 'weapons' and plan my battle of attack. And as always...NO MORE putting myself down! NO MORE saying today was not profitable! I may not have 'cleared' a healthy eating day but the breakthrough might be more than I've had in the first day. Here's to tomorrow...

Setting Myself Free

In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me FREE. Psalm 118:5

I am 37 years old and I have been battling the demons of my weight for at least 30 of those years. I was not obese as a child but my first memory of my life revolved around weight...my weight...my grandmother's weight struggles...my mom's weight struggles. I think I've known Weight Watchers since the late 70, maybe since it's inception? I've drank Diet Coke since that time. I've drank skim milk. I know so much about nutrition and water that I could write a book on my own. Yet, I still struggle.

In 2008, I started feeling the calling to "get healthy." I took a new job in hopes of really working on that calling. Ironically, my health went downhill. I have since been diagnosed with a rare disease that causes me daily headaches. One possible help would be to lose weight. I keep setting out to prove the doctors right or wrong but I keep falling back into my own destructive behaviors.

Here lately, I have found myself wondering what to do. Where to go? I have started and stopped so many times that I almost consider myself a failure. This weekend on FB I ran across this sign:

But did I start over today? No! I was still stubborn. I still thought...I'm going to fail. But then several things happened. 1)I had a migraine today. 2)One of my friends talked about starting a blog 3)I had a dream. What do all those things have in common? So glad you asked!

I had a migraine today. I had to take medicine to help get rid of it. Usually I take Benedryl because I refuse to take narcotics but it makes me tired. Well...narcotics do as well but I want Benedryl to help because I see what a dependency on narcotics do and I take "the B" to help over anything else. This was a blatant reminder that I needed to really start focusing on me getting healthy. For me, getting healthy is more than losing weight and getting "skinny." It is possibly getting "me" back! OK...back to today. Then, I get a notification that one of the amazing ladies in my weight loss group wants to start a blog. I love blogging. I love writing. I don't know if anyone reads what I write. I don't know if it even influences anyone, but I get some joy from writing and typing as the case of blogging. I have done some blogging in the past about losing weight but have abandoned it when my hopes of losing weight was gone. I was almost embarrassed by the thought to start "just another" blog about losing weight. So, I had kinda crossed it out of my mind to even start "just another" weight loss blog because of my fear of failure. Then, I went to take a nap. Of course...God love my children and a wonderful day...I didn't fall into a deep sleep because of them going in and out of the house. So, to say this was a true dream, I couldn't say. Maybe it was a vision? I don't know. But I saw myself trying on clothes that I had stored from the time I was under 200 lbs. The pants that my friend Tina had went shopping with me. The dress I wore for Easter the year I had right before getting preggo with Jillian. I was getting pics taken and I was loading them on a blog. I was typing a blog. I started a blog. Then, I saw myself uploading those pics. Then I saw the word "Free."

I have the ability to set myself free! Free from the weight that binds me. Free from the fear the surrounds me. Technically, I'm starting on Tuesday. I didn't weigh this morning but did weigh after my nap. OUCH! It was 228.2!  So, here it is. All of me.

This is a pic of Jillian and I taken on Sunday. I have to point out that I have not been "happy" for a long time. I have felt weighted down by more than just my weight.

These are pics taken of me in clothes that I am 'comfortable' in.

This is the Easter dress I wore the year I was under 200. It was uncomfortable. I could get it on but Eric had to help get it off. There is no way that I could sit in it.

I loved this dress when I could wear it. I loved the color, fabric and fit at the time. Today it cut off my arms and it was hard to breath. This dress is one that I want to wear again more than anything!

Size 14 pants that my friend Tina helped me pick out.

Size 16 pants. I can zip but I couldn't breathe.

I think I've "exposed" myself enough for today. LOL I had another pic of me with a size 14 pair of jeans but I don't know if I'm ready to give you that much undie experience. So...I wish I could say that I was entering this with the confidence of a Saint, but I'm not. However, I do have experience in the past that shows me that God does know more than I do. I have to persevere and I know He will help with the rest. I will go more into everything tomorrow and the following days. Here's to Setting Myself Free!!!