A Little More of My Story

I’ve always had difficulty with my weight - ever since high school, it seems I’ve been on one type of diet or another, or between one type of diet or another. In the past, I’ve always been motivated by physical appearance, or the fact that I had to keep buying bigger clothes. Once I’d lose a few pounds, I’d be motivated by the fact that people were paying me compliments, commenting on how thin I looked (which I know now, is relative - I was thinner than I had been, but still not really thin).  Recently, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been motivated by health issues - high blood pressure, tiredness, sleep apnea (more on that in a future post), etc. The biggest scare came almost 2 years ago, right after Christmas. It was early evening, I hadn’t been feeling good all day, and I starting having minor chest pains - not enough to lay me out, but just enough to alarm me.  I told my wife that I was going to drive myself to the emergency room, which I did, and they checked me out. While my pulse rate and my blood pressure were both really high, they didn’t see any signs of an impending heart attack. They did, however, advise me to go to the hospital the next day for a nuclear stress test, which I did. This test is basically a process where they take a bunch of pictures of my heart, then have me get on a treadmill and walk/run until my heart rate is at a certain high level, then take another set of pictures to look for blockages, etc. The cardiologist gave me a clean bill of health, except that he said I was morbidly obese and needed to shed weight, or the next time I came in it probably wouldn’t be such good news. (By the way, ‘morbid’ comes from the Latin and means either ‘disease’ or ‘death’, neither of which are very pleasant).

That was enough motivation for me - I decided to make some pretty big changes in my life. I signed up at the local YMCA, met with a great personal trainer who didn’t speechify about how I got myself where I did, but really listened and helped structure a plan for me that worked. I also found another Christian brother who was going through the same thing, and together we held each other accountable to getting to the gym and eating more healthfully. Within 6 months, I lost 35 pounds - got down to 250, which was great. That was August of last year.

Then I stalled. Totally. Completely.

I kept exercising, kept eating right (mostly), and kept doing what I thought I needed to be doing, but the weight wasn’t coming off. I started getting discouraged, and slowly gained about 10 pounds.

Earlier this year, back in June, I realized I was starting the same pattern as before, and that if something didn’t change, I’d be back up to a higher weight, even more discouraged, and looking for the next great thing to get my weight off. That’s when God showed me the verses in 1 Corinthians 6. After that point, I finally realized that physical appearance and health weren’t perfect motivators, and were both prone to backslides and failures. However, treating my body as God’s holy temple was constant, and would also be motivating, because it was a way to give God glory.

So, with a new sense of truth about what was important, I changed course slightly - I really tried from that point forward to give God my exercise sessions, give Him my meals, and give Him the glory when the pounds came off. I also incorporated a new diet and some change in my exercise plans, and since late June I’ve lost another 34 pounds, down to 224.

While the number is great, what’s more important is the attitude - this body is not my own, but has been given to me by God for the time I spend here on earth. He’s entrusted me with it, and it’s my responsibility to bring Him glory by honoring Him with it.

Over the next few posts, I’ll be more specific about some of the changes I’ve made, and I’d be interested in hearing from others about your own journeys. We’re here to support each other, right?