Allow me to tell you my story...

Allow me to tell you my story. I have been overweight my whole life. No, I didn’t have some traumatic childhood, and no, I don’t have a metabolic disease. I secretly wished for those growing up – something to blame it on, an excuse, a reason for why I was the way I was. I think my heaviest was in high school. 265. Ouch. Then throughout college I did Weight Watchers, had a healthy, exercising roommate sophomore year, and managed to get down around 245 fairly consistently. At one point I did a gimmick diet that got me down to 235, but I quickly gained that back and more. In China, I stayed around 245 going to the gym all the time and walking everywhere. Must have been that darn rice and oil that got me. Oh, and all the American treats we “rewarded” ourselves with. :) When I got back from China, in my mourning and transition I gained nearly 20 lbs! I remember looking at pictures from D.C. that spring and thinking, wow, I look terrible!

So I joined the Y, determined to be proactive. I fell in love with zumba, tried my hand at 5ks, took swimming lessons. I found an interest in nutrition and nutrients and whole foods. And with all that I was able to strong arm it down to the 230s again. That was huge! But all the while I felt a guilt I couldn’t kick. I felt guilty for caring so much about the physical when I should be focused on what is above. I wondered if God really cared about my goal weight and fluctuated between anger and indifference that He made the male population so “attraction” oriented. I was frustrated because I’d tried everything and felt stuck because every diet contradicted the next. I have tried everything: slim fast, diet pills, Weight Watchers, Adkins, fruit diets, food combining, low calorie, low fat, non-processed, super foods. And yes, I suppose any of them might work for a time, given the right amount of discipline and will, but I felt like there had to be something I was missing. And I’d always known if there was some way I could connect the physical to the spiritual, I would find success. I just didn’t know how. It’s when we’re at our lowest that we’re the most receptive, and it’s at that point that God stepped in and showed me the way.