I need to lose weight. Oh, it’s not for the weddings in May and June. It’s not to fit into something pretty or to look better in my jeans. Frankly, I haven’t worn jeans since the pandemic started. That’s how I got into this pickle. When you wear stretchy pants, you have a lot of room to grow into. Jeans will remind you when you’ve been hitting the pizza particularly hard.
No, I just want to lose weight so I feel better. So I’ll have more energy. So I can keep doing the things I want to do. Because if I don’t, I’m going to have to give up hauling a camper cross country a lot sooner than I’d like. You truly do have to “use it or lose it.” I’m far to young to give up on the fun part of life!
I have found it a lot easier if you have a health conscious buddy that you can partner with who wants to achieve the same goals. You can encourage each other and keep each other accountable. And most definitely cheer each other on. It takes a lot of cheerleading to accomplish weight lost. The rewards are tremendous.
I wish I could lose weight as easily as most men do. If a man wants to lose weight, he cuts out that extras slice and maybe only takes one pastry with his coffee at the office and he can drop a ton in no time. A woman? Not so much. I can get fat on air. When I grab that slice of cake, my inner dialog all to often vacillates between, “Go ahead…you deserve it!” to “Oh, who are you kidding…you might as well smear it on you butt because it’s going to go there anyway!”
These types of self-destructive conversations foil my efforts far too often. I’m not ugly with myself. I don’t call myself names. I just love to cook…and I love to eat. But, I’m at a point now where I can’t keep fooling myself that it doesn’t matter. It’s time…PAST time…to get the ball rolling and try some healthier habits.
I’ve been making some small changes over the last few months. I’ve almost cut out diet soda completely. I have cut out coffee and caffeine. If I want a sweet, I have it without guilting myself. I just have a smaller piece and stay away from seconds. I’ve started eating a small yogurt every night that has probiotics in it. I sprinkle some low sugar, high protein granola over it. That is just as satisfying as a bowl of ice cream…something I haven’t had for nearly a year.
We are breakfast eaters, so I’ll pull one of those sausage patties I made last weekend out of the freezer, fry an egg in a nonstick pan, sprinkle a tablespoon of shredded cheese on it and sandwich it between slices of lo-cal bread. It’s very filling and lasts me till late afternoon when we eat supper. That’s not all that bad.
It’s supper that gives me trouble. I love pasta dishes and red meat and pork roasts and baked potatoes. We don’t have nearly enough fruits and vegetables with our meals. This is where I need to get busy and make some changes. We never go to dinner in restaurants. We seldom eat fast food and when we do, it’s usually Wendy’s where I eat a salad and Mr. FixIt has a baked potato with chili over it.
Back in 2016, I worked with a trainer and lost a lot of weight and got really fit. I don’t know that I can walk the Quincy Hill steps like I did back then. That was really hard on my knees. I CAN get out and walk every day…I just have to make the first steps. Then the second. And before I know it, things with progress in the direction I want to go.
If you want to end up in a different place, you have to stop taking the same old road.
It’s time.
?
“….Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 MSG