Week #2 Results

Picture from our annual "Chicken Corn Soup" family reunion, where...yes...we all want to eat the soup by the ladle-full. No more.

So you want to know the week 2 results, right?

Down 2 pounds in Week #2.

I know. I hear you. "WHAT? Only two this week?"

Yep. A very solid, happy two. I do think some of it is water retention. I used a seasoning packet on our stir fry last night that was within the legal limits, but that contained WAY more sodium that I would normally eat at a meal. No worries. As Shirley said, "That's not fat. That will come off easily!" True dat!

Dr. A says if you win the lottery and you're given the option to take the full million dollars right away or to start with a penny on day one and double it every day for the rest of your life--take the penny! It will take longer to see the fullness of your wealth, but in the end you'll get FAR more payoff than the person who took the quick return. I don't know about you, but I'll take more than a million...if someone's offering.

So...yeah...the same is true with our weight loss. It starts with a pound that keeps doubling, until you can't possibly believe how much you've lost.

Here's my thoughts for the morning. Last year I read the book "Women, Food & god" (lower case 'g' intended, because Geneen Roth sadly doesn't know my God.) But, the book is excellent if you are able to sift through the existential beliefs and see the One True God. Then, the book holds a TON of valuable truths. I am lending mine to a friend this morning, so I paged through it to see what I had underlined. I thought I'd share this.

"Woman [or men] turn to food when they are not hungry because they are hungry for something they can't name; a connection to what is beyond the concerns of daily life. Something deathless, something sacred. But replacing the hunger for a divine connection with Double Stuffed Oreos is like giving a glass of sand to a person dying of thirst. It creates more thirst, more panic. Combine the utter inefficacy of dieting with the lack of spiritual awareness and we have generations of mad, ravenous, self-loathing women. We have become so obsessed with getting rid of our obsession, with riding on top of our suffering and ignoring its inherent message, that we lose the pieces of ourselves waiting to be found beneath it. But fixing ourselves is not the same as being ourselves."

It's interesting. Removing the proverbial Double Stuffed Oreos has left me FAR more emotional. I've been crying easily this past week--often over happy things, but also over sad things or maddening things. I'm not riding on top of my suffering--I'm in it. And I'm not longer interested in simply fixing myself, I'm interested in BEING myself. And...surprise...I'm satisfied by what the hunger was all about in the first place. A connection. Namely a connection to Christ.