In 2010, things just seemed to spiral out of
control. I let myself believe all the
excuses that I was giving myself and refused to see myself the way I really
was; depressed, unhappy, miserable, over weight, lonely-even though I was
constantly surrounded by people I loved, and just flat out lazy!
They say a picture
is worth a thousand words-well…I saw THAT picture of myself (you all know what
I’m talking about, when you see that one picture of yourself before your turn
around point and you literally cry and cringe!) That was when I knew things had
to change, I’ll admit, it was 100% for vanity reason. The image looking back
was of an unhappy fat person-and I just couldn’t have that.
Thus started my weight loss, er…attempt at weight loss
and I did ok up until this year. At my highest in 2010 I weighed in at 276. I
began making fast changes, too fast to stick for the long haul. My goal was to
lose half my weight, 138lbs and be 138lbs. It worked for a short time and I
lost 73lbs-four pounds away from my first mini major goal. But, as you guess,
for some reason, my declaration of “2013 Is My Year” didn’t hold true and old
habits crept back up, until I reached 230 in July 2013. I had stopped watching
what I put into my body and stopped working out.
Ever seen the episode of “Sex and The City” when
Charlotte is in the book store looking for the book “Starting Over Yet Again”
that was exactly how I felt! I jumped back on the band wagon for what seemed
like the millionth time. Right away things started to attack, making me want to
give up and not stick with it this time around, but I kept on keeping on. Even
if it was here and there and exchanging this for that. Still…things weren’t
right with my outlook.
I still wanted to lose this weight to impress others, to
have others look at me and make remarks about how much weight I’d lost and how
great I was looking. I learned that I was dependent on others validating me to
make me happy. I craved the compliments.
I also, learned that I still wanted quick fixes to solve a problem that had
taken years of poor diet and lack of working out had done to my body and mind.
Then I had the break through moment that hit when I was
literally sitting in a drive through, with donut in hand. I heard Mandisa speak regarding
her food addiction, about the meaning behind her song “Overcomer” and she quoted the following verse:
1 John 4:4 You are from God
and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the
world.
Up until this point, I had viewed myself
as an “emotional eater” it somehow didn’t seem right to consider myself a “food
addict”, I could stop any time I wanted. Food was good! Food was great! Food
was what I thought about when I wasn’t thinking about, uh… well, sleeping. There
was no way something so great could be so baaaaaa……. Slamming on the breaks of
my thoughts, it hit like a ton of bricks. Curiosity grew and I needed to see
what being an addict was all about, naturally, I turned to The Twelve Steps and
reading step one: Admit that you are
powerless over ____(food in my case) and that your life has become
unmanageable.
Now, I don’t feel that life is
unmanageable at this point; however, when I was at 276, I certainly felt that way and
my dearly loved Gary can testify to this, it was a horrific time for us. But that powerless part, I’m so there and
wearing a party hat in it! To this very day if you place a plate of anything I
like in front me the chances are I’m going to eat it!
Not wanting my life to return to the way it was at 276 (and to be honest, it
felt it was heading there. I had worked
so hard on so many things to let myself self slip back.) I admitted it…I,
Nikki, admit that I am powerless over food and that while my life is currently manageable,
I do not want it to return to an unmanageable point.
Being a spiritual person and looking
towards God and my faith in finding true deliverance of anything that I feel
has power over me I claimed 1 John 4:4 as my victory verse! I am from God and I
have overcome so much and there is still more for me to overcome, but being
from God, no matter how much I try, I’ll never be able to do it alone because there
is still an earthly part of me that is inside. I have to reach in and pull He
who is in me out to be greater than my weakness when I pass the donut shop. And
you know what…I can’t tell you the last time I stopped for those donuts!
However; the Bible
doesn’t speak specifically about being overweight or losing weight, but it
talks over and over about several things that could relate to those two topics.
One is putting our love of anything (food) above God makes
that thing an idol (Exodus 21:3-6).
Secondly, we will always have a “craving” inside us-that
craving is a longing for God and no earthly object or being can fulfill this. We
have to remind ourselves to stop looking for those validating compliments
because in the end we will still be just as empty as we were prior to receiving
them.
And finally, we
are to take care of our bodies-our earthly vessel. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and
when we become obese, we open ourselves up to multiple health problems. In
turn, those health issues make us weak and unable to do the work that we’ve
been called to do. It cuts our performance time way down.
God gave us free will to make whatever choices we see fit
for ourselves. That means it is up to us to choose the amount of food we will
eat, what type of food we will eat and if we work out and for how long we will
work out. We should strive to avoid
making our love for food greater than our love for the Lord, strive to look to
Him to fulfill all of our needs and gain favor in His sight, and finally strive
to take the upmost care of our bodies.
So, in closing, I had to change my focus, and since this
is about me being 100% open, transparent and honest, this didn’t occur until
this week. Admitted that food really does have power over me was hard-still
hard to accept. I will have to learn to
take care of this body that has been given to me, to make it a healthy body that
will help me stay in shape so I can better serve each day and bring glory to
Him and help others. It’s not so much losing the weight or what the scales say
at this point-it’s about my outlook and how I’m going to be taking care of this
body, about not loving or thinking about food more than I should and looking
for God to feel those voids in my life. Let me tell you, the past three weeks
has been eye opening, emotionally and spiritually.
