I don't know why the fatigue and the general weakness, tired and lousy feeling that I walked around with wasn't enough.
I don't know why it didn't bother me enough that I would become completely winded just walking up the single flight of stairs to my job.
I don't know why it didn't bother me enough that everything I owned was tight. Worse, I was to the point that only a few things still even fit as my pile of "fat clothes" were fast becoming clothes I could no longer fit into.
I was having hygiene issues, gross I know, but my blood sugar was out of control and I was battling yeast under my breasts, I had to wash multiple times a day just to keep it at bay, and I was losing the battle. I don't know why that wasn't enough to push me to the point of doing something about my weight.
But all of these things were things I chose to overlook, or dismiss. I was willing to live (loosely using the term "live") for late night stacks of cookies and tall cold glasses of milk. I was willing to settle for the weak and exhausted just to stay on the couch. I had absolute freedom to eat what I wanted when I wanted and as much as I wanted, but at what cost?
But it was the photo of myself standing next to my son on his graduation day that finally forced me to stand up and say "Enough!!" I didn't want to live like this anymore, struggling with my weight, with food issues and just being miserable inside my own body.
It's a picture that someday I hope my grandchildren will look back on and say "Wow Grandma! You were FAT!!!" And I pray they will say it with shock in their little voices because they cannot for the life of them imagine their grandma being so fat and out of shape. I hope when I take graduation pictures with both my younger children they will stand in stark contrast beside their brother's photo who graduated 8 and 7 years before them. I hope it will be hard to believe I am actually almost a decade older in the photos that are still to come.
I;m not done, I haven't met my goal, but I have confidence I will. Why? Because even though my weight has risen and fallen like an elevator in the past, this time is different. Yesterday in church one of our pastors took a moment to address discipline. And to paraphrase he basically said that all the discipline in the world is for not if Christ isn't behind the reason behind it. I know that to be true, and even more, I would say it's not ever going to be truly successful unless Christ Himself is the source of the strength required to live a disciplined life.
That's the difference for me this time. As excited as I am about the loss and change, I KNOW, get this, I ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, TO THE VERY DEPTH OF MY BEING KNOW, I could not do this, have the success I am having without God's help. Every day I pray for His help and His strength and the humility in myself to know without Him, I am NOTHING.
It's good that with a new year a lot of people are stepping up and trying to make positive changes in their lives. It took till June of last year for me to finally get my act in gear, but I did and I am 65% of the way toward my goal. That's exciting. But the fact that it is an adventure with God helping me is what makes it life changing this time.
The success to my life change is simple, I had to get to the point where I was willing to say Enough! And actually do something about it, knowing that God was Enough to help see me through.
