Day four

I'm down 5.1 pounds today. Here's the plan for the day:

DAY 4

• Breakfast- Advocare shake

• Snack - 1/2 Banana with peanut butter

• Lunch- Ground turkey taco meat in lettuce wrap (leftover), grapes

• Snack- Pear

• Dinner- Baked cod & veggies

I am glad to be less sore today than I was yesterday, especially after my workout yesterday. I still tried to workout using the "Biggest Loser" CardioMax video, despite my soreness. 

Thought of the Day

If God created junk food, why is it so bad for us?

Sometimes I think about God's presence in our modern lives. I ask myself, "Did God create junk food?" or "If he created it, why is it so bad for us?" And I have trouble answering this question...

It's difficult for me to weigh the fact that we are broken as a society, which makes so many things we do motivated by our sinful desires, and the fact that we are very blessed by God. For example, think about the medical advancements we have made in the last century. Surely the fact that we have so many methods to diagnose and treat many illnesses, and so many brilliant, questioning minds pursuing these new methods is a blessing from God. I think our desire to make medical discoveries does not arise from our sinful nature, it arises from a Godly desire to find justice, dignity, life, and health for all.

However, I think our broken nature has caused us to twist some medical procedures for sinful things. For example, plastic surgery is a wonderful method to give people who have been maimed  by accidents, illnesses, or congenital deformities a chance to have functional bodies that are more aligned to what our society considers normal. However, many doctors have capitalized on performing plastic surgery on men and women who simply want to be "perfect." These men and women are building their identities on their bodies or on how they look, and not on God, which is a sin. Or, another example, our knowledge of the human body as it creates another human being has significantly increased in the last century. We have discovered so many ways to visualize a fetus, diagnose possible illnesses a fetus may have, and even perform surgeries on fetuses. We have found how women can better care for their bodies while they carry a fetus, and have devised alternative ways to conceive for women who are having trouble getting pregnant. And all of this knowledge can be applied to women who (sometimes) sinfully wish to NOT be pregnant. In the controversial case of abortion, the knowledge we have about how our bodies create life is twisted into how we can get rid of it. We can visualize the fetus in amazing ways--but sinfully, this is done to determine how old a fetus is, so that we can know if it's ok to eradicate it, because, at some arbitrary point, the fetus goes from being something terminable to something sacred. Therefore, these amazing discoveries about pregnancy and prenatal care--blessings from God--have been turned upside-down by many people's sinful nature to be in control.

In another ironic twist, many of the medical advancements we have made are to prevent and treat illnesses like strokes, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, which are caused most of the time by our worship of food and mindlessness when eating.

I think the advancements made in the food industry may be the same as the advancements we have seen in medical fields. Over time, we have discovered so many wonderful technologies to harvest foods efficiently, preserve foods to prevent waste, grow foods on a large scale, process foods to make them take different forms, prepare ingredients in different ways to make something healthy, sustaining, and delicious. I think these are God-given technological advancements. However, they are often twisted by our sinful desires. For example, we have the technology to create larger farms and harvest larger crops to feed a greater amount of people, but we have done so in ways that are not environmentally sustainable and are cruel to animals. We do this just so that people who don't need more can have more, cheaper. In this way, companies that own the farms are feeding their sinful desire to make a quick buck, and people who buy the products are sinfully taking it in excess without being informed consumers. In other ways, things are added to foods to make them tastier or to preserve, but make them much less healthy. This is sort of twisting the original purpose of the food into something that feeds our sinful nature for decadence and excess, and causes us to worship the food rather than the One who created it. So, in this way, while how the food industry is sometimes a blessing from God, I think that junk food is not necessarily a gift from God. I think our desire to make and consume junk food arises from sin, and the blessings we see within the food industry have been turned upside-down to feed our sinful nature.

Genesis 9:3 says, "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." As this article states, food is a tangible expression of God's love for us. God has given us land to tend, animals to use, and brilliant, questioning minds that have made new ways to process, store, and distribute foods. However, God intended for us to be good stewards of the Earth and of our bodies (Proverbs 21:20). The use of technological advancements in the food industry should not lead to destruction of ecosystems, environments, or the health of consumers. That is why I need to be more careful about understanding my food sources and ingredients in my food. I need to diligently check how often I am eating decadent foods that may be slowly causing me to become unhealthy. My sinful nature demands decadence, and the enemy distracts me and tempts me to eat and drink mindlessly with no cognizance of what I'm feeding my body. But my spiritual nature should command my physical body, and therefore I should be more disciplined, prayerful and thoughtful about my food consumption and exercise habits.

Dear Hannah (myself)...

Dear Hannah (myself),

As of this morning, May 9, 2014, you weigh 202.6 pounds. Did you ever think you would get to this point? In high school, you thought you were fat; bigger than the other girls. You were a size 8, and you said, "If I stay this size forever, I think I will be ok." Remember what you looked like?

Can you even believe that you thought you were fat? What would you give to look like that now? More importantly, what would you give to feel like that now? You don't even know what you wieghed because you never weighed yourself--You never worried about it! Look how vital you looked, look how your clothes fit, and look at how you didn't mind being in front of a camera. I know that, at the time, you tried to hide your body and you didn't like how the clothes fit, but when you compare that to how you feel now, wouldn't it be nice?

Things started going downhill in college. You went to Duke University in the Fall of 2007, and you had a terrible time at first. You had a lot of trouble making friends in your "Arts Focus" dorm, your roommate wasn't around much, your boyfriend was at a different college. You joined an a Cappella group and a Bible study, but you still had trouble making relationships "stick."You always have had this trouble, though...it is somewhat of a "cross to bear." You knew that everyone is supposed to make 500 friends the first week of college and make big, drunken mistakes in seedy frat houses in the middle of the night. These memories allegedly last forever. You knew you were supposed to be finding that foretold "college experience" everyone told you about and you saw in the movies.  But you couldn't find it...or at least it didn't look how you imagined. As a result of your unhappiness and loneliness, you ate vending machine food almost every day alone in your dorm room (Snapples, Bugles, Ruffles, Poptarts, Fritos galore). The weekends were cause for celebration because you were actually interacting with another human being that you knew liked you and you didn't have to "try" to interact with (your boyfriend and future husband), so you ate like a queen (Bojangles, Cookout, Pizza, Sweet Tea galore). You exercised much less because you were studying and writing papers diligently.

Same thing for sophomore year, except now you had friends (your best friends that you still have). With friends came constantly eating out, having desserts, drinking. And still much less exercise due to the increasing school work (and laziness). And the weekends were still cause for celebration with junk food.

And the weight crept up on you over the months and years. But it still wasn't cause for concern, although you had to retire some of your high school clothes. Remember?

When you got to the end of your sophomore year. You had gone up a few sizes (to size 12 now). But at least you were happier than your size 8 and size 10 days during freshman year. Maybe gaining a little weight is proof that you're happier, right?

Well, you lost about 30 pounds when you went to Greece for 10 weeks during the summer. Every day you were up at 7 and worked on a farm until 5. You were physically active all day every day for 10 weeks. And you lost 30 pounds (at least!), even though you helped yourself to delicious Greek food and lots of wine and Rum & Cokes. You looked so good, and everyone complimented you. You loved being able to fit in the size 10 jeans you bought in Turkey, and you felt amazing. Remember that?

But then you fell back into old habits. And the weight crept back up. And you were back to the size 12's and sometimes a size 14 if you were really being honest with yourself. Clothes didn't fit as well, you definitely wanted to hide your body with bigger, baggier clothes, avoided pictures unless completely necessary. Somewhere along the way you gave up on ever reaching the weight of your high school years...you forgot how it felt to be relatively carefree about your body, you forgot how it felt to exercise regularly, you forgot what a normal meal should look like (hint: it's not all fried food all the time). You forgot how it felt to have clothes that fit, to sit down without worrying about your tummy rolls, to pose for a photograph without consciously stretching your neck so you wouldn't have a double chin.

You lost about 20 pounds by doing Calorie Counting and exercising 2-3 times per week senior year. And you looked pretty good. Solidly in size 12 clothes again. You graduated from college and got engaged at this weight. You also decided that you wanted to be a Speech-Language Pathologist and started going to UNCG to be able to get into graduate school. This was a very exciting time. It was at this weight that you got married to your best friend and the man that you were (and still are) completely head-over-heels in love with (and had been since you were still in junior sizes and seeing a pediatrician). It was at this weight that you went to Hawaii on your honeymoon with your new husband and soaked up paradise (but still wanted to hide your body and avoid taking pictures together). How heartbreaking that during these most key parts of your life, you wanted to disappear or take yourself out of making memories because your clothes were too tight or your double chin might show up at the wrong angle. Remember?

Then you went to graduate school to get your Master's in Speech-Language Pathology. Dreams coming true. You had no time to cook, no time to exercise, because grad school kicked your butt. And it was progressively having to use a bigger shoe because your butt got a little bigger. You had your husband bring home fast food every night for dinner, unless you made some frozen meal that was packed with sodium. You ate your feelings, and convinced yourself you needed ice cream after that exam, or celebrated things by going out to eat and pulling out all the stops (that means appetizer, full entree, substitutions with fries and chips, and dessert). Still no exercise. You graduated this past week after two years of butt-kicking. You start your new job at a skilled nursing facility on June 16. You move into a new house in June. 

So we have finally arrived to this present day. We've walked through your life's journey. You weigh 202.6 pounds, you think you are a size 14 but you don't know because you avoid buying clothes for yourself. Your knees hurt all the time. Your cholesterol is "very high" according to a recent health screening, and you are 24. You untag almost every picture of yourself on Facebook. Your Facebook profile pictures are all at least 1 year old. You are ashamed of your body, you can fit into probaby 40% of your clothes, you don't want your husband to touch you, you eat what you want because you think it can't get any worse. But it is getting worse. REALITY CHECK: it has been getting worse for the past 7 years. That is 7 years of your life--possibly the best 7 years of your life--and you have been ballooning up to a point where you don't even enjoy your body, your health, your relationships with others. You seem to only enjoy food. That's sad, isn't it?

Those pictures make your skin crawl, your blood boil, your eyes well up with hot tears, your heart say, "How did I get here?" while simultaneously saying, "Whatever." Why don't you try to enjoy things the way you used to? Let's try to NOT to revolve life around food. Let's try to be a healthy 24-year-old with lots to look forward to and lots to do.

Let's try to lose the weight without the weight being the goal. You are not looking forward to a number. You are looking forward to gaining feelings of confidence, control, and carefree and losing feelings of helplessness, shame, and guilt. You love food now, but let's not have it be the only thing you love. Try loving being active, or being healthy. Try loving your style, your husband, and your job. Love a new hobby. Love food less--it is a means of sustenance, not a way of life (at least for you). Let's just try to see what happens when we think a little more about loving our body by giving it healthier things to digest, doing healthier things to challenge it, giving it wonderful things to think about rather than wonderful things to eat. Just try and see what happens, and document along the way how you feel, how you act, how you look. Just try--I bet things will get better, and I bet if you write it all down you will never forget how you did it, how it made you feel, and you will never go back.

Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and let's do this together--your head, your heart, and your tummy. And keep track of everything (including the kitchen sink) along the way.

Love,

Hannah (myself)