Week 16 Weigh-In

Happy January 1st! Tell me: How do you celebrate? Are you a planner and a goal setter? How many resolutions do you make? Do you make lots and lots, hoping at least one will stick? Do you forego resolving to improve your life because of failure to do so in the past?

I think I'm going to take the route of setting goals this year. I have two health related goals: 1) To be off my blood pressure medicine by the end of the year.  2) To weigh under 200 pounds by the end of the year. 

I need to implement plans in order to reach those goals. I know that because I didn't implement a plan to reach my end-of-the-year goal, and I was far from reaching it. 

Instead of working toward my goal, I went a bit crazy and did whatever I wanted over the last couple of weeks. My actions weren't honoring to the Lord, and they had pretty steep consequences for me.

Also, I was reminded again how easy it is to slip into my old habits. 

Habits make me think of one of my favorite pairs of shoes from college: a pair of well-worn Birkenstocks. When I received them, they were far from comfortable. In fact, it took months to conform those shoes to my feet. Interestingly, once they conformed to my feet, they were absolutely, positively mine, and I loved them. If you tried to wear them, you would probably hate them, because they conformed to my feet. Each day I wore them, my feet burrowed a little deeper into the soles, until the insides of those Birkenstocks looked like an outline of the soles of my feet. 

Right now, my new lifestyle is uncomfortable. Often, it's downright painful - physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. Likely, it will be months (maybe longer) before my lifestyle is comfortable and is truly mine, before my lifestyle is part of me, an extension of who I am and what God has done and is continuing to do in my life. 

Going forward, I need to tell myself that the pain now is worth it. It has to be worth it. 

So, this year, I'm ready to challenge myself. I want to do hard things. Enough with the easy living. I want to live a life that pursues the Lord and opportunities to be conformed to the image of Christ. There aren't many opportunities like that while I'm watching TV and eating fast food. 

All that said, most of you clicked on the link to find out how much weight I gained. :0)

NINE POUNDS!

Holy cow. 

I gained 9.0 pounds, bringing my total weight loss down to 29.3 pounds and my current weight up to 294.3 pounds. 

You're reading all of that right. I probably broke a record. 

While I'm sad that I set myself back so far, I'm actually glad I was able to see what two weeks of my old habits would do to my body. I needed to see the impact of my choices.

I'm not going to dwell on my mistakes. Instead, I'm going to move on and move forward. Dwelling on my sin won't do me any good, but focusing on Christ will change my life. 

So, cheers to doing hard things this year! I'll share about the hard things I'll be doing in the weeks to come. What hard things will you be doing?