I was once asked by a wise man to pretend that I am driving down my favorite road. I picked Interstate 40, between Nashville and Knoxville, TN. It's a beautiful drive. I was asked to pretend that while driving down the road, I come to a stop at a road block. I was asked to imagine what the road block looked like. I described it as a standard highway construction road block. It was made of 3 metal poles with 3 long sheets of thin metal bolted to the poles. In the middle of the barrier was an orange reflective sign that said "Road Closed." I was asked to go into great detail in describing this road block. You may be asking yourself at this point...why? Why would someone ask me to imagine something like this. The wise man (whose name is Carl Thompson) told me after the exercise that the reason for this was to try and find what kind of barrier I had placed in front of me. See, I have had trouble finishing things...college, music I wrote, learning guitar, becoming a professional musician. I would come so close to finishing. I was just a few classes short of graduating from college. I am a few bars away from finishing some songs that I have yet to finish. It seems that I don't have a problem starting something, but finishing is a different story. Why is that? What is it about me that won't finish? Why do I have a barrier in front of me?
One time, while talking to Carl, He asked me to take apart the barrier...to remove it. He literally made me act out removing all the bolts, all the pieces, everything. As I neared the end of the imaginative segment of removing this barrier, it became increasingly difficult, I was beginning to sweat, and even breathe heavy. And as I began to take apart the final bolts holding the barrier together, I began to cry. It was almost as if I was doing more than just pretending to move a road block...It was as if I was removing something more than that.
I remember Carl telling me that my barrier was something that was not permanent...It wasn't an impossible task to remove. It wasn't a 20 foot high barrier stretching to infinity on both sides with barb wire...It was simple. It was something that with enough work and thought and prayer, I could remove it. Sometimes, I have to go back and pretend again, because it seems to keep reappearing. But somewhere in my head, I have the answer. I have the answer to the ultimate question of my life..Why do I do what I don't want to do? Paul puts this best in Romans 7:15 when he says "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do." I love The Message paraphrase of this as well..."What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then act another, doing things I absolutely despise." Somehow, in this journey I have to figure out why I do what I don't want to do. I have to figure out why it is that I don't finish, and the best way to figure that out is to keep fighting and finish. I CAN do this. There's not a lot of doubt...I lasted this long, and I can last longer. It's all up to me though. I need to decide what I want, and to do whatever it takes to get there.

I fell off the wagon for a few weeks. I began to doubt. I began to sink. But now comes the most important decision in my life. To continue with my journey of getting healthy or to let Satan win and send me down the path to personal destruction. I already know what I have decided. Now it's time to pick myself up from the ashes, dust myself off, and press on toward the goal. I will finish this race. I will not allow Satan to keep me as a slave to food. I just have to focus. Focus on what I desire more than anything...a healthy life.

Working through temptation

Yesterday, I had a victory. I had spent all of my morning working on videos for church and although I had grabbed a small lunch, my mind kept jumping to the possibility of grabbing some fast food on my way to work. I started thinking about how I could possibly arrange to do that; maybe leave 5 minutes early or something.
Now to keep myself from eating out I had stopped carrying money on me. I don't even carry my debit card. I keep it hidden out of sight in my room. So, as I am getting ready to go to work, I grab some money and put it in my wallet. It's almost as if I didn't care that I was getting ready to do some major harm to my weight loss goals. I then took a shower, and while I was in the shower, I started thinking, and praying. I began to really think about what it was going to "cost" me to eat that. Not the $3 it was going to cost, but the mental and emotional cost it would carry. And I stopped and took some time to think about it. And it hit me...I finally began to understand something about temptation. Here's what I am starting to understand:
Most of the times that I failed to overcome temptation, I was trying to talk myself out of it in the process of going to do it. What I am saying is it is far more difficult to talk myself out of eating fast food if I am in the car and driving there. There are too many other things going on in my head...such as "I hope the car behind me has good brakes!" But If I were to just stop...Be still...Let my mind have a chance to really think about it, I stand a much greater chance of overcoming it. God keeps telling people in The Bible to "Be Still." He says to Moses "Be still, and know that I am GOD." I think God knew what He was doing when He told people to be still. Being still allows our mind to work correctly. Being still allows us to focus. When I am frustrated, or upset, my mind is not working clearly. I make horrible decisions with my health when I act on spur of the moment emotional decisions. But if I just take the time to slow down, stop what I am doing and allow myself to be still, I can really begin to make smart decisions.
It reminds me of the story of Elijah, and in I Kings, God tells him to go stand on the mountain because He is going to pass by him. So wind came and tore the mountain apart, but God was not there, neither was he in the earthquake or the fire that quenched the mountain. He was in a gentle whisper. When I am really struggling with food, maybe the best thing for me to do is to be still, and listen to the gentle whisper telling me the truth...that I don't need this food to make me happy. Only God has the power to satisfy me.

Case of the Mondays

It's interesting that I both love and hate working early. I don't like getting up so early, but I love getting out early...And it so happens that I love getting out early more than I love sleeping in. It was hard to get up an extra 45 minutes earlier to make breakfast but I felt the difference later in the day. I brought some almonds with me to munch on during the day. I got off work, and immediately went over to Daley Ranch to do some hiking. I felt renewed up there in the mountains. I have really missed hiking. I didn't realize how much I loved the tranquility and energy I feel there. I've been doing a lot of thinking today about my life. I realize that I spend way too much time thinking about my past mistakes. I think about the fact that I didn't finish school, but I don't think about the fact that I am living on my own. I think about my past failures of weight loss, but I don't think about how I completely turned my job around and am now one of the leading sales people. A wise man once told me that you can be hugged a thousand times and slapped once, and you will remember the slap more than any of the hugs. Why is that? Why do we tend to focus on the negative instead of the positive. If I did that, I wouldn't focus on the fact that I am still overweight, I would focus on the fact that I have eliminated 30 pounds off of my body! Weight loss is such a mental game. And Satan is waiting at every corner waiting to entangle me in feelings of fear, self doubt, loneliness, and depression. I need to figure out when and where he waits for me and keep myself away from those places. If my struggle is fast food after work, then I leave all my money at home. I can't buy anything if I don't have money. If my struggle is loneliness, then I find people who can support me. I need to find every tactic the devil uses and create a counter-offensive. I don't need to just play defense, but offense as well. And since God is who He says He is, then I know that I have the spirit of power, love and self control to accomplish this. God believes in me, and I can too.

The Plan

No one goes into battle without a plan. If I am going to be successful I need a plan as well. I need something that is easy for me to do and something that I can easily follow. The first thing that I am going to do is plan out my meals for the entire week. With my work schedule varying so much day to day, this is extremely important to my success. I also plan on making sure that I plan times to work out as well. One of the most important things I am going to do is to bring workout clothes with me to work. There is a 2.5 mile circle near my work and I can walk it right after work! That's easy enough! I have to plan my time at the gym as well. I also have to be sure and eat breakfast. A good breakfast will help curb hunger later in the day and will help in the fight against the McDonald's Drive Thru after work.
I am also going to spend some time watching my videos I created earlier. I think I need to rediscover my original drive.

Well,
This is my first blog on here. I have been doing my own Biggest Loser show on Facebook and I thought this would complement it rather nicely.
I have been really struggling with my food lately, as well as my excercise. It's almost as if I am losing focus. The hard thing for me is when I do mess up is getting right back up and starting again. Satan keeps reminding me of all the things I didn't finish. He reminds me of the fact that I haven't finished school, or that I haven't been successful in the past with my weight management efforts. It's hard not to feel like a failure when I go through these valleys. Work has been stressful, and I have begun to use food to cope with that as well.
No one ever said this was going to be easy. I'm beginning to realize that I can't do this on my own. I am more of an externally motivated person. That is why I want to start finding people in the area that I can do this with. I would like to maybe go for a walk or a hike. Just something so that we can all feel like we are all in this together. If anybody has any ideas, let me know. Again, I can't thank you enough for all your support. I know that God has put the power in me to do this. I just need to believe it for myself. I am facing the most difficult battle of my life, and it is literally a battle for my life.
"For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self control."II Timothy 1:7