Weekly Weigh-In: That’s What I’m Talking About!
* This post may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. *
It’s Weekly Weigh-In time! It’s your chance to face – and admit to someone else – what the results on the scale show this week. I want to celebrate with or commiserate with you, whichever the case may be.
I, for one, am extremely happy with my results this week. As you may recall, last week – with its Chinese food and pizza buffet – was a little discouraging. However, it appears that Brian’s friend was right and maybe the high sodium in those two meals caused me to retain water, because…
I lost 3.8 pounds this week!!
That puts me at an even 83 pounds lost and only 12 pounds away from my goal weight! Wow! When I started, I couldn’t have imagined being so close. I can’t even describe to you what it feels like to go from being morbidly obese to being only 12 pounds overweight.
Heck, lots of people are 12 pounds overweight. Enough, in fact, that people may not even think of me as being overweight when they see me now. Or, maybe they do. Twelve extra pounds on a short person seems to be multiplied. I don’t care, though. I know how far I’ve come…and it’s a great feeling.
Monday night, the kids and I went to watch my husband play ball. I wore a new t-shirt that’s fitted. It’s not terribly snug, but it’s not of the loose-and-comfy variety either. Turns out, it wasn’t a good choice for a hot, humid ball game.
Brianna offered to switch shirts with me. She was wearing a light, loose shirt and she knew the t-shirt I was wearing would fit her more loosely than it did me. I hesitated for a minute, having one of those old thoughts of, “Brianna’s shirt will never fit me.”
Then, I realized that Brianna’s shirt probably would fit me. And, she’d offered. And, I was hot and sweaty and the shirt was feeling really itchy. So, I took her up on her offer. We went into the restroom – which was air-conditioned, so we briefly considered the merits of just staying in there – and switched shirts.
Do you have any idea how cool it is to be able to share clothes with my sixteen-year-old daughter after nearly two decades of obesity? Wow! It’s an incredible feeling.
If you’re just starting on your weight-loss journey, don’t give up! It is indescribably worth it when you get so close to the right side of your weight-loss ticker.
This week, I want to share some Scripture verses that have been particularly meaningful to me in my weight-loss journey. I’ve got several – including one brand-new one – that I’d love to share with you.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. – Galatians 6:9
This one really speaks to me because it is so easy to become weary in doing good while losing weight – making good food choices, working out, not drinking a gallon of sweet tea a day. It’s hard after the initial excitement and enthusiasm wears off.
However, if we continue making good choices, we will reap a harvest of weight-loss at the proper time.
“Everything is permissible,” – but not everything is beneficial. – 1 Corinthians 10:23
I don’t like the idea of “good” foods and “bad” foods. I think that, psychologically, that sets you up for failure. As soon as you start thinking you can’t have something, that seems to be what you want above all else. If you don’t believe me, just tell your kid he or she can’t have or do something and see what happens.
I prefer to choose moderation. My sweet tea is permissible, but the one-and-a-quarter cups of sugar I put in a gallon make it not as beneficial. For that reason, I limit myself to two glasses a day, instead of an unlimited supply.
Doughnut holes are permissible, but not beneficial, so I limit them to extremely rare occasions – maybe once a year, because they also happen to be a trigger food for me and I have an extremely difficult time stopping once I’ve started eating them.
I love the one I shared last week in my Setting and Achieving Goals post:
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’” – Luke 14:28-30
It goes along with what I heard on Dr. Oz this week. I just happened to have the TV on at the right time. He said that people who make a public commitment to lose weight lose, on average, 20% more weight than those who do not make a public commitment.
I knew my personality enough, back in November 2009, to know that I’m just that way. If I tell a bunch of people that I’m going to do something, I’m much more likely to actually follow through. That’s exactly the reason I started this blog and here I sit having achieved something I have never succeeded at before, despite many, many attempts.
Finally, I heard this one in church last week:
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. – 2 Peter 2:20
Of course, we weren’t talking about weight-loss and I’m sure Peter wasn’t either, but I couldn’t help but think of the statistics that show that people who lose weight, then go back to their old habits, tend to gain back all of the weight they lost, plus some to go with it. I know that’s been the case with me every single time in the past.
I’ve heard – and recently in this article on maintaining weight-loss – that that’s because your fat cells are still there, ready and eager to go back to their old ways. That was confirmed in studies quoted in another article about losing being only the beginning of winning the weight-loss battle.
Because of the dangers of regaining the weight and being worse off than I was before, I’m going to have to post 2 Peter 2:20 on my fridge as I move into maintenance mode soon.
And, of course, I’ve already given my husband and children permission to use extreme, possibly even rude, measures if I start to slip up. They are under strict orders not to ever let me go back.
Because, honestly, I never want to see morbid obesity staring back at me from the mirror again.
Do or do not. There is no try.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
One Comment