Losing Pregnancy Weight part 7

Since I am now writing a blog series on this subject I am now supposed to be the expert right? I'm supposed to be perfect in my eating and exercise. Absolutely perfect.

That's the thought that I wrestled with last night. Truth be told, I have been anything but perfect. I was folding back the covers to get into bed and just felt depressed. I don't know if it was the weather and how it rained or was cloudy all day yesterday. I don't know if it was the fact that I ate ALL of the Valentine's chocolates my parents gave us plus some of the chocolate chips in our pantry. I don't know if it was the way my size 14 jeans were just super tight (you know, so tight that they are just not comfortable, but you wear them anyways... what is that? Why don't I just wear something else?). Then of course when your jeans are too tight no shirt looks okay on you because you have major muffin tops coming out... you just feel like a marshmallow that's been squeezed into... well, I can't think of anything right now. You basically feel like a marshmallow.

Sorry, that was a bit of a rant wasn't it?

Here's what I wrote in my journal last night.
"Lord, what a terrible day. I feel so fat, I feel like a cow. My jeans are not fitting. I did not heat healthy today. I did not exercise. Lord, when it's summer time and I just don't want to get out and exercise in the mornings, help me to remember days like today when it is just impossible to get out.
I don't want to hate myself. I'm tired of hating myself... and I don't think I'm there anymore. I already know where that ends up. All I really know is that I need You. "

There you go.

I wish I could say that I was perfect, but I most certainly am not.  I think I have realized that I need to watch my focus. If I am only focusing on exercise and eating and my body all day long I probably will get depressed. The more I focus on my eating, the more I just want to eat ... just this one piece of chocolate... just this one cookie... and then it kind of becomes this huge spiral downwards. I want my focus to be elsewhere. I want to focus on my kids. I want to focus on my art projects, on cleaning my house, on scripture I am memorizing...

I have realized this whole weight loss thing is not a one-time thing. It's not something you do for a day or a week or something like that. It is a change in lifestyle. It's not a perfect process and I am not capable of being perfect. That's why I need Jesus. :)

It's one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. Okay, that was a bad day, so what went wrong? How can I do better next time? More than anything I want to refuse to beat myself up. I used to be the queen of beating myself up over the way I ate or didn't eat or the way I would exercise. I remember trying to make up for the way I would eat by going to the gym and getting on one of those elliptical machines for an hour. If it was really bad then I would get on the stair machine for another thirty minutes. After that I was soaked with sweat and absolutely exhausted. I remember not being able to play in my piano lesson because my arms were so fatigued from the elliptical.

I don't need to pay penance like that. I need to repent, talk to God about how I put food ahead of Him and then just ask Him to lead me. I like what Gwen Shamblin says in the Weigh Down Workshop, to just wait for the next sign of hunger. If you messed up and overate, then wait until you feel hungry again. Then when you feel that pang of hunger ask God what He has given you to eat. I have found that I need to follow my body for what I need to eat. God has designed it to crave and to experience hunger so that I will feed it how I need to.

Okay, I have to go, Levi is crying in his crib.