Don’t Bother Jesus

A few years ago, I stood during an especially moving alter service at my Church with my eyes closed and head bowed asking Jesus to help me figure out how to shed these unwanted pounds. I’m not talking about losing the ten pounds you put on in winter and drink Slimfast for the entire months of April and May to drop before swimsuit season. I’m talking about losing enough weight to keep from being charged for two seats on a Southwest flight.

At first, I was ashamed I had even asked God for help. I mean, I’m sure He had his hands full healing the sick, finding homes for orphaned children and soothing the mourning souls of widows. Who in the world was I to take up his time with this silly weight loss thing? All I had to do was give up cupcakes, cheddar cheese filled casseroles and anything fried. Add a little exercise and losing 100 pounds should be a piece of cake.(Ummm, bad analogy with the cake thing.) How could I bother our Heavenly Father with such trivial nonsense?

My mother in her practical spirituality told me, “God is concerned with what concerns us.” Couldn’t get any simpler than that but could it really be that simple? I sure hoped Moma was right because losing this weight was not turning out to be the cake walk I had hoped. (What is it with all these cake analogies?) I knew it was going to take more strength than I had to resist hot fudge sundaes at Bobby’s Dairy Dip, Moma’s crispy fried chicken, Sister Shubert rolls and midnight sackfuls of Krystal’s that left you praying at 3 o’clock in the morning for Jesus to take you and spare you from their heartburn misery.

At first, I thought it was beneath God to ask him to help with something that I should be able to control. I must be incredibly weak if I had to resort to this. Why couldn’t I do this on my own? Why did I have to worry about this in the first place? Why did I get the fat genes in the family? Why, why, why? In the infinite wisdom of a phrase coined by the Anheuser-Busch company, “Why ask why?”

I eventually quit asking God why and began asking him for help. I guess Jesus wasn’t too busy for me. It’s been about eighteen months and I’m down sixty pounds. Seems like Jesus was concerned with what concerned me. Either that or he’s had some down time between healing the sick and feeding the poor.

Moma was right. Shhhh, that’ll just be our little secret.

1 John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.

It’s All About Perspective

A group of men from our Church went to Guatemala on a missions trip to do some constructionesque type work at an orphanage near Guatemala City. This morning the recently returned group took turns recounting details of their trip to our congregation. My father was among those men.

Almost every man who spoke mentioned a trip to the city landfill. On their one day sightseeing, a stop at the dump had been placed on their itinerary. Why in the world? Weren’t all landfills the same, full of people’s garbage? This landfill was unlike anything the men had ever seen. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people living in tents that dotted the landfill, pilfering through the heaps of trash, swarming the garbage trucks as their contents dumped upon the mounds of debris. Men, women, and children, many of whom were some of the over 350,000 orphans living in Guatemala.

All the men who spoke talked about their perspectives having been forever changed after having witnessed the goings on at the Guatemalan dump. Watching men their age not being able to provide for their families, watching children wander aimlessly with hopeless brown eyes staring back at them, or watching a mother and son wait to eat the scraps of food left over from their noon meal. Their perspectives had changed.

What’s my perspective? I gripe because I am bombarded with food every where I turn. A fat girl trying to drop some weight so she fits in the new fall line at Ann Taylor this season. I gripe because life’s not fair, some people eating cheeseburgers and French fries all day while I have to settle for grilled chicken and a tossed salad with just the slightest drop of balsamic vinaigrette. I gripe because instead of worrying about where my next meal will come from I’m fighting the urge to stop by Baskin Robbins for a banana split.

I’d love to tell you about how my husband begged me to make a pan of cornbread today and I enjoyed one slice sans butter, how I got in plenty of cardio this weekend even though it was hot as blue blazes, and how last night I tried a new recipe with Ancho Chiles, an ingredient that made me feel like one of the cheftestants on Chopped. But you see, after seeing the pictures of those men working surrounded by razor wire and guards armed with AK-47s, being told stories of literal vultures stealing food from children scouring the dump for what we wouldn’t feed a dog, and hearing the heartbreak in my father’s voice as he describe unimaginable poverty, it just doesn’t seem important.

At least not today. My perspective has changed.

2 Corinthians 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

No Food on Facebook

Last week, our gym challenged the folks there to take pictures of the food we ate and review it with our trainers. Thus, began my foray into food photojournalism. I took pictures of plate lunches filled with smoked turkey and cucumber salad, afternoon snacks of chocolate flavored protein smoothies, and boring breakfast of greek yogurt dusted with the most miniscule amount of granola, just enough to make the yogurt palatable. I neglected to take a picture of the enormous bowl of buttery microwave popcorn I had one night while watching Project Runway or the two bites of peach cobbler I stole off the counter at my Moma’s house. Go figure.

One night during the week, we had a family dinner at my parent’s house. After fixing my plate, I headed into the dining room where my twelve-year-old nephew was already going to town on a piece of steak. I pulled out my iPhone and took a picture of my plate filled with an eyeballed six-ounce portion of filet mignon, sautéed yellow squash fresh from someone’s garden down the road, mixed greens dotted with itty bitty grape tomatoes, and just a dab of horseradish sour cream, the perfect compliment to a juicy steak.

As the flash on my phone snapped, my nephew looked at me disgusted and said, “Please tell me you are not posting that on Facebook?” I explained to him what was going on at our gym and he sighed, “Thank goodness, those people that post pictures of food on Facebook are weird and you are weird enough, already.” I rolled my eyes as he snickered and commenced to eating the steak on his plate like a lion who had just run down an antelope. Facilitating the middle east peace talks probably takes less patience than teaching teenage boys proper table manners.

I continued to documents my food that week but under no circumstance did I post it on Facebook. I had been guilty of that in the past and could no way risk my teenage nephews thinking I was any less cool than they already did. The comments by my blonde haired, basketball loving, dare-devil with a bicycle nephew made me really notice all the food on Facebook. My goodness, if I made that Banana Pudding Poke Cake every time it appeared as I scrolled through my timeline, the cashier at the grocery store would think I was running the Nashville Zoo. Let’s not forget all the breakfast casseroles out there either. There’s about fourteen of them circulating, one where you take a few pounds of sausage, a couple of slabs of bacon, shred a block or two of Velveeta cheese, whisk with a dozen or so eggs, pour in a 9 x 13 casserole and top with frozen biscuits. You can hear your arteries clog as you swallow this greasy gooey concoction.

It’s not bad enough, I am bombarded by food as I watch TV or drive down the road passing fast food place after fast food place. Now, Facebook has become a virtual cookbook filled with pictures of delicious cakes, pies and crockpot meals. For the love of all things good and holy, give it rest with the recipes, Facebookers.

Can’t we go back to the good old days of Facebook before all the recipes? You know, when it was just juicy gossip, political bashing and ever-changing relationship statuses.

James 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

Taking Back the Temple

Wednesday night, Moma and I decide to skip our regular midweek church service. Our preacher was out of town on a mission trip and y’all know how I feel about guest speakers. Instead of going to our home Church, we went to the Church of a pastor who had long been friends of our family, a preacher who instilled a healthy fear in my adolescent mind preaching hell, fire and brimstone on a quite frequent basis. Not that it helped me stay out of trouble, just made me pray Jesus wouldn’t come back on a Saturday night. This man who had baptized my Daddy and laid my Pawpaw to rest had recently handed over the pulpit to his son to carry on the family business of saving lost souls.

As the newly appointed pastor brought forth the word, he spoke matter of factly from the book of Corinthians. He looked at the congregation of about fifty and said, “I hear there are several in the Church who are trying to lose weight. It’s a good thing cause I see several who need to.” Talk about not mincing words. This one time heavy-set preacher’s kid who now runs almost daily, trim and healthy, spoke about our bodies being the temple of God. Most of the time, preachers use this verse to warn against smoking and drinking but this guy who loved a good cheeseburger just as much as the next took this temple thing to a whole new level. A level that left many in the sanctuary squirming uncomfortably in their seats, me and Moma included.

Oftentimes, we think since we aren’t hitting the crack pipe in a dark alley and don’t have vodka bottles stashed in the linen closet for a secret sip, we are treating our bodies as the temple God intended. Maybe you haven’t thought that but I certainly had. Shoving buttermilk biscuits, sawmill gravy and fried pork chops in my mouth until my pajama pants cut off my circulation couldn’t qualify as a misuse of God’s property as far as I was concerned. Laying up on the couch letting my muscles atrophy until I was too weak to walk across Walmart’s parking lot without getting winded wasn’t what God had intended for my temple.

I don’t think the preacher was saying if you’re overweight, you won’t make it through the pearly gates. I certainly hope not because if that’s the case and the trumpet sounded today, I’d be in a world of hurt. I do think he meant that we shouldn’t let things like food or laziness control us and that God desires, and maybe requires, us to take care of our bodies.

Just like Jesus barging in the temple and laying the law down, it was time for me to take back the temple. Maybe that’ll make me think twice before I eat until my pajamas don’t fit. Lord help me, when they don’t fit. They’re already big enough for a whole Girl Scout troop to camp under.

God had made me a steward over one of his most prized possessions, ME. My temple was in need of some remodeling, might even have to take it down to the studs and start from there. I better go. I got work to do.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (AMP) Do you not know that your body is the temple (the very sanctuary) of the Holy Spirit Who lives within you, Whom you have received [as a Gift] from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body.

Fast Cars and Cruise Control

I love anything fast, fast cars, fast music and fast food. It all started on my 16th birthday. After blowing out the candles on my chocolate cake, my parents handed me a set of keys and told me to go outside. Low and behold, a red Z-24 Cavalier sat parked in our driveway. Once I quit freaking out and started the shiny red sports car, Neil Sedaka’s “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen” was blaring from the speakers. I was in love. The first Saturday night I took the car out, my grandmother passed me racing down the strip of our two traffic light town doing well over sixty in a thirty mile an hour zone. Needless to say, the night ended abruptly. From the first moment the engine raced and tires squealed making a turn on two wheels, I was hooked. I had a need for speed.

Over the years, I have become well acquainted with the police force in my small town. I used to try to cry, flirt or bribe my way out of a ticket but it never worked. Except for that one time in my early twenties. Heading home speeding down Highway 12 on a warm spring evening, I saw blue lights come from out of nowhere. Great, another ticket. I was probably on my tenth by that point in the year. The officer walked up to the car, disappointed, shaking his head and said, “Valerie”, we were on a first name basis by then. “What am I going to do?”, he continued. Almost instinctively, I reached over, grabbed the plate of leftovers from the night’s family dinner at Moma and Daddy’s and offered it up saying “I don’t know. Are you hungry? I’ve got leftovers from Moma’s”. He snatched that plate out of my hand lifting up the tin foil for a bite as he walked back to his patrol car. Whew. No ticket.

Everybody around town knew my Moma. She ran the deli/bakery of my family’s mom and pop grocery store. Smiling and cutting up with customers whether she was slapping mile high meringue on chocolate pies or slinging deep-fried extra crispy chicken onto the steam table, everyone loved Mrs. Jackie. Hardest working woman I have ever known. She made serving the hundreds that came down the lunch line each day look easier than Jesus feeding loaves and fishes to the multitude. That cop knew he had hit the jackpot when I offered up her leftovers, still warm meatloaf, mashed potatoes and English peas resembling a bird’s nest, a cornbread muffin and slice of her famous fudge pie.

I am an habitual speeder much to the dismay of my insurance agent. I am always in a hurry trying to make it from Point A to Point B like I’m trying to break some land speed record. I’d like to put my foot on the accelerator, stomp the gas and get to my goal weight a heck of a lot faster. I try to calculate if I lose X amount per week, I will weigh Z by so and so’s wedding or Y by Christmas, doing some complex algebraic formula in my head. It has taken me what seems forever to lose these 60 pounds. Yes, I know you’re more likely to keep it off when you lose it slowly but I find no comfort in that platitude. I know I can’t give up but I’m just so tired of not getting the results as fast as I want.

Will I give up? Nah, guess I’ll just set the cruise control and keep heading down the highway. Maybe not the fastest way to get where I’m going but mark my words, I’ll get there. No matter how long it takes.

Galatians 6:9 And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.

Being Barbie

A few times a week, I workout with my trainer, Brandi. Maybe coming off the holiday weekend made my workout seem harder than normal or maybe my blonde haired, gun-toting former Navy rescue swimmer exercise enforcer had it in for me today. Who knows. By the time we finished, I was sweating like a hog and panting like a poor old dog in heat. My goodness, that paints an ugly picture but it’s pretty accurate. I wasn’t the least bit pretty when I left from Brandi’s mini version of a Marine’s hell week. Except for my fake rap star sized diamond studs, extra sparkly accentuated by the sweat dripping from my forehead.

On the way home, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few items. If I buy groceries after a workout, I’m less likely to buy items I am trying to avoid. I know how hard I just had to work to burn calories during my hour-long session with Brandi so it makes the calories written on the sides and backs of every item all that more real. I plan my meals for the week prior to shopping and I always have a list in hand when I enter the store. I don’t deviate from the list either, not usually.

Finished with my shopping, I pulled up to the checkout and began placing my hearts of romaine, boneless skinless chicken breasts, smoked turkey lunch meat and a boatload of fresh vegetables on the conveyor. As I was doing so, I spotted a tanned blonde ahead of me chit chatting with the cashier while he scanned more than just her groceries. I couldn’t help but see her. She was wearing neon pink running shoes, fluorescent orange bootie shorts and a fuchsia tank which read “It’s easier when you’re Barbie”, her cleavage billowing out the top. Something else was probably easier, too, I thought. She really did look like a living version of a Barbie doll. Big chest, little waist, and long flowing golden locks.

As I looked her up and down with jealousy and disgust, I thought maybe one day some rapidly approaching middle-aged women in sweaty workout clothes would be jealously staring at my perfectly toned legs and butt you could crack eggs on. Shoot, I could dream couldn’t I. Maybe one day, in the not so distance future, I would be like this Barbie that stood before me with shapely legs, flat abdominals and buns of steel. But, I would not be wearing that ridiculous Barbie t-shirt.

I instantly didn’t like this woman. In my mind, she laid by the pool all day working on her tan eating milk duds, drinking cherry limeades, waiting for Ken to pull up to their Barbie Dream House. She certainly didn’t have to workout, watch what she ate or try as hard as I did. I was jealous life was easy for this breathing Barbie doll.

As I walked out of the store, I saw her transfer her plastic bags filled with grilled chicken, turkey lunch meat and assorted vegetables to her backpack not Bonbons, potato chips and Koolaid like I assumed. Then, she hopped on her bike and pedaled off. I loaded the back of my SUV and headed home. I caught up to her about 5 miles from the grocery store peddling her long sun kist legs plumb off.

Where was Ken with that Barbie dream car when you needed him?

Ezekiel 16:42 So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.

Belly Dancing

Trying to spice things up with my workout routine, I decided to take a belly dancing class at our small town’s little yoga place. I recognized a few of the ladies. I had taken a yoga class or two with them. I am so competitive yoga is not relaxing. If the lady at the mat beside me can bend her leg backwards and pull it over her head, I will break my ankle rather than admit defeat to Scorpion pose. As the first timers milled around with nervous smiles waiting for the class to start, I half jokingly and half serious as a heart attack told the group if any pictures or video from the class ended up on YouTube, Facebook or in the local paper, I would hunt them down and kill them.

The instructor told this room of ladies ranging in age from 25 to 65 to remove our shoes, provided us with a belt adorned with gold and silver coins to wrap around our waist and pressed play on her iPod. As the middle eastern music began playing, I expected men in turbans puffing on Hookah pipes to join us at any minute. The teacher removed her t-shirt and standing there in her sports bra and yoga pants with gold beaded wrap around her middle explained she was exposing her stretch marks, battle scars from child-birth. I didn’t see any stretch marks. I saw perfectly curved obliques and six-pack abs. I could show her stretch marks, stretch marks and fat rolls. I had already taken off my socks and shoes and my toes were all I planned on exposing. Much to the relief of the rest of the class, she didn’t ask us to shed our shirts.

As we began undulating our hips back and forth, up and down, all around, I whispered a silent prayer thanking Jesus the class was being held in a room without mirrors. There was no way I wanted to watch my body do whatever it was we were doing. The sounds of the coins from the belly dancing wrap clanking together gave me some indication of how my body was jiggling to and fro reminiscent of those commercials from the 80’s with Bill Cosby and a roomful of kids watching Jello jiggle. While my muscles mimicked the instructor exactly, my fat rolls did not follow suit. They had a mind of their own. I was so self-conscious at the moment, I thought about running out of the room.

Then, the instructor did some high pitched squeal signaling to change directions and we all laughed. We laughed at the way her call startled us. We laughed at our hips doing something probably a predecessor to the now infamous twerk. We laughed at the rapid clanking of the gold medallions knocking against our sides. As we laughed, we forgot about our thighs slapping together, our bellies shaking, and our chests ridiculously bouncing up and down.

Let’s face it. I will never have Heidi Klum’s body no matter how much weight I lose, at least without liquidating everything I own, selling off both kidneys and having extensive cosmetic surgery, so I better learn to like my body. If I don’t like my body now whose to say I’ll like it when I’m 40 pounds lighter. I need to love my body as it is now. During that belly dancing class, for a moment, I forgot all about my body image issues and in my mind, I had the rocking hot bod of some olive skinned middle Eastern chick with abs of steel shaking her groove thang.

I’ve already signed up for next week’s class.

Psalm 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

The Front Pew

All the teenagers sit on the first few pews on the left side of the sanctuary at our Church. Not sure why. It’s always been that way even before I was in the youth group. Probably something the pastor instituted as a way of keeping teens with raging hormones and wandering minds in line, at least during his sermon.

Yesterday, as the congregation stood belting out the latest praise and worship song, I noticed a young boy who had just moved up to the youth group from children’s church a few Sundays ago making his way down the aisle to the front pew where all the boys his age sat. The pew was already full. He looked around as he got closer and closer to the pew but all the “youth group” pews were taken. Not knowing what to do, he stood by his buddies at the end of that front row. I only saw all this because I sit as close to the teen section as possible hoping to blend in. Unfortunately, no one has been fooled yet.

I waited anxiously for the pastor to say “you may be seated”. Part of me wanted to watch this scene unfold as the already full row of standing boys tried to wedge themselves in the pew just to see if one ended up rolling down into the pulpit. The other part of me ached thinking that the pew was already full and this sweet boy standing awkwardly at the end of the row would be left the odd man out to sit alone on a nearby empty pew.

I had been that awkward teen and more than likely you have, too. If you say you haven’t, you either skipped middle school altogether or are flat-out lying. I knew his mind had to be racing trying to mentally measure each kid’s rear and the length of the pew doing some pretty complicated math calculations to see if his would fit. As memories of painfully waiting to be picked for kickball and desperately praying to be asked to slow dance at seventh grade school dances flooded my memory, I saw something unfold that made my maschera slightly run.

A nearby twenty-something newlywed whispered in his wife’s ear, reached down, grabbed his bible and made his way to the front pew, nonchalantly tapping the boy with side swept Justin Bieberish bangs, motioning him to the empty pew. As I caught a glimpse of the smile on this young man’s face realizing he wouldn’t have to sit alone, a tear rolled down my cheek.

How often have I felt awkward, out-of-place, uncomfortable and alone? More times that I cared to remember. It was in that moment watching the duo that I realized there had always been someone out there gently tapping me on the shoulder, sharing a pew with me so I wouldn’t have to sit alone. Jesus.

I didn’t have to do this weight loss thing alone and that was alright by me.

Deuteronomy 31:6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Tell Me Lies

We’ve all seen the t-shirts that say “I’m not fat just fluffy” with some cartoon character painted on the front cramming donuts in its mouth. Unless you’re a pillow top mattress or a couch cushion, that is a lie. I told myself lies like that all the time.

Lie #1 – “I’m not overweight just big-boned.” My 5’3″ frame, size 7 shoe and hands smaller than most 5th graders disputed that claim but I stuck to my story.

Lie #2 – “I’m pretty muscular and muscle weighs more than fat.” This concept may be true but negated by the fact that at 241 pounds, I was unable to successfully open a pickle jar or carry my groceries in from the car without stopping most days.

Lie #3 – “It’s not my fault. My thyroid doesn’t work right and slows my metabolism.” While I do have thyroid issues, I also shoved french fries, fried chicken and cupcakes in my mouth every chance I got. My thyroid couldn’t have kept up even if I had the metabolism of a hummingbird.

Lie #4 – “I don’t have time to exercise.” I’m a busy women, don’t get me wrong, but I found time to do things that were important to me like watch hours of DVR’d Top Chef episodes and bake Barefoot Contessa’s latest tart.

Lie #5 – “I’m big and that’s just who I am.” This was more of an unconscious lie. Being the fat girl had become a part of my identity and I guess I just figured it was my cross to bear. Fate had predetermined who would be fat and who wouldn’t and apparently, on that day, I drew the short straw.

The biggest step in this journey was getting honest with myself about what I was. 34 years old, morbidly obese and borderline diabetic, not big-boned, not über muscular. My thyroid wasn’t solely responsible and I could make time in my schedule for exercise. Nothing about my identity depended on me being Big Val, a nickname given affectionately by Lord only knows who in middle school.

Getting honest with myself 18 months ago was the hardest step. And some days, it still is.

John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.