Live Well Wednesdays

So, my Facebook group "Biggest Loser - Winnipeg Edition" didn't quite take off like I wanted to, although it really kept me in line, so that's all I could have really asked for. But now it's fizzled out completely, after all I was the only real link between it's members, and my determination has been fizzling a little as well. But thanks to the six degrees of blogging I have come across a new blogging friend and therefore a great blog about healthy living (thanks to Tammi). It's a fairly big group of Christian women trying to balance life with health and I look forward to reading other people's struggles and successes. It's really great to feed off the observations, epiphanies, and resolutions of other people going through what I'm going through.

So today is my first "Living Well Wednesday". Part of living well to me is having an enjoyable life, enjoying the delicious food God has blessed us with, and not worrying about calories and weight all the time. I don't think fretting about each thing I put in my mouth, and how many minutes I spent exercising is how God wants me to live. BUT, on the flip side of that it is a struggle to not let myself go down the very slippery slope of treating myself just because I can. If it's still within my calorie 'allowance' I've given myself, I too often have that snack in the evening. Or if I had an exceptionally high amount of exercise one week I tend to slack a little more in the eating department.

Tammi's blog today, about not hiding from our failures but learning from them, made me realize I've been here before. Every time I lose weight I slowly let myself go down that slope and I never recover, instead I give up. So I needed that reminder, to renew my resolve, to try and restore the passion I had for my promise to myself, like when I first made it. I see now that it actually undermines my determination to lose more weight when I negotiate like that. Health is compromising between enjoyment and self-control, there needs to be balance, but as soon as I start negotiating with myself (to one extreme or the other) I know it is not what is best for my health.

That being said, how do I go about making sure I don't take unhealthy advantage of my healthy leeway? Well, the last few weeks at Church they have been speaking about how we can't do life the way it's supposed to be done without God. We can have all the good intentions we want but if we're trying on our own power it's not going to happen the way it's supposed to. It's not my responsibility to change who I am, it's my responsibility to allow God to change who I am. I'm trying to live well on my own power, it's about time I listen to the Spirit within me. You know, the one whispering "you don't need those cookies, even though you have 200 calories left in your 'allowance' ". I've been shushing that voice with self-righteousness, "I'm not breaking my rules!", instead of realizing I feel defensive because the Spirit is showing me the truth. And the truth is, my weight is the product of my attitude even more so than my eating/exercising habits.

See, I've already learned so much and it's only my first Wednesday!