Living Well Wednesdays

I meant to post this last night but got carried away with other stuff, but better late then never : )Last week my birthday wish didn't come true, I didn't lose more weight, even though I pushed myself even harder to lower my calorie intake, choose better food, and I exercised at least 130 minutes longer than I normally do each week. I even behaved at my birthday dinner, which was actually easy because we ate at Inferno's Bistro. Their portions are not huge like most restaurants, they were just enough, and there was more vegetable on my plate than carbs and meat, which is how it's supposed to be (not usually when I cook though, lol). Not to mention we walked to and from the restaurant, which was about 25 minutes of walking. So I'm perplexed at why I actually ended up gaining back 2 lbs! I am trying to remind myself it's not all about the weight, I'm doing this for my insides but I really hoped my new resolve would give me some visual results. I was really looking for some encouragment from the LWW blogs this week but you can't always get what you want. But you just might find you get what you need, and that is what I got instead.
After reading the other LWW blogs and their many mentions/reminders to drink water, I realized I've been really slacking in my water drinking recently. It's been down to maybe 1-2 cups of water per day lately, and I have actually been getting headaches due to the lack of water, which I finally caught on to a few days ago. But I didn't tie that to my weight until yesterday while reading the blogs. I forget drinking water helps in so many other ways, other than just helping me feel full during the day. It helps remove toxins and waste from the body, helps digestion, improves energy, improves metabolism....all of which have an impact on your weight. Duh!
And another one of my challenges was a hot topic in the blogs this week. That is relying on God in my moments of weakness. I had new resolve and so I was making this about my success and not about God's success in my life. I was putting too much faith in myself and gaining weight this week was a good reminder that even when I think I'm at my best I will fail. Everything good comes from God. Therefore, I will not achieve anything good apart from God (unless God decides to grace me with success for His own reasons). Another duh! moment.
This is head knowledge, so why is it not heart knowledge? Why do I insist on pushing this huge boulder, uphill, on my own, knowing the ultimate strength is just waiting for me to ask Him to do it for me? Because I fool myself into thinking I HAVE been relying on Him, just because I give Him credit for the lessons I've learned. But it's because of His grace that I've even been given that wisdom, I haven't exactly been doing a good job of pursuing His intervention in my health. He's been pursuing me, trying to reach out to me, showing me how much I need Him, yet I still can't seem to turn my health over to Him completely. Even after I've seen results in other areas of my life where I have surrendered to Him.
I feel a little dense, having to learn this same lesson over and over again. I need to do this with God, not for God. I too often think they are one in the same, concentrating too much on the end results that God desires (in this case, living respectfully of His creation - my body), rather than how He wants those results achieved. Which of course is allowing Him to work in my life, not trying to make it on my own effort (with or without His 'assistance'). It's like an analogy our pastor used last weekend; Christians often view life like we're in a car, travelling the roads of life, and even though we are inexperienced, don't know the terrain or the destination, don't know all the mechanics of our vehicle, we insist on being the driver and God (you know, the creator of the car, and the road, and the destination, etc.) gets to be the passenger. We think being a good Christian is asking Him for the occasional direction, or even constantly asking for directions. Sometimes we don't even ask, and it's only once He's practically shouting that we get a clue, which is what I've been doing with my health. What I need to remember is that it is so much easier, and less trecherous, to just let Him drive. I don't know how many reminders I need before it finally sinks in, but I'm grateful He keeps trying to get through to me.