What are we thinking (or ARE we thinking)?

You know, I've been thinking about making cakes and how that is different than it used to be.  Not sure what got me on this road, but I've been on it for a week or two now.  Ages ago, if you wanted to make a cake, from my understanding, you'd get some flour, eggs, milk, sugar and butter and, if you mixed the right amount of that stuff together, you'd end up with a cake. 

Let's fast forward to now when we've gotten soooo smart and made so many advances.  I don't know what order we advanced so much in, so I'm just going to go in this direction.  We decided that whole grain flour really wasn't needed, so we have processed all the nutrients out and ended up with white paste that you can literally make glue out of.  Then, we really don't need butter; we can use shortening or margarine because we manufacture that stuff rather than take milk and churn it into butter.  It will be cheaper and everyone wins then, right?  While we're at it, let's do away with the milk and eggs to and put in manufactured stuff rather than the natural stuff.  The bottom line is important isn't it?  Well now we're making these things in labs rather than kitchens and people can't really come up to the lab to get a cake or slice of cake, so we have to add preservatives to the cake, and I love this, "to preserve freshness".  Thank goodness for this, your chemicals really can't be too fresh, can they?  What are preservatives?  These are other chemicals that inhibit the food from decomposing and, I'm sure, have some impact on us digesting the concoction we have. 

Now, our waist lines are expanding (talk about watching the bottom line), so we have to make this healthy, right?  Let's take the sugar out and put in artificial sweetener and lower the caloric value so it will now be healthy...  Man, we are SMART!  We have now taken the natural sugar out of the chemical frankenstien we've created to make it healthy!

The same goes for our spiritual lives... we introduce a little of this and a little of that until we no longer have a real walk with God.  The Bible does say all things are permitted for Christians, but we don't follow through with the rest of that verse where it says but not all things are profitable.  We take our daily Bible study out and replace it with a little extra sleep.  Then, we take out some prayer time for a few extra minutes at work.  Then we take out, well you get the picture.  Before long, we don't have the wonderful treat we had when we started.  We have something that looks like the real thing, may even smell and taste like the real thing, but is actually full of things that will literally poison us. 

Let's stop engineering our food and our walk with God.  Let's let both be combinations of natural, basic things to make a very special treat we can savor and enjoy. 

May He increase and i decrease,

Shane

What are we thinking?

We as Americans are INCREDIBLY blessed!  We also do some incredibly crazy things.  We actually have an industry that seems to be doing very well based on us just being hoarders or greedy or something.  Have you noticed how many storage building rental places there are around and going up everywhere?  We pay money to store crap we don't think worthy of keeping at our house.  This may make sense if we had really small houses here, but we have a term called mcmansions describing how big our houses are getting.  

The Bible says "Where your heart is, there is your treasure also".  I don't think there was a Jerusalem mini-storage back then.  Think we could scale down today?  Do we have things in our houses we could get rid of (regardless if we actually rent a storage building or not)?  More importantly, what kind of junk do we have in our diet?  Even more importantly, what do we have in our spiritual life that needs to go?

Here's to a week of getting garage sale stuff together, cutting junk out of what we eat and cleaning out our heart.

May He increase and i decrease,

Shane
 

Progress or Re-gress

About 2 months or so ago, I noticed a nice elderly man in the local grocery store.  He looked as he belonged in our middle/upper class grocery store and I almost didn't give him a second thought.  Normally, I wouldn't have paid much attention to his cart, but I noticed his cart that day.  He had a box of butter or margarine and one or two other items, but not much.  That hit me for some reason and I started thinking of how different the foods we eat are now versus when this gentleman was young.  Back then, we didn't have the modern advances we have now like hydrogenated/partially hydrogenated oils, 2-3 kinds of fast food/drive throughs on every corner, gas stations actually sold gas and not lunch, etc.  Is that progress or what?

Let's think of other ways that we've "progressed"... Prayer out of schools, metal detectors in and teen pregnancy booming.  More two income families, more divorce, more debt and less concern about either. More individualism and less individual responsibility.  Tolerance for every belief under the sun, except for the One who made that sun.

So, we now have progressed this far during my lifetime.  I am about to turn 40, so any of you out there older than me, feel free to chime in about your memories.  Any of you my age and younger, tell me... How does this progress sound?  If this is progress, I want to regress.   I want more real food, more real family time and most of all more real time one-on-One with my creator and the One who paid for my salvation.  I've taken steps toward more real food by changing what I eat, I've taken steps toward more family time by taking a job that pays much less than I'm accustomed to making so I can be home every night and am working on devoting more time to the One who I owe it all to.  It is my desire that this will spread to others.   

We see what progression has done to our way of life.  I am determined that my family will NOT be a statistic or a casualty of this progress.  Unless I'm called out of this world, my kids will know their dad and I will be a major part of their lives.  My wife will know that she is safe with me and if I'm late coming home, it is because I'm stuck in traffic or something of that sort.  There is a phone call on the way.  My family might not always like me being around, but they will know I will be there.  Now that I'm 95 lbs lighter and in better shape, I can be a bigger part of their lives for longer.  I won't be a spectator with a CPAP and oxygen machine; I will be in the fight, leading the charge for a better way of life.      

Will you join me in regressing?

 May He increase and i decrease,

shane

What would you say if i told you I got drunk yesterday?

I didn't, but what would you say if I did?  My friends that drink, I'm sure, would say something like "I wish I had seen THAT!".  My Baptist friends may not say anything, but I'm sure the thoughts would run the gamut.  "He did WHAT?"  "I had him pictured to be so much better than that"  "And on SUNDAY of all days, too!".  Am I right or am I right? 

Let me ask you this... what did YOU have for lunch yesterday?  Dinner/Supper (depending on where you're from)?  Did you gorge yourself?  Have you heard of a term called gluttony?   How do you think it is looked on by the One who created our bodies?  Have you found a place in the Bible where sins are ranked as one being "wronger" than the next?

As I said last week, this week is about perspectives that have changed in my life.  In my new perspectives, I see the chicken fingers, fried okra and squash casserole to be just as bad, at least for me, as if I'd dipped into libations.  You see, I have a problem with food.  If I didn't, I wouldn't have been well over 260 lbs twice in my life.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not promoting drinking.  The statistics don't lie, it is a very bad habit to get into.  It is just that it seems to me that we, especially as Southern Baptists, critisize and judge people who drink while we stuff ourselves with fried chicken, desserts, etc as if that is different.  I think we all need to apply a little Luke 6:40-42 in our lives and adjust our perspectives.  Drinking definately does affect the temple of the Holy Spirit (our bodies), it is addictive, it is a lot of bad things.  So is fast food and all-you-can-eat buffets. 

Hopefully, you won't read this and take up drinking.  I also don't want you to think I'm defending alcohol or alcoholism.  My hope and prayer is that you'll think about what you put in your body, whether liquid or solid, and think about what it is doing to the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Also, if you're one of my friends who would actually call me out if you saw me drinking, please call me out if you see me eating poorly... in my new view, I am having problems seeing a difference. 

As always, I truly welcome your comments or questions. 

May He increase and i decrease,

Shane

Perspectives

I've been thinking a lot of what I was going to write this week.  Perspectives won out, it's been on my mind all week how I still have the perspective of a fat man (I hope I always do).  It is difficult for me to put the thoughts and ideas that are bouncing around in my head down, so please bear with me as I try to make some sense of them. 

When I talk with folks that I haven't seen in a while, the subject of my weight loss comes up most of the time.  I enjoy the affirmation that I'm much smaller than I used to be and that helps me do better when faced with good and bad options at meal time.  However, I had a "slap in the face" the other day.  I was looking at the BMI calculator for someone and realized that I'm 0.2 (whatever BMI is measured in) away from being overweight.  I've been looking at my size and journey through the eyes of a fat man. 

As I sit here writing this, I'm wearing a Large shirt and 33" waist pants.  Now, to some of you, you may say "he still needs to lose some more... his clothes are telling him that, he's wearing a LARGE shirt after all".  Others may say, "My left ankle is 33" ".  My guess is most folks will be in the middle of those.  When I started losing weight, I was in a 2XL-3XL shirt and a 46-48" waist.  From that perspective, that of a fat man, 33" waist pants seems awesome.  Then I bump into a friend that has a smaller waist and reality sits in... The journey is not over.  It is something that has to be worked on from now on. 

Spiritually, we need to realize the perspective we're looking at things from.  Remember Paul in 2 Corinthians 12?  How his physical ailments were really a way for God to shine?  I hope my weight issues through life will be an instrument God can use to shine through me. 

On a similar topic, I read this week that the South is not only the Bible Belt, but we're also known as the Stroke Belt and Diabetes Belt as well.  Let's think about that.  We treat our bodies so bad that we are statistically more likely to have a stroke or diabetes.  We live a much more laid back life than any other area of the country that I've visited, so it must be the way we treat our bodies.  We know that we are the Temple of God, yet we treat the Temple this way?  From this fat man's perspective, there is something really, really wrong with that.  I plan on picking up on this subject next week. 

I truly hope you have a great week and truly welcome your comments or questions. 

May He increase and i decrease,

Shane

Feet to my words

OK, so I've been writing about what I want, how I've been doing, etc.  That's great, but I thought this week, I'd share a few practical things I have done/do/etc and hope this helps out. 

1 -- I live in MS where there is no such thing as tea that is too sweet. Drink it unsweet (no, you won't go to hell for it, I checked) or drink half sweet/half unsweet.  You'll probably not notice much of a difference and will save half the calories.  Or better yet, rather than drink tea, drink water.   
2 -- Cook with olive oil, it tastes great and is actually good for you.
3 -- This one just hurts... Eat salads, at least occasionally.  Yea, I know, I don't like them either and don't eat them often, but try to get them in here and there.  I still remember the trip to O'Charleys when I got a salad and got home and realized my salad (Black-N-Bleu Caesar with oil and vinegar rather than Caesar dressing) had roughly the same number of calories as the cheeseburger i wanted.  Yes, I was mad, very very mad.  Now, however, I've cooled down a little, I can realize that the salad had more veggies and nutrients to keep me full longer.  It really is better for me.  The salad,  I'm sure, kept me full longer than the cheeseburger would have.  This cut down on the amount of food I would have eaten later in the day.
4 -- Don't go on a diet.  Commit to changing the way you eat for good or don't do it.  I've learned through the years that if I cut out calories, carbs, fats or whatever "the thing" is to cut, once I get a few pounds off, I put them back into my diet and my weight goes up.  This just messes your whole metabolism thing-a-ma-jig up. 
5 -- Exercise really isn't a four letter word.  Some folks like it, some folks don't.  Find something that you like to do that gets you active... Work in the yard (or work in mine), walk, run, lift weights, chase kids, what ever, just do something you like to do.  When I first started, I wanted to run.   I was in such bad shape, I didn't think I'd ever get to, so I settled for the elliptical machine.  After a little while of it, I was actually running.  This is important, once you find something you like, stick to it. Later, add in something different.  I now run and lift weights and enjoy both of them.
6 -- Set some realistic goals.  Be honest and firm, but don't be too hard on yourself.  I started around 265-270 lbs in Feb.  I couldn't have set my goal at 150 by May.  I didn't even set long term goals for a while.  I would set goals sometimes daily, but definitely weekly.  3 lbs here, 4 lbs there, before you know it my weight was down and I was in the losing weight groove.  There were setbacks along the way.  They have to be taken in stride.  We are human, we will screw up.
7 -- Find someone to be accountable and honest to.  I am gullible when I talk to myself, I'll believe anything I tell myself and I WILL lie to myself... "No, you're not THAT big", "The scale is wrong", "That guy is much bigger than you are", etc.  Yea, riiiigggghhhht.

These are things that helped me, hope they help you. 

May He increase and i decrease,

Shane

Old habits die hard, new habits, not so hard

OK, so last week, I posted that I'd really messed up.  This week was my  week to make a serious comeback and be able to say that I'd turned around.  I was back on the wagon, I was {insert your favorite cliche here}.  I was very sure of myself.  Guess what?  If you guessed I didn't do that great this week again, you'd be right.  I did better than last week, but only ran about 3.5 miles all week... I ate better, but not the way I know to eat.  I read some in my Bible, but not the amount i wanted to and let's not even mention my sleep (or lack there of). 

I've heard before that the folks that are hardest on overweight people are people that used to be overweight themselves.  More than once, I've caught myself wanting to go up and give folks advice.  Tell them my story, "look at me, I did it, you can, too if you really wanted to" type discussions.  This is the opposite of what I want.  As my blog says, I want less of me.  I want to be used to help people, not to promote how good I am ('cause I really ain't that good).  I want to use what God has helped me do to help others... not to promote me.  This week has been a me week.  I want the rest of the weeks I have to be a me help others week. 

The thing that has been going through my head all weekend, thinking of what I was going to write, is "let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall".  I don't remember what version of the Bible that's from, but the scripture is 1 Corinthians 10:12.  I needed that reminder.  I've been proud of this and proud of that, not in a good way (like I'm proud of my kids), but in a "look at me" way.  I'm sorry to you my friends, family and those I haven't even met. 

This week, I want to be more humble, more meek, I want there to be less of me... less of my physically as i take off these prideful pounds and less about me.  I want to point others to my Saviour and Lord this week because it really is about Him.

Thanks for reading.  As always, may He increase and i decrease,

shane