In our society of immediacy and microwave attention spans, it's no wonder that our nation suffers from obesity in ever growing (no pun intended) numbers.
Since I struggle with my own issues of weight and the control of it, I can totally empathize for the masses that share that particular concern. Whether you are 5 pound over where you feel you are at your best or hundreds of pounds from the goal, the issues are the same.
Do I look like the kind of person I want others to see?
Am I a failure because I can't lose the weight?
Does it matter what other people think when I know I am desperately trying to stay healthy?
My favorite mantra while sweating out the morning workout and evening walk is 'it didn't all come on overnight and it won't all go off overnight'. As stupid and simplistic as that sounds, it does help me to realize that kicking myself for one momentary lapse in judgement regarding my choices isn't healthy or helpful. I am also learning that if my approach is too strict, I will certainly fail.
Being a better eater means making better choices consistently and being willing to allow myself enough room to enjoy life instead of making every decision a drugery to be suffered through and endured as a prisoner to my choice.
I am heartened by the fact that I can walk for longer periods of time and that I can take the stairs without wheezing like a dying patient on their last legs. Speed isn't the issue for me. Rather, it is distance that I am concerned with and about.
Back in the day when I used to run and when everything didn't hurt, I loved to run fast and stretch out over the track or race course. But now, I'd rather enjoy the scenery and feel part of the world around me that I miss when I move through it at high speed. There is something healing in being able to feel the movement of the breeze of God through the trees and on my skin as I watch the birds and squirrels romp and play in the wonder that is His creation.
When I move too fast, I miss the time I could have to be away from everything that is the technology that both helps and hinders my daily life. How did the pioneers and explorers of our world manage without a cell phone or a gps unit? How did they get by without the internet?
Oddly enough, these are questions that most of our children in developed nations will never have to answer for themselves. They have never known life without them. They don't know the simple pleasure of making tin can telephones or creating stilts or spending a day at the farm chasing the goats around the pasture. To be sure there are children that have experienced these moments. But they are becoming increasingly rare unless they are part of a religious group that requires a life of simplicity minus technology as part of their tenets.
When I take my walk, I wave to the people who sit out on their porch or who pass by on their bikes. Those who, like me, are walking, sometimes get a few words and I am offered a few in exchange. While the conversations are brief, they are a shared notice that we are not alone in our circumstances.
Some nights, I walk to just get out of the house. Although I take the dog with me most of the time, I admit there are times even that seems an intrusion when I feel depressed. That feeling, is a sharp warning to me. When I feel that way, I deliberately take our dog so that I will not retreat so far into myself that I am no longer able to get out.
We have been told since childhood that our bodies are a temple that houses our spirit. I guess you might consider that mine is a temple under renovation. That happens from time to time in both a mortal tabernacle and a physical one. Years of use and wear take a toll, no matter how well you have cared for it. The fact is that a complete examination and redo of buttressing structure will be required once in a while.
Even if the renovation is minor, it always leaves a visible reminder of the effort that is required for the job to be completed.
Just like diet and exercise, it is a job that will not be accomplished overnight. It will require patience and an open mind. And it will also require the greatest leap of faith of all: a willingness to admit that the old structure just ain't what it used to be.
I know I will never look like my wedding photographs again. That ceased to be possible shortly after the wedding and subsequent honeymoon were over. But, I can find an image of myself that I will keep in mind as an ideal I can live with and like.
Does that mean I am settling for second best? Nope.
Instead it means that I am willing to be open about the realities of life that do not involve my rich imagination as a counterweight against the truth.
Change is good. It is an affirmation that life continues.
And I believe that this change will be of use to me far down the road.
See you out there.
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