Absolute.

  I used to say this on the regular.   “I might be fat, but I’ll be fat & happy.”   I would say this before or after consuming a meal that I knew contained an exorbitant number of calories.    I would say this while savoring every bite of my ColdStone ice cream filled with mix-ins.   I would say this while enjoying fried avocados, dipped in queso- two appetizers ordered before a full meal, usually for two people.   “I might be fat, but I’ll be fat & happy.” The statement was a lie that I believed, but the statement and the context together point to the truth.   I was looking for food to make me happy.   I was constantly expecting food to make my bad days good, and my good days better.   My response to every special occasion, and every disappointment , was food.   I don’t believe that this is entirely, 100% bad.   There is room and place for food to contribute to life.   But there is a very faint line that I h...

 TTTT:  Spending the extra money to eat healthy is bad stewardship. Truth:   Eating healthy isn’t prohibitively expensive.      Once upon a time, my grocery cart would be filled with frozen pizzas, the blue box macaroni dinner, refrigerated cans of biscuits, processed cheese, lunch meat and bread.   I believed that I was eating “cheap,” because it was what I had to do to save money.   I believed that was the diet we could afford.   It is true, if you live off of rice and beans or instant ramen noodles- then eating healthy is relatively expensive.   But most of us are not living off of rice and beans and the economics of eating healthy aren’t as dramatic as you would think.   Here’s why… ¨ If you’re eating healthy, you’re going to consume a smaller volume of food.   With each bite, you get more nutritional bang for your buck and thereby, you need less of it.   That saves you money. ¨ Chips, cereal, soda, and m...

 TTTT: I believed that I was too committed to being a good steward of our finances to “waste” money on a gym membership. The Truth:   Money wasn’t preventing me from getting active.   Keep reading to learn more about how accessible an active lifestyle really is.   I used to say, “I don’t want to be one of those people.”   “Those” people who pay for a gym membership.   I didn’t like the identity that I believed came along with it.   I equated a gym membership with being vain and self-absorbed.   I convinced myself that NOT having a gym membership was proof of my Christian values and prioritizing others with my finances.   ANNND I used this as justification for why I didn’t work out.   Some of you are cringing with concerns about the bad theology referenced above.   It is bad, but that’s a blog post for a different day.   Today’s post is about removing the mental barriers that we build to prevent us from working out. ...

 My internal dialogue was something like this... “I don’t look like THAAAT.” “That’s not me.” Do you see the articulation?   I wasn’t just expressing disapproval.   I didn’t just say, “I don’t like that picture of me.”   I was so embarrassed by the photos, that I was doing everything I could to discredit them .   I was dismissing concrete evidence.   I was denying reality. Caveat 1: If you’re looking at photos of yourself and your thoughts are something like, “I look ugly.” Then, you’re facing a different battle- that’s not about your weight.   Caveat 2: If you’re looking at photos of yourself and the thoughts are things like, “oh, that’s a bad angle,” or “oh, I had an awkward face”- then it’s possible that you’re just not photogenic. But if you’re saying something to convince yourself that the picture is not an accurate representation of you or your health , then please know, you’re not alone.   I’ve been there.   Also, ple...

  “I’m big-boned.” I used to say this.  I don’t know when or where I learned this phrase, but I know I didn’t use it when I was kid.  I never heard a medical professional describe me as big-boned.  But as I became unhappy with my weight and appearance, this phrase became something that I kept repeating. In truth, I’m not big-boned.  Maybe you are.  But that’s not the point. Our skeletal mass accounts for 12-15% of our total body mass.  Being big-boned adds an extra 5 to 10 pounds.  (that's all) Not only that, but think about it...  Being big-boned shows up in an x-ray, not a traditional photo. You can keep describing yourself as big-boned.  You CAN keep pointing to something that you cannot change and use it to console yourself about your health.  OR you can start focusing on the things that you can control - your diet, your lifestyle, your mental & emotional health. I described myself as big-boned more times...

  If you’ve known me for less than 10 years, you might not know- I used to be fat.   Not subjectively “fat”.   Not fat, relative to how I look now.   I was medically obese.   If you looked at the ideal weight range for my height and multiplied that number times 2, that would give you the highest number that I saw on the scale. I was over 200 pounds and I quit using the scale after that.   Maybe you knew me then, maybe you didn’t.   The truth is, I didn’t know myself. I had no clue that I was fat.   I would have admitted that I had weight to lose, but I was oblivious to the reality that I was extremely unhealthy.   I was on the path to countless medical problems and chronic diseases and I didn’t know it. I had brainwashed myself. I believed lies. I used the people around me to normalize my behaviors and dismiss my convictions about my lifestyle. I started correcting my relationship with food about 10 years ago and am still growi...