Absolute.

 “I’ve always had these curves and I always will.”  I used to believe this.   But when I said “always,” that wasn’t true.   I wasn’t overweight as a child.   Maybe you were, but I would still be willing to bet you- your body can change . It’s kind of a double-edged sword for women.   In general, when we lose weight, the butt and boobs are the first things to go.   You’ll notice that some of your curves are missing and you might not be thrilled about those.   And then as you continue in your health journey, you’ll find yourself frustrated because the belly fat seems to be the last thing to go. For men, it seems to be the opposite.   The dad bod/beer belly is the first thing to show the difference.   So, that makes it even more frustrating if your weight loss partner is your husband. [Sidenote: Your belly is getting smaller, but because everything else is getting smaller, it is hard to monitor it accurately.   If you know yo...

TTTT: “Sugar is not a drug.” Truth:  If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it's probably a duck.  Or in this case, a drug.  I can picture it like it was yesterday.   I remember the scene perfectly.   The first time I ever heard someone compare sugar to a drug.   I was approaching 200 pounds and in a room full of people of similar and larger sizes.   …And stilllll oblivious to the fact that this was an effort to get me (and others) to think critically about what we were eating.   He spoke of his own efforts to avoid added sugars.   He told “folklore” of how processed sugar was originally kept under lock and key.   I didn’t think he was lying, but I thought he was seriously misguided.   I compared the lock and key story to prohibition and dismissed both as mistakes.   (Alcohol not addressed in this post, TMTR for sure!) About 3 years later, I did my first round of Whole30 .   Whole30 allows ZERO sugars- natura...

 TTTT: “My physical health doesn’t affect my ability to lead others.” Truth: ‘Good leadership starts with leading yourself well and then letting that overflow into the lives of others.’  ...paraphrased from Steven Furtick I once believed there was a dichotomy separating my leadership and my physical health.  I was reading leadership books and having lots of leadership conversations.  I served as a volunteer leading the children’s ministry at my church.  I was young.  I made lots of mistakes and I did a few things well.  I knew my physical health was lacking, but I didn’t believe that it had any impact on my leadership.   I thought- ‘if it isn’t important to me, why should it be important to anyone else?’   As I have improved my health year over year, I have been shocked by how much my physical health is connected to every other component of health.     It sounds crazy until you experience it for yourself, but I can’t tell you ...

“The ideal weight range for my height is an unrealistic standard for me.” Truth:  Your mindset is what needs to be adjusted, not the standard.   I used to say this one A LOT!  I would look at those numbers and it felt like they were on a completely different planet.  At one point, I was 100 pounds heavier than the bottom number for my height, almost double the “recommended” size.  It’s no surprise that those numbers felt impossible.  I had a long list of reasons why those numbers were unrealistic (my weight in high school, my athletic build, prescriptions I was taking, etc.).  There are a LOT of factors that affect your weight.  That is real.  ANNND that is why the recommended weight is given as a weight range , not a singular number. The range accounts for the variables and factors.  Don’t be confused, I’m not dismissing your list.  Even today, as a “healthy weight” individual, I still have a list of variables and factors ...

  TTTT: “Diets don’t work for me.” Truth:   Diets don’t work for anyone, lifestyle changes do.   I don’t recall ever saying this one out loud.   I reserved this one exclusively for the internal dialogue because, even back then, I knew it was a lie .   Verbally lying to someone else is a sin, but somehow lying to myself felt less dramatic.   I told myself that diets (plural) didn’t work for me, but I had made a respectable effort on only one (singular) diet.   It WAS working.   …It was also working for Matt (my husband).   It worked better for him than it did for me.   I fell victim to the comparison trap and I quit. I said it didn’t work for me.   But it did work.   It worked better for him, and I used the relative comparison to convince myself that it wasn’t working for me . Many of us are susceptible to this.   Maybe it is working but it’s not working as well for us as it did for someone else.   Or, m...

TTTT: “I’m too old to change.” Truth: It’s still worth it! This is a special edition in the TTTT series spotlighting a guest contributor, Louise Lefler.  This is her story... Two years ago, at the age of 68, my health was spiraling down.   I was eating fast food for most meals, not exercising, and stress was a huge issue.   I started having daily digestive problems.   I was telling myself, “ I am too old to make any changes and too old to start trying to lose weight and eat healthy.”   No one else told me that I was too old, but I believed this for several years. I was missing out on family gatherings and my grandchildren’s sports activities.   Continuing to miss their important future events was a struggle I had to overcome.   Something had to change.   After much prayer and listening to what God said about me, not what I said, things started to change.   My mind was where all the negative talk and self-destructive conversati...

  TTTT: “I got fat genes.” Truth: Weight is not an inherited trait. I used to say it a little differently.   I would say “I didn’t get skinny genes.”   Or “Everyone in my family is fat.   I am supposed to be fat and there’s nothing I can do about that.”   This wasn’t a huge exaggeration.   Both sides of my family tree are filled with people who are overweight and obese.   It is a prevalent theme in my family heritage, and those who don’t measure up to these labels are the outliers.    I don’t know EVERY one of their stories, but I do know several- many of them maintain terrible diets, lead inactive lifestyles, have physical handicaps, unaddressed traumas, etc.   There are SO many factors outside of genetics that are contributing to the shape of my family tree.   Yes, genetics and DNA are real, but BMI is not an inherited trait.   Your height is an inherited trait.   Certain things about your skeletal frame influen...

  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...