wavering

I've never been much of a goal setter/keeper. Some people are able to set goals and then stay on track, no matter what, to reach the goal. I might set the goal, work at it for a few weeks, and then fall back into the 'who cares' state.

I'm starting to feel that with 12WBT. I'm sticking to the nutrition plans as much as I can, though finding it hard with things like church meals or being away for work. Even so, I'm managing to stay within the 1200 calorie allowance most days, and seeing the weight slowly come off. I am finding I am getting hungrier than I did at the beginning of the program, but there haven't been any major blowouts. So hurrah for that!

It's the exercise that is just not sticking for me. I joined the gym, and the times when I've gone have been great, even though mostly I find it hard to do an entire hour's workout. But days like today, when I wake up and hear the traffic screaming past the house, I just feel like retreating further into my shell. I'm not ready to get out into all that yet! Maybe I should just go back to attempting to work out in the living room on days like that.

I know they're excuses, and part of the whole 12WBT is to change your mindset, to challenge and eliminate excuses and just do it. Thing is, while the amount of content in the program is comprehensive and the videos and forums are intended to encourage and fire you up, most days they have the opposite effect on me. I feel so far away from wanting to do the work to get healthy in the way that Bridges is prescribing.

The main thing that is disturbing me is the self focus. That sounds a bit ridiculous, because the whole point of any kind of diet or fitness program is to focus on yourself. But I'm spending much more time thinking about food and fitness than I am reading my Bible. I'm thinking about body transformation much more intently than I am thinking about spiritual transformation. It just doesn't sit right with me. As a Christian, the focus is all wrong.

I want to be healthy and fit so that I have the energy and stamina to do the work God has given me to do, not as an end in itself. My best moment would not be to have a completely flat stomach and to be able to run up a hill. It will be to hear God say to me on the last day, "well done, good and faithful servant" and to know I have lived as he wanted me to.

And obsessing over weight is so counter to what he wants for me too! My self worth is not to be tied up in how I look or how the world perceives me, it is tied up in Jesus. Besides which, I have been made in the image of God, whether I'm big or small, and how can I hate that?

I am going to print 1 Timothy 4:7-8 out and stick it above my mirror:

... train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

In the meantime, the jury is still out on what I think about 12WBT as a whole. But I'm not sure the mindset lessons are taking me where I want to go.