Diet Disaster
“Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. Deuteronomy 12:32
I am on another diet. I don’t have a lot to lose I just don’t want to get to the point that I do have a lot to lose. My weight gain is manageable If I wait, maybe not.
I did this about the same time last year on a different diet.
Thirteen years ago I was on a diet and lost the weight which I kept off for ten years. I ate a low carb diet and it wasn’t hard. The weight seemed to fall of me. They say as you get older it is harder. I’m wondering if there is more to it.
I gained weight by slowly but surely re-introducing bread, and then “occasional” desserts into my diet. Over time they all added up to about nine pounds.
Last year I went on a diet that taught me to count calories. I could eat some carbs, whole wheat bread, more fruits than I could on my Atkins-like diet, and some of the higher carb vegetables that I had learned to avoid. It got confusing.
The new diet is not well defined for me because I don’t want to purchase pre-packaged foods from the diet plan. I am counting calories but trying to follow their guidelines, which are a little different than the ones I followed last year.
Today, I realized that my thinking is all mixed up. I think low-carb at breakfast and then low calorie at lunch. If I don’t eat a lot of calories by dinner I tend to feel free to eat some carbs that I know used to make me gain weight (like some fruits). At the end of three weeks I have lost little weight.
Today I was trying to examine exactly how I have sabotaged myself outside of that apple pie I ate yesterday, and half the bun with my hamburger. Oh and that sweet thing at church yesterday morning! Each time I eat I think I will just take the calories into account.
As I was pondering this lack of willpower I realized that I am trying to combine the three eating plans into one diet. Each one probably “works” for someone but I know that over the long haul my body uses protein as fuel. It takes carbs and adds them directly to my gut. I hate that, but it is the truth.
Isn’t this what we do when we try to take our Christianity and add a little something to it. Perhaps a “sin isn’t so bad” thought or a “I can willfully break God’s law here and then ask Him for forgiveness and still get to heaven.” “Well, God will understand if I don’t study the Bible (go to church, get baptized, stop a sin, or if I do take my child to the soccer game on Sunday morning instead of Sunday School, etc.).”
There are so many ways that we sabotage our own faith just like I sabotage my own diet. There is one way that works for me with dieting and God has given us one Truth that will guide our lives for living that pleases Him and brings blessing to us. We can choose to follow His ways and live in peace or follow our own ways and slowly but surely feel the weight of sin coming over us.
We each have a choice of what we will eat and we each have a choice about who will be God in our lives. It can be the One True God and His Word or we can be our own god and bear the weight of a life that keeps making us miserable and fearful of where we are headed.