Be Still

Be still and know that I am God

                               Psalm 46:10

Sometimes it's hard to hear the still small voice of the Spirit when your head is clamoring with a cacophonous din of worries and memories and random thoughts and tasks that haven't been done yet and I guess I can do that tomorrow and uh-oh, I forgot to do the other thing and I can't believe my boss really said that, and I wish I'd told him...

In Ephesians 4:3 we're told to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. But if you're like me, sometimes the greatest peace-killer is the noise in our own heads.

To me, this is probably the greatest benefit of physical exercise: it shuts off the chatterbox in my brain, making room for the Holy Spirit. There is substantial research evidence that physical exercise improves brain health and brain function and decreases depression and anxiety - particularly exercise in "green space."

I remember one particular day last Winter, when I went running with my fitness group on a day nobody would choose as a perfect day for a trail run. There was over 8 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature wasn't going to be above 20 degrees at any time. But after several snow days, seeing way too much walled space and breathing recycled air, there was just something euphoric about moving through the trees, listening to the silence of crunching snow underfoot and breathing fresh air, feeling the sunshine on my face and retinas.

The next day, we were studying Genesis in Sunday school and had one of those Obvious Ah-Ha moments, finally noticing how many times it says in Genesis "...and God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25). Okay, once... twice... could be a coincidence; three times, maybe it's just a minor point. But when God tells us no less than five times in 15 verses in the very first chapter of the Bible that the natural world is good, there's probably something to that. Kind of seems like He's wanting to make sure we don't miss something important.

Earth, water, air sunshine... these things are good. God made them for us. And He made our brains so that they work demonstrably better, the more and more intensely we're exposed to these things - especially when we're actively exposed to them.

Swimming, moving through the water, breathing rhythmically is an exercise that never fails to reboot my brain; to make me still inside my head and usher in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Any day I swim is a better day for it. And pretty soon now, my YMCA branch will be opening the outdoor pool which means early morning swims that begin in darkness and end in sunshine; passing through the colors of dawn on the way.

I have a feeling it is going to be good.

Comfort Zone II

Exercise, fitness building, and weight loss are always going to involve stepping outside of our natural comfort zone. We already know the results when we consistently choose what is most comfortable: deconditioning, weight gain, lack of growth. Whenever we're on a growth path - a path that leads us to different results - there is going to be discomfort involved.

 However, we can get to a place where we start to feel "comfortable with discomfort."

I remember when I first got into swimming. For much of my time in the water, I was extremely distressed about exertion and oxygen; wanting to take a breath right away, but having to wait for the next breathing point in the swim stroke (otherwise I'd just get an airway full of water, which didn't exactly help). That feeling of "I want a breath, but I can't take one right now; I'll have to wait" is very uncomfortable on a very primal level. Your body is hollering for oxygen, and you're trying to say "Wait; not yet."

The first time I experienced that discomfort was almost 5 years ago. Hundreds of swim practices, hundreds of thousands of yards, 8 triathlons, and two swim meets. And still, this morning, when I went to swim practice I spent most of the hour in a state of primal discomfort because I wanted to be breathing more than I was.

There's a huge difference between this morning and five years ago, though: five years ago, that oxygen-deprived discomfort was distressing. Now, I've learned to be okay with it. Say it with me: "My body is screaming for oxygen. And I'm okay with that."

There are huge benefits to stretching our comfort zones in this way. For one thing, routine daily activities will be at the "extreme comfort" part of the comfort zone - everyday, minute-by-minute life will start to feel very, very comfortable indeed.

Also, we start to find that other kinds of uncomfortable situations - such as a dreaded meeting with the boss, or confronting the kids about a behavior they need to change, or negotiating a compromise with the beloved but differing-opinion spouse - are much less distressing than they used to be... precisely because we have learned to be more comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

Finally, the biggest reason to do this: if we don't constantly work to expand our comfort zones, their natural tendency is to contract. Today, I'm comfortable sitting in this chair eating pie. After a while, I start to get picky about the pie: this one has too much cinnamon, this one doesn't have that perfect flaky crust, I don't like cherry unless I can have ice cream with it. Then at some point I'm going to find that this chair isn't optimally comfortable: wouldn't I be more comfortable on the couch? And you know, it's kind of a hassle to get up and have to go get my own pie: I need someone who will bring it to me. And wash the plate afterward. Follow this track long enough, and I'm 700 pounds, needing a crane to get out of the house.

The comfort zone is always either expanding or contracting. When the comfort zone gets small, life gets constricted. Eventually the comfort zone becomes a prison. Let's don't allow that to happen. Let's keep stretching our comfort zones.

Self Monitoring

I guess to some extent it is inevitable; if I'm going to try to change my behavior, I have to become more conscious of how I'm behaving. By now, a lot of my unhealthy eating patters are essentially automatic. If I don't make the effort to bring my food choices out into the conscious part of my brain, where I can evaluate them and make intentional decisions, then next thing I know some subconscious part of my brainstem will have made a tray of brownies and eaten half of them.

To some extent, this is the purpose of an eating plan: to bring my eating behavior out of the dark crawlspaces of my brain and up into the living room where I can keep an eye on it. Sometimes, though, this self-monitoring process can run amok. The line between conscious awareness of behaviors, and self-conscious hypervigilant over-scrutiny isn't always entirely clear.

For one example, I recently heard someone talking about "exercise bulimia." Now, I certainly have been exercising more lately. Instead of 3 or 4 times a week, I'm exercising more like 5 or 6. I wanted to get more weight lifting into my patterns, and I've managed to do that. Inspired by the triathlon coach who runs our spinning class, my wife and I are planning to start swimming lessons and get ready for a triathlon this Spring. So the question is, is this a healthy exercise pattern, or a newly emerging manifestation of my compulsivity around food, activity, and body weight?

It's not an easy question to answer. What are the criteria? I know what the end outcomes are: if this is a compulsive behavior, it will eventually wind up making me and the people around me miserable. But how do I know if I'm on that path, or on a path that leads to balance, health, relationship, and accomplishment?

The Wikipedia article on exercise bulimia has a list of warning signs. Exercising while injured or sick? Check. I've got a mild head cold, and I'm about to head off to the gym as soon as I'm done typing this. Defining self-worth in terms of performance? I don't know. I certainly do get a sense of accomplishment when I'm stacking more weights on the machine than I used to, or when I have to up the pace on the treadmill to maintain the same level of exertion. Is that really pathological? It makes me feel good, but surely it's an exaggeration to say that I'm defining my self-worth in terms of my treadmill setting.

For the record, I haven't been calling in sick to work so I can exercise, or defining myself as a special "elite" athlete. But what about "scheduling life around exercise?" Well, certainly I have made adjustments to my daily and weekly schedules to accommodate exercising.

I think this is why 12 step programs have sponsors. Sometimes when you're the one doing the behaviors, it is nearly impossible to draw the line and distinguish between healthy behavior and not. If I wasn't an expert at self-deception, I wouldn't be a compulsive eater in the first place. A sponsor, by virtue of being someone else who doesn't live in my head, can recognize when my behavior is going haywire and when it isn't; when I'm fooling myself and when I'm not.

Whether it's a sponsor, an accountability group, or a professional counselor, I think it's essential to put the monitoring function - or, perhaps, the function of monitoring the monitoring - on the outside perspective of a supportive Someone Else.

Getting Out of the Comfort Zone

One of the things they're always saying on the New Life Ministries radio program is "We don't want to make you feel good. We want to make you feel bad... bad enough to go out and do something to change your situation."

I have found some truth to this. We don't generally make big personal changes because we're feeling wonderful. In fact, most of us - certainly me - will bend over backwards and go to a lot of trouble to avoid changing, unless the status quo becomes really intolerable.

The flip side of this is that making big changes is never going to make us feel good - at least, not right away. The first reaction we're going to have when we make a change is discomfort.

One thing people will often say when they're frustrated with an ongoing problem is "I've tried everything!" Speaking for myself, what that usually means is that I've tried everything that's in my comfort zone. I've tried all the ways I usually try to cope with problems. The catch is, if it's an ongoing problem, it's probably caused in part by my habitual ways of coping, and the solution is just about guaranteed to lie somewhere outside my comfort zone.

Despite many promptings from the Spirit, I had a lot of resistance to the idea of going to a 12-step group. The objection that was most often on my mind was that I didn't want to be tied to another scheduled activity - another weekly errand - in an already overscheduled week. I think, looking back, this was mostly just a kind of opposition to going outside my comfort zone. I didn't want to turn my time over to Overeaters Anonymous any more than I wanted to turn my will over to God, or turn my feelings and problems over to a group of strangers.

I think, in the future, I should bear this in mind. When there's a solution to a problem that I'm feeling resistant to - a solution that I really, really don't want to think about - that's probably the one that's going to help me most.

Gory Scripture

Some scripture verses present an image that is difficult to embrace. One of these for me has always been Mark 9:47 - "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire" (KJT). Other translations differ slightly on the "offend:" some say "if thy eye causeth thee to fall into sin," or "causes you to stumble..." But they're all quite consistent on plucking (or gouging!) our own eyes out so we can get into Heaven.

This is not a pretty image, and it isn't entirely obvious how to interpret this and apply it in our lives. Salvation through self-mutilation? What's that about?

I do think this verse applies, and particularly in the area of personal change - of overcoming self-destructive behavior patterns. Whatever our addiction is - cigarettes, alcohol, sugar - there's something about it that we love. On some level, I do have a love of eating too much. I enjoy the pleasure of eating, and I enjoy the full, satisfied feeling. That enjoyment is a part of me, and like anyone else, I have a natural impulse to defend and protect anything that's a part of me. I think this is why we're so defensive about our bad habits. They may be bad habits, and they may cause us all kinds of misery, but they're part of us and something deep inside the lizard brain tells us to hold on and protect these parts of ourselves. This is why idea of stopping a behavior - however maladaptive it may be - can feel like someone proposing that we tear off some part of our own bodies.

The Lord's answer to this is right there in the scripture: even if I have to give up beloved part of myself, it's better to give it up and go to Heaven (and enjoy a healthier life here on Earth) than hold onto it and go to Hell (or make my own Earthly life into a kind of Hell).

I don't mean to imply by this that if I continue overeating (or if someone else continues drinking or smoking or whatever) that we're all condemned. Judgements about who goes where in the hereafter are made by the Boss up there, not by the help down here. One thing I can say, though, is that as I've progressed in my program and experienced some detachment from food, I've experienced some real spiritual benefits. Some of the things I'd been "smoothing over with food" - like friction in relationships, faults in myself, problems I'd been neglecting - have become more apparent to me and I'm learning to deal with them in healthier ways. I used to say I wanted to lose weight because I didn't want my son to be the one kid whose dad couldn't go on the hike because he's too fat. Now, I'm seeing this a bit differently: I want to be in recovery because I don't want to rob my son of the better dad I'll be when I really deal with my issues, rather than just burying them in food. Whether this will get me into Heaven or not - again, not my call. But it does seem like it's leading me to a better life here on Earth; a life closer to the Lord and closer to my loved ones.

History Question

If you're here on this site, you've probably tried different kinds of diets and exercise programs in the past. Maybe some of them have worked, perhaps for a while with some success. Maybe others haven't worked at all.

The idea of this post is to share our histories about where we've come from, what we've tried, what has worked, and what hasn't worked. If you're like me, you've encountered some events or situations that made it difficult or even sabotaged your plans to have a healthy relationship with food. Perhaps by combining bits and pieces of shared wisdom we can help each other.

I do believe the biggest piece of what's going to help me (and maybe you too) in the long run will be to improve my connection with God and with my brothers and sisters living here on Earth. But I'm not above using a few behavioral or psychological tricks if they will be helpful in achieving the goal of a healthy relationship with food.

One thing I won't do is unbalanced fad diets designed to produce quick weight loss at the expense of true health. I just don't believe that's what God wants for us, and anyway, I don't just want to be thinner. I want to be healthier; emotionally, spiritually, and physicially.

So this is my invitation to share your history of diets and exercise programs in the comments section below. I'll be posting my history soon: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Welcome

Thank you for coming. I am starting this blog hoping to build a web community for mutual support for Christians struggling with food addiction, overeating, or other food-related behavior patterns. I'm doing this because I have stuggled over the years trying to establish and maintain healthy food behaviors. Relying on my willpower and determination, I have done well at times and done poorly at other times.

In the past couple of months I have come to realize that my own willpower and determination aren't very reliable, and that if I'm going to make real progress I will have to get help - both from my Lord and Savior, and from others here on Earth who are seeking and struggling and willing to support and accept support from each other.

My vision for this blog is to create a community, much like an Overeaters Anonymous or Lose it for Life group, in virtual space. I know that support in person can be stronger in many ways. At the same time, busy schedules and time conflicts can make it difficult to get to meetings. And sometimes I - and maybe you - may need help at odd times.

My intention is to keep this blog a semi-open community. Anyone with a web address will be able to reply to an existing topic, but only designated authors will be allowed to start new topics. This is to keep the blog from getting clogged up with Nigerian money transfer scams and other internet pollution. At the same time, I don't anticipate any very ardurous process to become a designated author. If you're a real person and you want to be supportive and contribute, you're welcome to become an author.

From a spiritual standpoint, I'd like to maintain this community in the spirit of Christ's love. We may disagree or have different viewpoints, and sometimes we may need to (lovingly) help each other be accountable. But we need to maintain the spirit of love and support for each other. Also, let's try to avoid denominational or doctrinal disputes. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who opens his or her heart to Jesus Christ and seeks redemption and healing through Him is a Christian. Theological debates about the Nicene Creed or the Closed Canon may have their place, but that place is not here.

I would like to encourage everyone here to feel free to post a new topic. Share a personal victory, a difficult moment, a favorite scripture, or something helpful you found in a book. Feel free also to comment on posts by other people. And share any thoughts you might have about how to improve this community or make it work better.

Thank you again for coming. My prayer is that with the help of Christ and each other, we can experience connection and healing, and find peace from our struggles.