Confessions of a Sugar Addict day 8/42

Eight days in. It's easier.

Most people are genuinely accomodating of my sugar fast and don't mind me skipping many little luxuries to just eat my chicken salad...

I am satisfied, and I am barely craving a sweet treat after dinner. A cup of hot peppermint tea suffices if I need it.

I'm enjoying plain unsweetened yoghurt with a small amount of fruit, and salted peanuts with a few raisins as a mini treat. Yum.

I feel good, and feel thin on the inside, which goes hand in hand with proper nutrition. No more bloated, overfull or heavy tummies... satisfied, fed, and happy tummy instead ;-)

I've even lost a couple of kgs.

Day eight: day of continued endurance
Feel: good, clean, more balanced. Still have challenges everyday.
Temptation: the other night it was the tiptop 2L tub ice-cream on sale, and thinking of it smothered in caramel sauce and chopped nuts. I left the supermarket WITHOUT it.
Realisation: God is surely helping me in my moments of weakness. I actually can do life like this, have hard and bad days with they kids and not need a sugar fix. 
Prayer: Father I want a breakthrough that impacts me for life. Do away with this addiction completely and help me to find balance in food. Give me new eyes and transform my thinking. Help me give my body good fuel. I surely know the statement 'you are what you eat' is true.

And that's me!  Ps. I even had a yummy creamy homemade Indian curry this Week (I make authentic Indian from scratch) delicious!

X

The Higher Call of Living

I'm hiding from my kids... I should get a better hiding place, not in the lounge, and wondering if I really should have yet another coffee today.

Yip it's one of those days... bubba is sleeping. I'm trying to get him into a better day pattern. Poor kid gets dragged all over the show he doesn't quite know when to sleep or not. At least he (usually) knows night is for sleep.

He thinks the carseat is some kind of torture, like, going into it suddenly causes an onset of baby insomnia and episodes of crying whenever the vehicle ceases to move.

They're funny these little people. Such personalities while still so young and small. They know what they do and don't like and just how to tell you.

In all its frustrations and delights I often find myself thinking over how to raise these little people, discipline and teach them, while fully enabling them to be confident in who they are and what they are capable of.

Never before have children been so free to discover who they are and live their dreams like the generation being born right now.

There is no ceiling, no limitations in what they are able to accomplish if they really want to.

My hubby and I have noticed lately.... in the childrens books of our parents, there is a recurring theme of being 'small' - being in a safe world and staying well within your safe little comfort zone. Being confined and definitely not stepping out or trying to break the mold... and if you did, right back to the safe little place you go once you discover the world is big and bad and you simply cannot break out.

What a message to send to a generation. And, they largely lived within the parameters of that. It was and is very difficult being of that generation and not fitting the mold.

Then you get todays books.... living dreams, trying everything and anything. You are capable and competent. You are incredible. The world is waiting for you to be!

And somewhere in between there was a revolution, and we didn't even know it.

My generation, our generation, is crying out for freedom. For social change that enables. We are beginning to see people that rise up and live their dreams as amazing, rather than crazy or silly. We want to do it too. We want to break the mold and the holds of society on us.

We're discovering who we are and who we were made to be. And we're ok with that and have found that in being that, we are the closest to free we have ever been.

What's more, we have people rising up... in pockets all over the world, who are prepared to or are fighting for anothers right to that same freedom. What a stage we have set before us.

I believe we are the closest to a radical shift that the world has seen in a long time.

So how do we raise a generation facing possible impossibilities for their future?  I mean, while freedom is great, and we want it and need it - there are good and bad in both scenarios.

How do we find a balance between chasing our dreams, living our dreams, and facing the reality of life and what is necessary to make life good and make life work...

The large majority in our parents' generation know how to work hard. Get a job, have a job and keep a job.  They know how to turn up on time, keep house and yard, cook a meal from scratch.  They know how to save money and work towards a reward, how to start at the bottom and work towards the top.

Somewhere in the revolution, we have a whole bunch of people who are living their 'freedom' all the while acting like the world completely owes them something. 

They don't know how to get a job, work hard and keep a job.  They don't keep time, don't know how to do basic things around a house, they couldn't cook a basic staple meal from cupboard ingredients....  and they don't know how to start at the bottom and work for something better.  The amount of people with horrendous debt is shocking.

For example - I am astounded at how few young people have their driver's licence, their own car or a part-time job now a days.  They want to have the latest stuff, go to the beach, the movies, shopping - wherever and whatever, but they don't want or in some cases even see the need to pay their way, make a fair contributionor at least work to finance the newest thing.

I got a part-time job and my licence as soon as I was old enough, I learnt to drive, and as soon as I had saved enough money, paid for my very own first car.  I paid for the petrol, the warrants and registration, and the insurance.  I bought my very first cellphone and always paid for the top ups.  We help in a youth ministry, and the outside of 'church' setting, the activities we can do are limited - because virtually none of the youth drive, let alone have a car...

Somewhere while entagled in the idea of freedom, people have become so idealistic that they expect everything to come knocking at their door - instead of involving hard work, which leads to increasing levels of freedom... they want to chase their dreams, but neglect the responsibility that comes with life as an adult.

It is true when we hear that saying "they want what their parent's have now, without the sacrifice and hard work their parents put in to get it"

I want to raise kids that are well rounded individuals... to do enough for them that they have what they need and some of what they want, but that they recognise and have incentive to work hard and reap the rewards and self-respect that come from earning an honest living.

Hopefully balance can be found somewhere around here....

• work = money.  Learn how to save it, spend it and give it
• every person is valuable and deserves respect and dignity, including yourself
• life is not always fair, your turn will come
• work hard, play hard, be fair
• arrive on time
• discover who you are and what you are good at, and do that
• don't spend most of your time trying to overcome your weaknesses.  Do what you can do and do it well
• encourage others
• make good choices for yourself
• tackle challenges, face your fears
• it's ok to make mistakes
• say sorry, apologies are valuable
• pray everyday
• be thankful
• learn to drive, get a car, get your full licence
• relationships are more important than anything else
• give to others without expectation
• look after your spirit, your soul and your body
• have only a few non-negotiable rules
• find your place, rise up and give it 100%
• let other's have their opinions, and you have yours
• don't forget to live - especially while you're waiting for the next big thing
• live for a greater cause than yourself and your family
• there is always more

Its time to study hard, work hard, do well at what you are supposed to be doing and see the world change. It really can become a better place for the generations to come, and with all we've been given, it should!

Today may your eyes be opened to the world of possible impossibilties around you, and what is in your hand to do...

Hello and other ramblings...

Hello again! Wow, its been a REALLY long time since I last wrote anything on here. Life has got away in me a bit these last, well 7 months. I've been pregnant and had a baby in that time even. It feels so long that in fact, I dont know where to begin. This year has been laced with challenge to challenge, its been hard for many around us, and hard for us. And as I sit here, reclined, my feet up in a lazyboy,the sun tearing through the window of Room 2, NICU, Auckland City Hospital... holding my 2 week old baby who is really only 31 weeks old, I just ponder life a bit... This year has been good. Laced with difficulty, but good. When I look at the people around me that have faced trials, challenges and depths of pain, I see a maturity that has risen to the occasion and carried on. There are great wells of tears that have been sown into the ground, a ground found ferftile for growth, because it has been dug,turned over, fertilised by the revelations and depths found in trials since gone by, but mostly, because the people have known where to cling when everything else is shaking. You can rise to the occasion when you know the One who carries you through and has seen the end from the beginning. Sure, its hard, and in the hard moments it doesnt change that sometimes we want to stay in bed in the morning, lie down flat and not get up anymore, forgetC our responsibilities and run away, or just plain break. We want to, but mostly, we get up, we face the day, we carry on for the light of a better day glimmers through a tiny crack in the door. I could write the story of my son's birth, little Ezekiel David, all 3lbs of him, and I will, but I'll save it for anothet day. For today, I just want to say, rise up. Get up again and face the world. Shake off the weight of heaviness that tries to swallow you up and find your garment of praise- the 9n that He designed specially for you. The one that looks at the rain, but sres the rainbow. What you fix your eyes on is what you get. The rain is the trial, the challenge, the pain... the rainbow is the promise that holds your feet firm. You actually can choose how you face the day, how you handle the trial, how you cone out theother side. If you find yourself facing the same thing, with the same attitude and the same heaviness repeatedly, I'd examine closely the choices you're making in facing the challenge. Where are your eyes fixed? What does that look like? Is it the right perspective or have you bought into a lie... People often say, why has God allowed this to happen? Why am I in this place? Where is He in this? Dumb stuff happens because we live an imperfect life... whether its from our own choices or actions, that of another or whether its just something we've been thrown with no one to pount at... it doesnt matter. What we do when we question Him, is we questiin His integrity. We question His love. We ques tion His faithfulness, His goodness, His perfect Father heart. We question whether He's there at all... questions are ok for a moment, but they should lead us to a deeper encounter with Him, a deeper knowledge og His love and a deeper understanding that He IS all of those things (and so much more) in absolute perfect form, far too great for our minds and hearts to comprehend... but He REMAINS all of those things even in our trials... Perfect love, perfect faithfulness, perfect friendship, perfect Father, perfect in all f His ways toward us, all of the time. Afterall, He is the Only One who never changes...

I'm a foodie....

I'm a foodie.  There, I said it.

I love food.  I love choosing it, smelling it, touching it, slicing it, preparing it, baking it, frying it, cooking it, serving it, and most of all, eating it.  I LOVE the eating part.

But to be honest, I'm an addict.  That sounds hilariously funny, because we all need food to survive (obviously), but when you get down to the raw truth, I am addicted to food.  And coffee.

Not all food.  I can't openly proclaim that I am addicted to sprouts or vegetables or fruit or anything disgusting.  But I am definitely addicted to the good stuff.

I totally love preparing food, baking etc.  For others and for myself.  I love it too much.

I often get asked the question... like how do you go from

to

and, even more common - how do you look like

within a few months of having a baby.....  it doesn't really end.

My answer is usually hard work.  Because that's virtually the nuts and bolts of it.

The fact that I get asked nearly everywhere I go, nearly everyday, tells me that there are plenty of people out there who have the same problem as me.  As a society, we seem to classify addicts as people to who take drugs, or who smoke or have these habitual 'bad' problems that affect their health/wealth etc adversely.... well, I'm pretty sure obesity and too much extra weight can have adverse health problems too.

Most people I talk to want to know and seem to think I have some great level of self control.  And sometimes I do.  Most often, I don't.  I have a degree of self control for a season of time that I know will end.  And then my self control runs out.

Addict - to habituate or abandon (oneself) to something compulsively or obsessively.

So, that classifies eating when not hungry... or eating beyond full - as an addiction.  (as well as lots of other things I'm sure).

This has been a struggle for me lately.  When it is cold, raining, and I'm bored and feeling a bit sorry for myself - I eat.  That's how I got so large in the first place.  I ate when I was stressed and feeling emotional - to help me feel better.  So I'm back to square one and if I don't sort it out, it will get out of control.

But here is the raw truth to how I have got to where I am right now.... (where I am being a healthy weight for my height)

1) I admitted that I had a problem.  In fact, I am the problem.

2) I stopped blaming everything and everyone else for my situation.

3) I recognised that to change my life and my future, with God's help, only I could do that.  I could not change it for anyone else, not for my hubby, not for my kids, not for anyone else... for me.

4) I recognised that the problem was 'bigger than me' and that I needed HIS help EVERYDAY.

5) I saw what I was, and I saw that if I continued, I would not be able to run around with my children, to play with them like I wanted to, and that I couldn't give them the future I dreamed of.

6) I recognised the example I was setting for them

7) I decided to do it, and I did it.

I don't necessarily think there is any one way of achieving weight loss.  I have a method, and it works.  I know it would work for anyone, but not everyone can apply the same degree of dedication and restriction that I do in order to achieve results.  But I think, what it truly boils down to, is that when we see and recognise that it is me and my problem, we can actually deal with it if we want to.

I'm not going to look over my shoulder and hope that someone will come knocking on my door with an ounce  (or tonne) of motivation... for any area of my life.  Though accountability works, hence my straight up post.

I had to face huge emotional hurdles to be where I am today.  I had to face up to myself, to issues with other people that I had bottled up and locked away inside me.  To excuses I had to be how I was.  I had to replace my addiction to food with something else for the times when I felt sad/bored/lonely/whatever it may be.

I replaced it by 'being' with Jesus.  You might think I'm a freak.  And frankly, I don't care anymore.  Because I know He is alive and real and He is the only one who has the power to give us victory that lasts forever.

I am honest about life and my struggles.  That is how I am made to be.  That is how He made me to be.

When I 'be' with Him, the problems of life, what people say and do to me, the lonely feelings, the boredom and whatever else - well, it melts away.  It doesn't matter so much when I'm with Him.  And when I leave my 'being with' Him... they still don't matter so much...  I don't live a blissful life where problems are non-existant and I am not so thick skinned that what people say and do just wash off me...  in fact, I feel things incredibly deeply.  But I have learned to take those things to the only one who can wash them off me and make me new again.  And I have learned that by talking about them, and honestly communicating about them, I am made more free and others are given a taste of what can be available.

I am the first to admit - I do not have the victory over food that I want.... Yet.  I want to be at a place that when I am feeling low and bingey or craving, that I don't bake something and eat half of what I made for lunch.... instead of lunch.... or in addition to lunch.  Where I am satisfied by what I eat and I enjoy the extras.  Life is not made to not enjoy food.  I don't think that living a rigid life of plain, boring and healthy food forever and never letting a morsel of goodness pass the lips would work for many people... it certainly wouldn't for me.  I love chocolate, and sugar and all the good stuff.

But I'm in pursuit of a victory that leaves me satisfied.  That suddenly goes, hey, I'm feeling a bit low today - I'll go be with Jesus for a while and then I'll be ok.  

Or, I'll bake for my family, and I will be able to open the fridge or cupboard and not have to eat some of the baking every time.

I once heard someone say that being an overcomer is where in a battle, you win at least 51% of the time.  I think that's a good starting place to aim for.  That's where I'm going to aim.

So, today, instead of hiding from your battle, why don't you choose for yourself that you will 'opt in' to a life of freedom.  See, I want to be free.  I want to live in freedom so badly and not be swayed by all the earthly things.  Living from the perspective of heaven is so much better.

It means that we get just a bit real about life, about our battles and all that stuff.  We get real with ourselves, we get real with others, and most importantly, we get real with Jesus.  (who already knows ALL of your issues anyway).

Take your battle, and try 'being' with Him.  I promise you it will change your life.

xx