Fitness, Food, Faith and The Pursuit of Being Loved

I recently got a ring cut off of my finger. This task needed to be done like six plus months ago, but I put it off because I was battling voices in my head that said "you just need to lose some weight, you don't have to get it cut off" --- as if it was that simple. Then one day, my friend and I were walking in the mall. As we walked by the jewelry store, I impulsively stopped in to the store to ask if they could cut it off. They did right there, no judgement and no charge.

Can someone tell me at what point we stop wanting our babies to gain weight and when we start communicating to them that smaller is better? Listen, we are not meant to stay the same weight our whole lives and we are certainly not meant to find our worth in that stupid number on the scale. In my opinion, the only time that number is needed, is for a doctor to see how much a baby is growing and for a proper dosage if medication is needed. Outside of that, our physical health is way more complex than what we weigh and the desire to look a certain way is driven by society's perspective on what is attractive.

I come to this post as someone who did things backwards and now I'm doing everything in my control to undo the damage. I believed that losing weight was the solution to all my problems. All my problems, really can be boiled down to seeking to be loved. Surely, that wasn't the intent, but that very much was the message that was sent and received. Smaller is better. Smaller is more successful. Smaller is healthier. Smaller is more attractive. Smaller is easier. Smaller is loved. So while I worked hard on the outside, I thought the inside would be fixed. When in reality the inside pain was just exacerbated.

I was taught to count my pretzels. I was taught that every bite adds up and I should feel guilty about any bites outside of planned meals and snacks. I was taught that I had to sacrifice the enjoyment of taste for fat free and less calories. I was taught that it was healthy to earn my food by exercising. I became convinced that bread and pasta is evil. I was praised for "success" because it worked. A hundred pounds later, I successfully had starved myself. I learned to ignore hunger cues and drank water to "trick" my body into being full. I smelled cookies instead of eating them and when I did eat the dang cookie, it came with massive amounts of unnecessary guilt. Yet, I was supposedly able to eat anything I wanted, I just had to calculate my daily points and decide if it was "worth it" to spend my points on. Make it make sense. I got a temporary high from buying smaller sizes, but still picked apart my body in the mirror. Spoiler alert, being a hundred pounds lighter may have boosted my confidence for a time, but it came at a cost. The anxiety that developed surrounding food and exercise? Not worth it. The restrict/binge cycle and food fears that resulted post weight loss? Not worth it. Hitting my goal and still not loving myself? Not worth it.

The good news is undoing the damage, experiencing healing to those areas of my heart that I didn't know were there then, is possible. I didn't love myself any more in a smaller body than I did in a larger body. Turns out, you can't hate yourself into loving yourself. I wasn't able to sustain the smaller body, because the amount of food I ate for weight loss, wasn't sustainable for my body long term. Weight loss is a false gospel, it gives promises that it can't guarantee. We live in a world of false gospels and this is one that got ahold of me. It's one of the things that the world deceives us into thinking it's going to satisfy our hearts. The truth is nothing on this earth will satisfy our hearts. Our hearts can only be satisfied by the One who created it. Ephesians 1:3-14 says:

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance to his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us this mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put in effect when the times reach their fulfillment to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him, we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were the first ones to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. and you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory."

What does that have to do with weight loss? My friends, that is the gospel, the lens which with I seek to live. What I believe about my body and how I treat my body is included in that. What I believe about my body and how I treat my body has eternal impact on others. The way my mom viewed her body, had an eternal impact on me. She never had the chance to taste any redemption in this area earth side. I do. As long as I have breath in my lungs, I have the chance to experience a mini redemption that points to the ultimate redemption in Jesus and Lord willing change the narrative for my children some day. Weight loss isn't my savior, it's not my hope or where my joy comes from. Jesus is.

Instead of restricting food because I hate my body, I nourish it and find ways to ADD nutrition to what I eat, because I am loved. I am worthy to be fed because I am an adopted child of God who has nutritional needs and he cares about those needs being met. Instead of punishing my body for eating, I find joy in moving my body because God created it to move, with the ability to get stronger and build endurance. I can freely love myself no matter what my body looks like because he created me and loved me before he formed me in my mother's womb. In Jesus, I have a heavenly inheritance waiting for me that far surpasses any of my earthly body, accomplishments and possessions. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with him.

I sigh a breath of relief because it's his grace that changes everything. It's his grace that allows me to taste his goodness in this tender space of my heart, as I live out the days he has given me.

Lord, thank you. Thank you for creating me, for adopting me into your kingdom and for caring about these things. Thank you for revealing these areas of my heart, so that I can heal. Thank you for sustaining me each day you have me here. Thank you for each person who reads this. You know each of their hearts and know what needs to be heard, where love needs to be felt and grace needs to be experienced. I trust you will meet them with your gentle kindness where they are at <3 Amen.