Are you stable?

Okay. This is it. An update complete with gory details of my latest "LA Weightloss" visit, my binge and my new inspiration preparation and installation as well as instigation. Ready set go. Oh and why don't we throw in an exercise-work-out update...?

It was entirely dreary waiting until FRIDAY for my LA Weightloss appointment. Since I have been getting up at 5:00 AM for the past three weeks to study the Bible and pray (which is SO cool - I am quickly addicted - and, no calories!) Friday morning I got up as my new usual and instead of preparing my yogurt and large cup of jasmine/green tea like I usually do, I remembered that for the past umpteen weeks, I have been "NPO" and in an entirely dehydrated state when I went to my appointment at LA Weightloss to be the ultimate lowest weight possible, well, as reasonably as possible.

"Ugh!" I thought Friday morning. I decided that I would instead have a cup of tea and an "LA Weightloss bar" for breakfast rather than going without food and liquid. Everything was fine until I got on that scale and "gained" 0.2 pounds since last week! I thought that I could handle it better than I did. I had hoped to weigh less than last week even with the tea and bar.

I slave. I work. I abstain. And week after week after week I lose ounce by precious ounce. I see on my body the flab coming off the sides of my thighs - that same exact and that same fat that has been there for almost two decades. Yes, “we” are getting down to it. Down to “normal weight.”

I made my excuse and the LA Weightloss counselor/lady said, "What did you eat for breakfast?"

I wanted to tell her "all of my dairy, fruit and starch servings for the day." Instead, I told the truth. I felt like hiding under a rock.

Then the nice lady who I never saw before then looked through my food diary.

"Your diary looks good. How was Ruth's Chris Steak House for your anniversary dinner celebration?" She said as she referred to her notes from the manila file and the notes that the last woman wrote when she spoke with me.

"Oh, it was great."

"What did you eat?"

"Steak and spinach." I left out the Chocolate explosion cake with ice cream. Is that a lie? I thought to myself that it was the truth, just not all of the truth. She could have asked if I ate anything for dessert. It was a deception on my part, I suppose. But I was still looking up from under the rock about the itty bitty “breakfast” that I was blaming on having not lost any weight for eight full days since I had been there last. But, like, hey. It is my life. My food. My chocolate. My ice cream. My taste sensation.

Oh, by the way, I read an article on Tuesday from SHAPE magazine when I was in spin class which said that people who worked-out a lot were in a research protocol and compared to people who did not work out. They found that the group who worked-out lost less weight. Over the time span tested the exercise group lost 4 pounds of fat and gained 3 pounds of muscle for a net weight loss of one terrific humbling pound.

Like I said, I can see my body trimming down before my very eyes on the huge mirror at the club that I look at when doing yoga and Pilate classes, but ounce-by-ounce my weight comes down on the scale. But I don’t care. Well, I do. When the ladies sneer at my scale, I feel two inches tall. I also feel like a crumb because I am embarrassed for looking good and being thin. I mean, you are supposed to be fat to be in there or why are you “waisting” breathing air? To be a thin person is to be a little less than desirable. You are supposed to be trying to control your weight and failing slightly at it or not succeeding. I may not look like I am succeeding because I only lose a half an ounce a week on average. Or maybe it is a half of a pound on average. But when I walk in there in my size 6 and loose pants I feel like, “I’m sorry.” I got to learn how to walk in with my head up tall. Like, “Yeah. I am making it. But I am not better than anyone else. I still need help. That is why I am here, because I can’t do it on my own. But no, I am glad that I am moving ahead. I am not ashamed.”

Okay. Let's move this blog along. It is going TOO SLOW, and there is still so much more on our schedule.

Friday afternoon I got my nails done, as I have been doing weekly for the past several weeks as I am trying to get my nails to look nice, which is nearly impossible without the fake nails, but I hate the fake nails because e I don’t like the feeling of the fake nails sitting on my real nails, and the joy of the beauty of the whole schema sort of dies when my 12 year-old daughter says to me, "You can tell that your nails are fake."

"How can you tell?" I innocently ask her, doubting the reliability of her statement and questioning the underlying accusation, if there is one. Is there an underlying accusation, of like, me being tacky?

"See this big bump? See how thick they are? Real nails aren't like that," she replies frankly, sounding like a news commentator expert from Public Radio.

"But don't they look nice?" I inquire, mildly desperate in tone.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe. I guess. Sort-of. Why do you like fake nails?"

So it shouldn't matter, should it? What they think? What anybody thinks about my nails! Well, I want them to look professional, like when my Aunt Lucy said 38 years ago, regarding the women doctors who worked with her husband the doctor, "The women doctors, they don't have big long nails, but you see that they are nicely groomed, trimmed back and blaa blaa, blaa," (Can't remember the rest – the flashback has drifted away.)

So, getting back to the subject at hand, Friday I was getting my nails done, and a strong desire came "upon me" to get SEE's Chocolate after the nail job was done.

That is what I did. I marched over to the See's and got me three pieces for 1.97 and one sample. Then, like a true addict, several hours later I was back. Three more pieces and a sample. 1.97. Same lady served me but she didn't seem to recognize me even though I was there a couple of hours earlier. I guess she would begin to notice if I kept going back.

But I didn't go back because I found plenty of crap in my own pantry. All that garbage that has been staring my down for weeks - no months.

I just couldn't handle losing another 2.6 pounds, which will definitely take my at least 2 weeks, and likely a month, without a good binge. Here’s the log summary data. Friday my weight at the LA place was 147.6. My goal weight is 145. I feel like I have weeks and weeks left, which I probably do before I get to my goal weight. The LA place keeps giving me “four weeks free,” because I come faithfully every week like I am supposed to.

“That’s our commitment to you, that we are going to stay with you through this process.”

Now, I didn't really have a “binge” in the true sense of the word. Nothing to spit up about or get stomach cramps about. No cramps. I would never throw up anyway. But I did enjoy a pop tart, a chocolate cigar, a cini-mini and I think that was it. I had a teaspoon of ice cream, but it was a little old tasting so I threw the rest of the container away.

Okay, so today, Saturday, I ate two donuts. It's not a crime, okay?

All right then. This morning, Saturday, I went to my spin class and spun hard and that was fun. I went to the yoga class and that was great. I try hard to look like the "example" - the woman at the front of the class. She give good instruction and guidance and I try to follow.

No student is greater than her teacher, but the student may become like her teacher.

Okay, I can look like her. That would be nice.

She is such a good teacher. So helpful. You can tell she likes what she does and does a good job at it. There is actually technique to the whole thing, to the stretching poses and to the way that she doesn’t overeat - to the way that she looks the way that she looks.

After the class I said to her, purposefully in front of a bunch of the other students, "Thanks for being such a good teacher." She smiled and I said, "I feel like I should be paying you a hundred dollars an hour, but I don't. All I have to do is come here (to the club) and it is all included (in the price.)

Well, I have to go drive my husband and two kids to the airport now, so I'll have to finish the part about the “new inspiration preparation and installation as well as instigation” later.

The new inspiration preparation and installation as well as instigation:

I am at the end of my ability to accomplish the 145 goal. At other times in my life when I have not been able to accomplish my goals I have asked the Lord if I am missing something, if I am going about it “in my flesh,” am I missing His mark for me? (I learned to ask these questions the hard way, that is, by repeatedly failing and looking up from the mud with three or four broken bones.)

So in my yoga class that is what I was thinking and praying about. I was also thinking about what I learned in my Bible Study reading and prayer time this morning. Here is the verse (phrase) that I memorized last night and reread this morning, from I Samuel, around chapter 11: “…today the Lord accomplished deliverance for Israel.”

It is the Lord who accomplishes any kind of deliverance of relevance or importance. It is the Lord that I want to accomplish my deliverance. If the Lord wills, if it is His pleasure, then I would like Him to go with me to the 145 pounds. IT ISN’T EVEN THAT BIG OF A DEAL! WHAT IS 2.6 POUNDS? Except that it is my goal, that I think that it can be the Lord’s goal for me, to go with me in this matter. Though is seems small, what if it represents something much, much bigger, like, say, having control of one’s body for the rest of my life such that I am less compelled to have to follow the shouts of my flesh? What if accomplishing this goal means that my flesh is less weak, that my spirit is more able to be effective? Why is this 2.6 pounds important? Maybe it is important because it is important to God. Maybe God wants to be in this ADVENTURE with me because He loves these little fun things.

This morning I also read about when the Spirit of God fell upon people in the Bible. The Spirit fell upon people to accomplish certain tasks. The Spirit of the Lord fell upon Sampson and he became very strong. Can the Spirit fall upon me to make me effective to reach 145 pounds?

Does the Spirit of the Lord want to fall upon me to accomplish the goal of getting an MBA? Not so these goals are ends of themselves but are used by God to do what He wants. He wills and works in me for His good pleasure. I serve at the pleasure of His will. So during the deep relaxation time of yoga class, I put my towel actually over my face and I prayed that God would fill me with His Holy Spirit to do and be all that He wants me to do and be, including these seemingly silly weight goals and the huge MBA goal, if that is my goal, if that is His goal. I remembered how when I was a child and went to communion in the Catholic Church and the priest would put the wafer in my mouth, on my tongue and say, “body of Christ.” There in that yoga class, alone with me and God, under my little towel, I imagined that the Lord anointed me, so to speak, with “body of Christ.” Okay, so I’m weird. That aint’ nothing new or anything that I didn’t already know.

The new inspiration preparation” that I was talking about is the Bible Study, prayer and thinking about my situation from a spiritual perspective. The “installation” is when I was in prayer and “imagined” that God serve me a wafer of the “body of Christ.” The instigation is … soon, by faith and abiding. Waiting with expectation. Not that I am trying to dish out what I want, but I think that God is putting these desires into my heart and if He isn’t, then that will soon become apparent. And if He is, then He is faithful to complete what He has begun in me.

Later today I ate more junk. But that is okay. Faith is not a superstition and I am not expecting anything “magical” to overpower me. It is just another day of faith like many, many other days. God bless you. If anyone actually read through this whole thing _ GOD BLESS YOU! YOU KNOW ENDURANCE!