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Surprised by time

Do you ever find yourself surprised by the speed in which time passes?  to try and write a blog and realise it was nearly a year ago I decided that I was going to have another go at writing my blog. Almost year?! I’m not actually sure where those 11 months have gone, but they sure have been full!

So wave two of trying to write a regular blog did not last for very long I got tied up by how best to write what things to say and let’s be honest having a six month old and never going to be go it go easily with trying to write a blog frequently. 

Ill try and give you a whistle stop tour of the past 11 months.

My children are now 1, 4 and 6 with two of them at full time school or nursery and number 3 firmly in my pocket. I can count on one hand the number of days I’ve had without her – 2 in case you were wondering! – in the past 17 months and that’s pretty exhausting but she’s amazing and makes me laugh a lot. She is also incredibly feisty and knows her own my mind. I often find myself thinking that I am in big trouble as she gets bigger. My 6 year old mostly loves school and it’s fun watching him learning to read and excelling at maths. The 4 year old started full time nursery school in September and he loves it. Plus just two school runs a day makes a HUGE difference to my day with the smallest one.

Since I lost blogged I’ve managed to lose 6 stone!! I mean that one probably needs a whole post about it. But I’ll just quickly mention it here. I am back to running anywhere up to three times a week and I’m hoping to run a half marathon later this year although I suspect it may be next year now. 

My business, Sprouting Butterfly, is still going and although it’s not as successful as I would love it to be it plays its roll in my own life and in the lives of my customers and for that I am grateful.

I had the incredibly privilege of being at the birth of my most amazing friends little boy. It is an experience I will never forget and such honour to be able to be by her side. She was amazing!

I went a course on how to tell your story and spoke about vulnerability at a women event in November in front a rather large cloud which was incredibly and terrifying in equal measure! Maybe I’ll post what I said at some point! 

I’m writing this post in the midst of a global pandemic (I mean you know that because you’re probably reading this in the midst of global pandemic too but I felt I should include it!) The country, and most of the world,has been shutdown because of a Coronavirus knows as Covid 19. It’s frightening, and isolating and terrifying and because of the impacts on our plans incredibly frustrating. We had been due to fly to America for a 3 week holiday over this time including a cruise to the Bahamas via Florida. As I type this I should be in the middle of blue seas and blue skies on a ship but instead it’s grey and cold and it’s a challenge to settle that in my heart. 

For the past 3 or so months I have been living with the need for two things to happen.

  1. this lost holiday – to get a rest, a holiday and an escape! The ship had childcare included which was just going to be so valuable and restorative.Plus the time with my husband and my sister in law and brother in law who are some of our best friends was hopefully going to be life giving 
  2. The one year old starting at the childminder. She had been due to start going two mornings a week after the Easter holiday and it was going to give much needed head space and rest. 

Unfortunately neither of those things are now happening and so I am processing disappointment but also trying to keep my mental health in check and balanced as much as I can. 

As an overthinking worstcase scenario thinker all I can tell you is that this whole pandemic is like living out one of my many and varied worst case scenarios but with no one to be able to tell me that I am being ridiculous which is tough. Interestingly I’ve spent a few weeks so overwhelmed by thoughts and emotions that I haven’t been able to engage with them. But I am slowly finding my thoughts becoming clearer and so that is where this new attempt at blogging springs from.

I hope you’ll enjoy journeying with me as I process random thoughts God places in my mind and also any interesting things I read or listen to.

Much love

Sarah

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What I deserve

Do you ever catch yourself thinking that you deserve something? I don’t mean the things that you actually do deserve like money for a job you’ve worked hard on or recognition for a role that you have played. No I mean catching yourself thinking i deserve X, Y or Z but then realise that there’s no reason you can think of that you deserve it. 

That’s what I caught myself doing earlier today. I was thinking about my birthday. A key piece of information you need for this thinking is that I’ve already made a decision to stick to my calorie tracking on the day, in fact I have gone so far that I have planned exactly WHAT I will eat and when so I don’t have to make any choice. Well when thinking about my birthday I caught this little voice in my head saying but you deserve a treat. I think for the first time EVER I heard this lie and I almost laughed out loud about it. It’s so unbelievably not true that I wonder why I’ve ever believed it before. 

Let’s start by looking at the definition for DESERVE: 

“DESERVE, MERIT, and EARN mean to be worthy of something. DESERVE is used when a person should rightly receive something good or bad because of his or her actions or character” Merriam-Webster

“to merit, be qualified for, or have a claim to (reward, assistance, punishment, etc.)because of actions, qualities, or situation” Dictionary.com 

Now when I look at those descriptions I that it is very clear that to deserve something you have to have DONE something. You need to have DONE an action to EARN it. So if you take that and look at my thought process about my birthday and a treat I am basically arguing that because I was BORN that means I should have a treat…. Now as a mum I think I find this statement more funny because I know full well that the person that deserve the treat for me being born is not me… my mum earned that treat! 

So I think it’s pretty easy to write off this idea that just because I was born I should be allowed to have a treat. But the thought process didn’t stop there, oh no.

What do I deserve? Not just my stomach and my cravings but the whole entire complete me? Mind, body and soul, what do I really DESERVE?

And in response there’s a clear shout. 

I DESERVE TO BE A HEALTHY WEIGHT. 

I DESERVE TO REACH MY TARGET

I DESERVE TO SUCCEED

I DESERVE TO NOT MAKE THIS JOURNEY LONGER

I DESERVE TO SHOW MYSELF I AM WORTH MORE THAN A SIMPLE TREAT

I DESERVE COMMITMENT

I mean if anyone reading this asked me to help support them lose weight and they turned to me and said it’s my birthday I deserve a treat, I sure as heck wouldn’t just say ‘Sure you do, go eat a weeks worth of calories in one day’. Not a chance. I’d be asking them why. I’d be reminding them of what they are aiming for. I’d be asking them if they really wanted to gain a pound or two or three which they will then have to lose again? I’d be reminding them of how much eating isn’t the answer to having a good time or making something fun. So if I wouldn’t let a friend go wild on their birthday without asking them questions and challenging them why on earth am I allowing myself to do it. 

(You may want to consider if you really would want my help cos if you’ve asked I sure as heck am not going to let you just cheat… not even on your birthday!!) 

So that’s the aim. The aim is to remember that I DESERVE more than a treat. I deserve to be healthy and investment in myself on EVERY day of the year. That’s why my meals are planned. Thats what I will remind myself in the morning. I AM WORTH MORE. And so are you.

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Set backs

I wonder if you ever find yourself trying to workout how you ended up back somewhere that you thought you’d left behind for good? I mean emotional and spiritually as well as physically.

As the result of one life change event I find myself wondering how I’m back here. By back here I mean experiencing deep and painful longer for a baby in my womb and in our lives. I also find myself back to comfort eating and having lost the belief that I am worth the effort.

Losing a very wanted baby back in September at 10 weeks pregnant has left such a huge hole in my heart. That grief has tapped into emotions and experiences that we faced when we spent 3 years and 3 months trying for our first baby. Although we have only briefly (so far) been in this situation we find our selves longing for a baby and I find myself feeling the weight of infertility on my shoulders again – despite the fact that at the moment that is not our situation.

The feelings of helplessness, despair, grief, longing, hopelessness, loneliness, jealousy, overwhelmed and sadness flooded back in with the grief of our lost baby and the hope of his life that went with him.

Losing Toby, who’s name means God is good, has not removed the desire to have a baby, it has amplified it. Just because I can’t have THAT baby does not mean that I do not desire to have A baby. Not that a baby will replace Toby and all those lost dreams and the place he would have had in our family and our hearts because there will always be a hole for him. BUT we chose to have Toby because we felt our family was missing one more member, felt we had love to give another baby and so that feeling remains.

3 years of infertility were accompanied by 3 years of comfort eating and dieting in vicious circles of failure and backward steps. In the years since we had our first and second babies I felt God speak to me about how I was worth the effort that it takes to lose weight. Worth the investment. Worth the time. Worth it. I felt that God showed me that was the problem. I never believed I was worth the constant investment that losing weight would take.

When pondering life with God through fasting I found that God spoke to me and revealed something more.

In experiencing infertility and now in experience grief of a miscarriage I find myself having to ask God to get me through each day, because each day feels like a mountain bigger than I can climb alone, sometimes bigger than I want to climb full stop.

In wanting a baby both during infertility and now I find myself committing to petitioning God to give us the desires of our hearts.

In having children I find myself praying that God will protect them, help them to grow, help me to care for them well and make wise decisions.

In a world a throw away marriage I ask God to protect mine, with some baggage from the past to make this feel harder.

God revealed to me that I feel that as I’m already asking so much of God which all feels so important I don’t want to waste His love and grace on something that is just for me. I don’t want Him to be with me and help me to lose weight if it may mean that one of the other things I’m asking for will fall through the gaps.

And YES I can see how proud that statement is, that I think that I can influence God’s actions in such a way, but it is just the truth of the thought process and to be honest I am at a loss on how I will move forward.

It’s so hard to feel like you’ve gone backwards in emotions. It’s so hard to see the progress but feel those past feelings. Emotions are hard.

I don’t have the answers. I’m full of uncertainty and confusion. But I hope that I can help you somehow to feel normal?!

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I need a big stick

Do you ever do ridiculous things to try and help you remember things?

I was running today and I ran past this tree on a drive way. In fact I ran past it three times because i decided to go back and get a photo of it but didn’t want to be obvious so i had to run a few meters past it, turn around and then run back past it to continue on my way. It’s not a great photo because as I said it was taken whilst running but it captures what I wanted it to. It seemed worth going back to get a photo because of the thought process that God used it to prompt in my.

The thought:

That tree is so small, it’s roots aren’t established, and so that tree needs help. It needs a tree bigger than it is to help keep it up and help it settle into the ground.

As I think about weight loss and the past 16 or so months of actually achieving a steady loss and as I think about Lysa TerKeurst’s Made to Crave I can totally see how God would use that image to poke me as I ran past it.

I can totally lose weight on my own. I can do it in my own strength and I can get to my targets AS LONG as nothing gets in my way. As long as I just keep going and keep my head down then why wouldn’t I manage it?

Problem is that I’m not managing it. My roots aren’t deep enough in the weigh loss journey to keep losing weight when things like special occasions or bad days come along and create wind to continue the tree metaphor.

I wobble and I get shoved around although i can maybe withstand it I can’t really achieve or grow and I end stagnant and STUCK!

What I need is the big stick that anchors me in place. What I need is God. I need His strength to sustain my willpower and decision making skills. I need His wisdom to help me make wise choices and eat the things which are beneficial despite everything being permissible. I need Him to help me see that there will be weeks when I can have made all the right choices but I won’t lose weight but that He is pleased with my discipline and pleased with me for making this walk with Him REGARDLESS of the scales and the tape measure.

There will hopefully come a day where my weight loss journey will become a weight maintaining journey and that it won’t be so much about the relationship with God because He will challenging me on the next thing and my roots will be deeper and more able to keep me stable but for now I need this stick to keep me upright!

I’m ignoring the thought process that the trees roots are going to wreck these peoples lovely drive way when it gets bigger and starts pushing them up! You can’t win them all! 😉

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Listening to His whispers

Are you any good at listening to God? More importantly are you any good at listening to Him and DOING something about what you’ve heard?

I’ve had a number of things niggling me for quite some time about what I do next in life. I am a stay at home mum and I don’t intend to change that. In fact I mostly enjoy it and I try to remind myself that work was monotonous too and that’s not just a home thing!

However I have felt God pushing me to take steps in areas of blogging, creating and possible photography.

I was thinking about dreaming the other week when I was looking at writing down my rule of life for small group. My personality and my giftings lend themselves to being a helper. To getting along side someone who comes up with plans and dreams and then helping them to get it done whether that’s with ideas or just doing as they ask me. I realised as I was thinking about this that the problem with being a helper is that when you try and dream for yourself it’s very hard to do. Firstly because it is hard to believe that your dreams might somehow work and not fear that the promptings you hear from God are just your own thoughts. Secondly it’s incredbily hard work out what steps to actually take to actually make progress and who to bring along with you in that dream you’re not sure will work in the first place!

So with these promptings I’ve spent a lot of time putting myself down.

  • I’m not good enough.
  • I don’t have time.
  • No one would want me to take photos.
  • No one would buy something I create.
  • No one would read the blog post.

But the thoughts keep coming back and somewhere in there I am starting to think more and more that it’s a God nudge.

However I keep coming back to that same problem: I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START WITH ANYTHING EVEN IF I WANT TO!!

Since Friday, what I am finding as I try to open myself more up to God’s prompting and strengthening for weight loss, He also seems to be talking to me more about the other things in life and how to move forwards.

I talked with a friend as we went for a walk who reminded me that although I was comparing my abilities with people around me, God has created me as an individual. I am me and no one else is. A good wet fish round the face to remind me stop comparing myself so much and so harshly.

I listened to on Friday as I was running which talked about the reaction of “I can’t” and how this guys Dad had always responded to him “I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me”. He started the talk asking people to think of what their ‘I can’t’ things are. For me the first thought was weight loss. I can’t lose weight, it’s too hard. Secondly, I was about to try doing hill repeats for the first time in my running to help me be a fitter runner. I’m not sure I can do this. It’s going to hurt. It’s too hard. And then I came on to creativity. I can’t. No one would be interested. I’d fail.
Listening to that talk I felt God talking to me about tasking the risk and taking a step. Jumping into what God is calling me to and to stop saying I can’t. Because I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me.
I came home from my run, which by the way I manage 5 reps instead of the 4 I was aiming for, and sat with Ross as we registered my blog domain (WholeheartedJourney) instead of using the free one I’d been using and didn’t like the name of AND we registered a domain for my creative adventure which now feels more like a reality.

I also did some investigating into Compel Training which I had heard of over a year ago but hadn’t gone back to. Compel is part of Proverbs 31 Ministries which is headed up by Lysa TerKeurst of Made to Crave fame. They teach writers to write better. They occasionally open up their enrolment and it’s currently open and so the obvious thing to do is to sign up for a month and see how I get on.

Finally I listened to a talk this morning by a lady called Crystal Evans at the She Talks conference. She talked about being a Kingdom woman. She talked about how invites into interruptions and invitations in life and how, as writers and speakers and leaders, we can use these interruptions to grow and write and share. She said that “it’s in these broken places that the most beautiful things grow” and as she spoke I just felt God’s prompting that He can use the interruptions that have happened in my life for bigger things and that to write about them is wise. Crystal also repeated the idea that God uses us right where we are. We don’t have to be sorted or write but just open to using our gifts for the glory of God and THAT is what makes you a Kingdom woman.

DO WHAT YOU CAN WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

And so I continue to listen. I continue to ask God for His help daily with weight loss hoping that it becomes more of a habit. I continue to hope that I open myself up to God I will hear more of his interruptions and promptings and that I will do what I can with what He has given me knowing that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

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Back to square one

Where’s your head at? That questions always makes me think of Basement Jaxx song and the advert Pringles advert…

But the question is where’s my head at?!

I’ve been having a fight with myself and have been for about 2.5-3 months. The fight is about weight loss and discipline and sticking to what I want to do not doing as Paul says in Romans 7:15:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

I start each day (well most days) with the best of intention to stick to my calories and this week I am going to lose weight and get back on it and be amazing. And then dinner time I’ve eaten something which puts me over my allowance or I get to the evening and I am tired and so I look for something to eat as if somehow that will make me not tired anymore…! The break in America became the month of May not being the end of the world, became fighting to get through June and now nearing the end of July I am just 0.4lb lighter than 2 days before we flew to America four whole months ago.

It’s crazy because it upsets me but I don’t chose to REALLY do something about it which has been the problem for years. It’s not the plan that’s the problem, it’s me.

I’ve debated changing my goal weight, there was nothing really special about 5.5 stone except that it would make me just overweight not obese. I’ve debated just settling where I am but I’m not sure I could find proper peace in that choice. I do not expect the world to just full in place and become happiness and rainbows at my target weight but I feel peaceful that at that weight I will be able to be more at peace with my achievements until I am ready to fight the final 2 stone off – the LOOOOONG term goal!

I’ve tried going back to basics with losing weight and it hasn’t worked. So now I’m going back to different basics. I’ve gone back to reading Lysa TerKeurst’s book Made to Crave and am trying to get a new, more God focused, perspective on the weight loss journey. I’m exhausted from trying to do it in my own strength and feel despair about my lack of progress and so at rock bottom I crawl back to God and ask Him to help me again.

As I go through the questions in the personal reflections I time and time again find that I am saying that my struggle is that making God a part of my every day life is not my habit. That asking Him for help is not my habit. That remember He CAN help is not my habit and find myself frustrated that I don’t really know how to make it habit.

There are positives in this situation. Although I have not lost I have mostly maintained my weight around the same point. A few gains and losses means I have not spiralled and let the weight go back on in frustration at the lack of progress and the disbelief, whether conscious or unconscious, that I am not worth all this time and effort. For those who know that is a MASSIVE change. That spiralling is the reason I spent 6 years on Slimming World gaining and losing the same 1.5 stone without every really making progress.

Also positive is that I recognise the need to change. That sitting in this frustration is not healthy and that I need to get myself to my target to release myself from  it by getting to my target.

It’s time to get more serious about making this journey one where I rely on God and hopefully then make progress to meet my goals BUT more importantly I hopefully will develop my relationship with God opening myself up more to hearing from Him, being more aware of His presence and the feel more of the push from Him to take chance and move forward in all areas of life.

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Can of worms

Do you ever start something simple and realise what you thought was simple is in actual fact a huge ginormous can of worms?!

That’s me this week having opened a book to write up some notes. I read the book months ago but wanted to have the notes somewhere in all one place. As I went throught the book I was reminded again about the power of the things in the book and how it spoke so clearly into my life.

Made to Crave (which I’ve mentioned in previous posts) is a book which turns dieting and weightloss away from just a health or physical thing and rightly positions it to be an act of disciple with and obedience to God. Our bodies are a temple of God and we should look after and respect our bodies are just that – a dwelling of God.

Some key things started jumping back out of the book at me, things I’ve pushed aside or forgotten. One particular thing was about how we view our bodies and what they are worth. I think it comes down to value. And that is what I time and time again fail to grasp.

But as I thought this evening I began to wonder whether actually I do grasp this but it’s my habit that stops me from feeling it or believing it. Am I so ingrained in the belief that I’m not loveable that it’s go to thought process? Do I actually believe that or do I in actual fact believe that I am loved by God just-as-I-am? Is it not so much the belief I can’t grasp as the habit i cannot seem to break?!

And this is where my can of worms remains… More thoughts and ideas, more room for God to speak but still no sureness on how to step forward and how to break this emotion that stops me from living fully loved and working out of that place. The past? A habit? A scar? A trap? A lack of experience? Not enough feeling? All of the above?!

I am neck deep in my can of worms!

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The heart knowledge 

Have you seen the film frozen? Brace yourself but I haven’t… it’s worse because we own it but haven’t actually watched it! 🤦🏼‍♀️  I do however feeel like I’ve seen it given how many of the songs I know and how much of the storyline I know!

This isn’t a completely random thought it’s linked to the continuance of the topic nagging, maybe I shall call it God nagging?! But I’ll get to that in a second – just thought I should confess my lack of Frozen viewing with you before I continue!

We established I have the head knowledge for a renewing of my mind just not the feeling, the heart knowledge.

It’s something that feels too big for me to find the solution to. In fact I think this is often the point that I get to in the topic when it crops up. Knowing what I need to know but not feeling it and not knowing how to move forward to feel it.

As I ran this afternoon I listened to a talk on love and came back to a statement about really struggle with.

Susie who was speaking said: “The secret to loving people and doing relationships well is being loved my God” She then quoted Tim Keller: “Before love is a behaviour, love is an experience. We have to be captured by that love, shattered by that love and only then can it empower us to love”.

What I struggle with in this statement is that I don’t feel that I know I am loved and worth the effort etc BUT I do feel that I know how to love others. Seriously my brain really struggles because the statement when it comes up time and time again makes me doubt my love for others. Either I am loving wrong or am loving from the wrong place. OR I have felt loved by God at times and that’s enough to enable me to love people well? OR loving people would be easier if I lived loved? You’ll be sensing my confusing on the subject I suspect!!

I don’t know that answer.

I read a Proverbs 31 Ministries devotional this morning that touched on this subject. The writer was communicating on Galations 5:1 and how we are free because of Christ and that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be burdened by things because of that.

THIS is where the Frozen reference will start to make some sense. As I read the devotional it talked about how we slip into habits of pain or frustration and that even once the pain is gone we continue to feel it. God has taken away the ‘issues’ in life by dying on the cross for us but we often limp around as if we are still holding them. We need to let go of the past and walk without the limp.

I’m pretty sure that my past is what puts up all the road blocks to me living loved and knowing and experiencing just how loved I am. I’m pretty that I need to Let It Go as the song would say because that is what the bible calls me to do.

Nothing complicated or anything!!!!! I just need to let go of things and learn to live loved…..

Just don’t know how to get past a life time of past and move forward without the baggage holding on and holding me down.

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The head knowledge

Do you ever find yourself coming across the same topic from numerous sources? Like it keeps coming up over and over and you get to the point that you start thinking that perhaps you should start piecing together?

For me the past few days have seen the same topic coming up. The topic involves self worth, body image, caring for and loving yourself. It’s not a new topic for me but it is something that I’ve never come to a positive conclusion on.

I didn’t lose weight the way I wanted to this week. I was annoyed. I didn’t deserve a tiny gain (and yes I can see that it is a tiny gain, but I still didn’t deserve it!) I was cross that my body doesn’t respond the way that scientifically it should. Calories in minus more calories out should scientifically equal less weight. SCIENCE SUCKS. Well that’s my current opinion! I’ll get over it, well I may get over it!

Going back to the topic of self worth and body image, the question my devotion book (Savor: Shauna Niequiest) posed to me today was:

What would it take for you to live well in your body this season?

My immediate reaction is to think along physical lines; lose weight, lose inches, get nice clothes. I move onto mental thoughts; be more confident, accept where I am, recognise my progress. However, because of the series of repeated messages my brain moved on to the idea of the renewing of my mind.

The devotional email that I had read first thing this morning was all 3 steps for renewing your mind. And so with that fresh in my mind I was prompted to back to look back to the email and I pulled out a few keys words for each of the steps:

Renewing you mind

  1. Recognise negative thoughts – Does this thought help me? Is it true? Does it steal my peace? Does it match with God’s word? – Awareness is the first step to controlling thoughts
  2. Reject negative thoughts – If you’ve decided it’s not really true, don’t allow yourself to entertain it any more. – Take control of what you’re thinking rather than letting it run rampant.
  3. Replace negative thoughts – We have the authority and power to reject those negative thoughts and shift them to be more positive. 

Tracie Miles: Proverbs 31 Ministries

I think I probably do step one most of the time. I think I probably don’t do step two or step three! I’m an overthinker. I’m a look at the worst case scenario and then let that develop for the next 3 days thinker. I recognise this as part of my personality but I just don’t seem to be able to win. Although to be fair on myself I’m not sure how much I try and there are times when my overthinking is actually a positive part of my personality it’s just that for it to be a positive part it was to be based on step one above in particular IT IS EVEN TRUE?!?!?!

I decided to spend some time thinking about what I know (my head knowledge) of what God thinks about me. I came up with 27 “I am…..” statements.

IMG_4625.jpg

I was quite surprised how many I could come up with and to be fair I could probably think of more if I hadn’t filled the page with these ones. 

What I’m beginning to realise is that I have the head knowledge for a transformed heart and for the negative to stop winning, I’m just know sure I have the heart feelings to go with it. As a feeler in personality that’s a big deal! 

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Bottling it

Don’t you wish you could bottle some emotions? I don’t mean bottle them up and ignore them, I can already do that. What I mean is how good would it be to bottle up an emotion to be able to go back to and remind yourself exactly how something feels?

I think it’s so much easier to remember how a negative emotions feels than a positive one. Maybe that’s my personality? Or my outlook on life?

I’ve been pondering how useful it would be to be able to just open a bottle and remember exactly how somethings feels as a top up to willpower.

Willpower is such a fallible thing. You can have huge amounts of it in one moment and then none in seconds. Willpower is a finite thing to be fair. If you use it all up without replenishing it then it fails.

In a moment of achievement you feel like you can achieve anything and everything. Like that positive feeling will carry you through even when it’s tough.

Problem being it doesn’t stay. That positive moment fades and the willpower takes a life battering and all of a sudden you’re striving to just cope let alone win.

For me it’s food. Seems to always be food. I find myself wondering if it’ll always be food that I fight with.

[^^^ that thought just there is what I’m talking about when I talk about losing the high of achievement or the willpower runs low. The negative ‘I-will-always-be-this-way-woe-is-me’ thought.]

I lost 4lb last week after an amazing week of discipline and high willpower. 4lb took me to 11.8lb away from my first proper target minus 5.5 stone. And 4.8lb away from a mini target. In that moment I have the confidence to feel like I could achieve anything. Less than a stone away from a big milestone – I could easily do that in like a week?! (No one said I was being realistic – ha!)

But 6 days later I find myself battling myself with little willpower. All the things I found easy last week are hard this week. I’m hungry, but I know I’m not actually hungry. I’m finding it hard to be disciplined. I’m finding it hard to have a positive mental attitude. And because of that my willpower is battered and so I’m giving in, being dejected. Frustrated once again.

What bugs me is I can reason with myself I can do this. I can reason with myself that I’m worth the effort. That the food won’t help. That I don’t need it. That I was so pleased last week when I did well and achieved. But with that thought in my head I still eat the food…. WHY? Makes me cross with myself and the world around me.

So thats why I want to bottle that emotion of ‘I-can-achieve-anything-ever’ and just pop it open and REALLY feel it. Really remember how well I can do.

What also bugs me is as I think about this topic and as I work through the thought processes I KNOW there is another way of dealing with this all with God’s help. The problem is that I’ve never really worked out how to do this whole God and weight loss thing. I don’t know how to turn to him in the moments of weakness and depleted willpower and say ‘God you gotta help me’.

If I could work out how to do that then maybe that would be a little like bottling up the emotion to tap into but perhaps even better.