Scales are for fish.

Raise your hand if you have a scale in your bathroom at home.  (Of course I can't see if you are raising it, but I appreciate your participation in my game anyways...). I think the presence of a scale in a bathroom is pretty standard nowadays.  We all get up in the morning, step on the scale and watch to see our fate.  Did the scale catch the extra slice of pizza we ate yesterday?  Did it catch the extra hour at the gym? Wait... surely that must be water weight, the scale can't be right today.  We have all expressed these thoughts as we step on the scale.
Scales are a measurement tool.  Scales are also terrifying.  It can dictate many things if you let it: your self-worth, your will power, your attitude for the day, your confidence, your mood. 
On the flip side, scales do serve a purpose. Scales keep us in check.  When we are on an extreme of over-indulgence, it reminds us of our excessive habits.  Scales help us when we are pregnant to ensure healthy growth of the little human growing inside of us. When we are trying to lose weight it allows us to do so safely by making sure the weight loss will maintain.  For many, unfortunately, scales have more negative effects than purpose.  Consumed so much by the numbers, scales trap people within two or three digits. To someone with an eating disorder, scales can be crippling.  To someone with an eating disorder, no matter the number, that amount is too much. There is no way to release the power the scale has until you step off of it.  For good.
As I am on my journey to recovery, I want so badly to step on a scale and let it prove that it was a bad idea for me to stop my toxic habits.  With each meal that I eat, I want to hop on the scale, show the number to everyone and go back to my old ways.  I am eating too many calories, I argue to myself.  The calories are sticky.  My body absorbs them like a sponge, forever glued to my stomach.  I am in some distorted way convinced that I am expanding with every bite.  I secretly wish to have not entered recovery until after my goal weight.  Lose 20 more pounds and then I'll hop on the recovery train.
But here I stop.  I know from the inmost parts of my being that this path is destructive.  While still trapped by a number on a scale and an image in my head, I know that freedom WILL indeed come.  It will involve scales, but not the scale telling me a number that defines how I get to feel about myself. I must stay off of those.  Rather I will have the scales removed from my eyes, the scales that have blinded me from seeing the beautiful handiwork of God that stares at me from the mirror.  The scales that have caused me to forget that I am an image bearer of God and I have been created to carry His image exactly in the way he designed all of me to bear, with my body, mind and soul. 

Lose the scales from our bathrooms, from our eyes.

"So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Genesis 1:27

Annoying Orange vs. All of the Other Annoying Breakfast foods

   
Alarm goes off. Time to get up and start the day. Take a shower, get dressed, brush your teeth, then oh yeah... eat. What is your breakfast routine? Is it your biggest meal, hot and fresh from the stove? Is it a quick granola bar and a shake as you run out the door to that meeting you are late to? Is it an Egg McMuffin that you stop to buy on your way? Or is it that first annoyance of the morning, that first battle to scare away any calorie that might chose to stay on your body forever? Do you skip it and stave off the hunger, filling your stomach with calorie free liquids? Do you eat just enough veggies to make the growling go away? Or do you eat "normally" and hope that you aren't hungry for a very long time and map out the exercises for the rest of the day that are going to insure those calories don't take permanent residency on your thigh?
Without a healthy relationship with food, meal times can seem annoying. Hunger pangs are a nuisance. The shakes you get from hour 3 of a workout when you have not nearly reached that amount of calories in your daily intake are obnoxious. A goal to rid the body of every trace of food that has travelled its digestive path overwhelms the brain. As I write these thoughts down, they may seem surprising to readers. These ideas however, I write anyways because I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am not the only one in the world who resonates with them.
I do not end there, however. While the annoyance of food clamors loudly in my brain, I simultaneously carry the knowledge of food's purpose. God created food. God created the animals that roam the land and the plants that cover the ground for our consumption. Food sustains us and permits us to carry out our purpose on this Earth with full strength.
God wasn't just about sustaining us but also blessing us. We could have just lived on manna from the sky but he permitted food to be a delight. Food comes in many forms as God creatively designed the textures, the vibrant colors, the varying tastes and wealth nutrients. God in his mercy allowed each edible thing to play a different note on our tongue creating a magnificent orchestra that energizes our body to dance and move in accordance. Salty, bitter, savory, sweet blessings of God nourish us for His work and plan for our life.
While the lies of food as the enemy are loud in my head, I cling to the reminder of what food is and how it benefits me. I turn the volume up on God's truth until it drowns out the lies that ensnare me and leave me defenseless for His purpose in my life. Day by day, I will learn to honor the gift of food and thank God the sustainer for His provision to carry out His plan for my life. I will learn how to restore the relationship I have with food. I will graciously allow the English muffin with jam into my system and praise God for my body, my temple and the mere fact that I may live another day.

"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10:31

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear

Today was the second attempt at rock climbing.  Now this is an important fact, when considering that I have lived with an insane fear of heights that has left me hyperventilating after I get more than about 10 feet up in the air.  I have now officially rock climbed and reached the summit of both an indoor and an natural wall.  BIG. DEAL.  The funny thing is though is that the feat doesn't seem to make the heights easier.  My fear has not magically disappeared.  Each time I smack that last hold at the top with a triumphant yell, "done!" I am still just as terrified as the last time.  I wonder when that feeling will subside?
I wonder the same thing about having an eating disorder.  I know that I know that I know that what I view in the mirror is an inaccurate depiction of what others see when they look at me but the feeling remains. No matter how many inches were lost, muscle mass is gained and skinny jeans I can slip on and off, I am left with a reminder imprinted in my brain of what is still not enough. Just one more inch, one more pound, one more muscle defined.   The feeling doesn't subside.  The drive to be perfect from every angle is frightening at times.  The mirror does not encourage.
This is the time when you have to just learn to let go.  It is not easy. I am certain that on my own I will never conquer these lies my brain tells me about my body. I am also confident that there is a God who has already claimed the victory on this battle. God WILL give me His eyes.  I WILL see myself as he sees me.  I just get to lean into Him and he is there.  He reminds me that I am cherished, treasured, free.

Brave.

"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." 2 Timothy 1:7. (emphasis mine)

We are post #4 in this series of blogging.  My posts have been intermittent and quiet reluctantly written.  It is hard to be vulnerable.  Hard to peel back the layers that so safely protect us from what has the potential to ruin us, to wound our hearts and destroy our reputation.  Soul searching throughout this season has revealed to me the root cause, a wound carefully placed in the innermost corner of my heart for no one to find.  The reality of things in hiding however is that the maintenance of keeping something hidden is challenging.

I think that in the midst of soul searching and finding the root of it all, I have realized something greater.  2 Timothy talks about the spirit that is inside us as believers. Tonight I had the privilege of being prayed over, empowered and reminded of God's promise to His children. I was affirmed that the parts of me that I see as broken fragments are in fact whole. 

So now upon receiving this truth, I am left with two options.  Option 1: I play the woe-is-me fiddle and sob at a sad story that happened once some long time ago or Option 2: I believe the promises of God, let him remind me of the kind of spirit that lives inside of me, and experience restoration.  I think I'll take the later. The chains are there, threatening to bind me and prohibit me from God's kingdom work but the Spirit inside of me is calling me to be courageous. The story that I have is mine.  The heartache and trauma is written but it will not define who I get to be and how the Creator plans to use me.  I. will. be. BRAVE.

"Restoration is more than mending broken hearts and bringing closure to sad chapters in life; it is God refusing to let us remain spiritually sick, reviving our hearts and redeploying his children to go back into constructive service for him." -unknown

Where do you begin?

Binging, it happens.  Then there is remorse.  Why did I eat that? Why couldn't I stop myself.  Ok, ok. Tomorrow I am going to throw away all of the... and only eat..... and I will make sure that I... The plan, that you keep on planning but somehow never sticks. How do you start?  Where do you begin? Do you go cold turkey? Never touch another sweet again?  Where do you begin.  Where do you begin...

The root cause is not in the bottom of a tub of ice cream.

Trust me.  I've checked.  The root cause is not in the bottom of a tub of ice cream.   Not in the Cookies n Cream or the Cake Boss Red Velvet or the Half Baked.  None of them.  There is still a lot I don't know about eating disorders and as I explore, I hunt desperately for the reason for mine. I was loved and affirmed as a child, I have a great community that loves and encourages me daily, but I have no root cause.  Why does suddenly the slightest stress send me spiraling down into bowl number 3 of cereal?  I suppose the end of the journey has this answer but until then, time to dig, grain by grain, clump by clump through the dirt to unearth the roots below.

Becoming Louis Lane

This blog goes out to all of the wonderwomen of the world.  The ones who try to be everybody's everything.  The perfectionists. The leaders of. The go-getters. The ones-who-everyone-can-slack-around-them-because-they-have-their-stuff-together-ers. You.
We are a special breed of people.  Somehow we have convinced both ourselves and the world that we have some special chromosome that makes us magically capable of accomplishing more than the average person and to a greater degree of perfection. 
As we strive to achieve unrealistic goals, all to often we find ourselves frustrated and wondering how our efforts could be so fruitless.  It may seem as silly as trying to touch the moon by jumping on a trampoline to most, however to us, it is a very real.
This same struggle to achieve perfection is not always just found in our careers, it often affects every molecule of our being.  It goes without saying that some of those molecules affected are the fatty ones, the ones that we stare at and wish weren't there.  The ones that if they would only go away, then we would be content.  Just one more hour on the treadmill, denying one more bowl of ice cream, lifting one more weight, eating one more meal of celery.  Are they gone yet? Nope. And back to the hamster wheel we go. Must...gain...perfection...Must...be...superwoman...No...flaws...visible.
Binge eating they say is common among perfectionists.  The meticulous calorie counting, going to the gym for hours on end each day, getting frustrated by the lack of results as we stare in the mirror, eating thousands upon thousands of calories to comfort ourselves then repeating the cycle.  It is a vicious cycle and one that is hard to break. 
This post marks the start of one journey.  A journey in attaining not a trophy for best body but freedom (a gift far better than any accolade).  Freedom experienced by trading in Superwoman's cape for much more fitting attire.  Becoming Louis Lane.