31 Days: #13 A fondness for junk-food

When I'm going through something horrible, it's easy for me to lose weight because I can't eat when I'm upset. But when I'm happy, it's time to pull out the fat clothes. And since I'm pretty happy these days, I'm to the point where I can barely button my very fattest jeans.

We're always on the go and it's way too easy to hit the drive-thrus around town (which we do several times a week). I try not to keep too much junk in my house, but if I gave into temptation I'd load the cupboard up with Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Cheetos, Doritos, every other kind of chip under the sun, every other sweet known to man, and almost all other varieties of junk food. And for meals I would fix nothing but spaghetti, fettucini alfredo, pizza, tacos, mac and cheese, and whatever other full-of-carbs meal you can think of.

So as busy as we are and as much as I crave the wrong foods, then when you throw in my disorganization and poor meal-planning habits, unhealthy eating is a real battle. And it's been heavy on my heart to do better--and to somehow try to undo the damage I've done in not teaching my kids to eat healthier foods. One of them has actually said to me before, "Mom, why do we have to be so healthy around here?!" (What do you do with that?)

I read somewhere recently about a girl who totally gave up sugar. She said she asked the Lord for help and then leaned into Him during times of temptation rather than running toward that which tempted her. So I decided to try the same thing, and this is my new prayer:

Lord, my body is Your temple, so help me treat it as such. Create a desire in me to eat the foods You've given me in their wholest form possible. Please repulse me with the things that are bad for me. Seriously, Lord, make them seem completely gross and disgusting to me. Also, please put a desire in the hearts of my kids to want to eat more healthfully. I don't want them complaining every time I fix a healthy meal.

And you know what? I'm starting to feel differently about what I put into my body. The yucky stuff (even the good-tasting yucky stuff) isn't as appealing to me all of the sudden. In the last week I've crossed paths with three different people who have talked about going all organic and how much healthier it is. They've told stories of unexplained illnesses that disappeared after cutting out all the processed stuff and eating natural foods. 

Yesterday I had a friend ask me if I've ever eaten an organic apple. I said I hadn't. She said, "If you ever do, you'll never want the other kind again!"

So I went shopping last night, and today I had my first-ever organic apple. And it was delicious. As I was checking out at the store, I added one more line to my prayer: Lord, help me somehow pay for this expensive food. But I have a feeling I'd be able to afford a better diet if I abandoned buying the bad stuff in favor of the good.

And here's the biggest miracle of all. My fifteen-year-old son who's 6'2" and the hungriest in the house (the one who hates being "healthy" all the time), came to me the other day and said he wants to start eating healthier and to please not let him have junk anymore, even if he asks for it. Thank You, Lord.

So these are my guidelines:

• Skip processed foods
• Get enough protein
• Eat as many colors as possible
• Don't overcook the vegetables
• Go organic as much as I can afford (dairy and fruit, at the very least)
• Stick with the true serving sizes
• Buy only all-natural, no hormone meat (I'd love to do wild-caught fish and free-range chicken, but it's crazy-expensive)
• Get out and move more (this could be a post in itself) 

Just seeing it in print makes me feel better. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

{p.s. This is my 100th post!}

*This post is part of a series running through the month of October 2011. Read from the beginning here.  Find the other 31-Dayers here.

Too many Tootsie Rolls

The other day I read a really good Proverbs 31 devotional by Lysa TerKeurst entitled The Slippery Slope. It's about a married woman who fell into a devastating deception that began all because of a little attention paid her by a man she wasn't married to.

It seemed innocent enough at first--just a mild attraction. But one thing led to another as it always does, and before long she was meeting with him in secret. And down the slippery slope she slid.

Lysa writes, "Things being done in secret are an indication of being led by Satan." She talks about how Satan loves to keep us operating in our dark secrets, and about how skilled he is at keeping us blind to what's really going on.

After all, deceiving people is one of the things he does best. And though I'm not married anymore, I definitely get what it's like to be deceived by the wicked one.

I also know all about falling into the trap of too many secrets. A few hours after I read Lysa's devotional, I was sitting in an all-day meeting at work, and there was a bowl of Tootsie Rolls on the table in front of me. I don't even really like Tootsie Rolls (I'd rather splurge on real chocolate), so for the first two hours of the meeting, I did just fine. But then I got bored, and what did I do? I reached for a Tootsie Roll.

Then I got another. And I wrapped the first wrapper up in the second ... you know, to hide that I'd had two Tootsie Rolls. Then I ate another, and wrapped the first two wrappers up inside the third wrapper, just to keep the number private.

And I kept going. And pretty soon, I'd wrapped up so many wrappers inside new wrappers that I ended up with one great big ball of Tootsie Roll wrappers.

Suddenly it was no longer easy to hide that I'd eaten something like nineteen dumb pieces of candy. And I was embarrassed. Ashamed. All I wanted to do was hide the big ball.

And then I thought of the devotion I'd read just that morning, about keeping secrets. I realized that it's not just about hiding the extreme behaviors. I have all sorts of little things I don't want anyone to know about. Eating ... spending ... being lazy ... you know, stuff like that.

So, my lesson in this Tootsie Roll escapade is that if I am doing something that I for any reason feel compelled to hide or keep secret, then I need to question whether I should be doing it or not. So I'm making it my new goal to live a life free of deep, dark secrets.

It's not always about the Tootsie Rolls, as this is one of my less scandalous secrets. But I'm guessing that my new secret-free life will not only help me shed a few extra pounds, but also bring to light many other shameful burdens (big and small) that I tend to carry around. It's strange how freeing the exposure of sin can be. What irony.

Or, maybe it's not so ironic. After all, the light of Jesus has a way of making the prince of darkness look like a fool.