Trading one strong hold for another????

About 24 hours into this now and I must say I am enjoying it. In the session 1 video Lysa talks about choosing to feel empowered over deprived. I was really liking that. I can have power over that ice cream or that Venti something something at Starbucks that I sometimes "forget" to order in the skinny version. Then I was doing my Bible study this morning - finishing an old one that I joined late - and it made me think of something.

Food, or more importantly too much food, is a stronghold for me; however, if I am not careful I can turn it a complete 180 and start to deny myself and let that take control over me. I think that would be quite prideful - look I can say NO to everything I want, I have that power. That would be just as bad as the pit I find myself out of now.

That is what I did with the Weight Watchers program. I followed that program to a "T". When my daily allotted points were used up that was it, I was D-O-N-E, DONE. I would even go to bed at 7:00 to keep from eating. One helpful thing I did do was take out the trash (I walked to the dumpster) when I would want to snack sometimes, but you get the picture. Looking back now I know it was all about control (yea, me and control issues - go figure). Food was the only thing in my life I could control. I moved 700+ miles away, knew no one, had a terminally ill Dad, started a new job - which is another Blog itself, but I could control what I put in my mouth. I was also doing it for shallow, vain, and not so Godly reasons and as Lysa pointed out in the introduction of the book - "vainty seeking want-to would never last" (pg.16) - sorry cite out of habit. I was letting the "empowerment" take over and control me. Let me just tell you when I gave in just an itsy bitty little bit - well let's just say when I went back to WW she weighed me twice, she didn't believe anyone could gain that much in a week. Oh Yes I did!

She also talks about it being easier to make excuses than changes. Oh how true this is! I think I have used every excuse in the book. The latest being - why bother, I can get it off but I can't keep it off. Hence the search for something any the devine intervention of stumbling onto Made to Crave.

So after the doctor today (I got an antibiotic incidently) and saw my cholesterol is in the truly less than desirable zone, but I think just shy of the danger zone (flash backs to Top Gun song) I went to Fresh Market - for those of you who don't know what that is, I am sorry - love the Fresh Market. There is one in Destin if you are vacationing there - but I digress. The picture at the top (until I learn to insert them where I want them) is what I made for lunch. Quite good I might add. I need to go back to what I learned in the spring of my 8th grade year at Dover Middle School - when you are eating that is ALL you do. You don't read, talk on the phone, watch TV, or anything else - so many other things we can do today that weren't even available to us back in 1986 (ouch!).

As you can tell by that, I have been at this weight loss thing a long time, so I pretty much have the How To down, I am now working on the Want to. More on that tomorrow!