My diet over the past two weeks has consisted of VERY LOW carbs, no dairy, very lean proteins, all the vegetables I hate and none of the ones I love. Absolutely NO breads or cereals (more food that I love)! Jesus said it all in a nut shell “Man cannot live on bread alone.”(Matthew 4:4) When I read this I hear, “I know bread is your favorite! But for cryin’ out loud, you cannot survive on it forever. You will get fat and die.” This personal translation may be a tad over the line (ok, it’s so far over the line than I can no longer see the line.) But I’m fairly sure you get the gist. If not reined in, my love affair with simple carbs will be the reason I have to dig a hole and stay close to it.
I have days where I simply cannot eat another salad, and on those days I begin my previously mentioned (check last blog) rationalization wrestling match. For instance, my birthday was this past Saturday and my husband, who is the beacon of hope and light for all things birthday, asked me what flavor of cake I wanted. My first instinct was to say “Thanks babe, but let’s not do birthday cake this year.” But what I heard myself say was “White cake with almond icing!” I suddenly felt like Charlie McCarthy with someone’s hand shoved up my back controlling my every word! Well, I quickly surmised that with a house full of birthday guest (my cake loving family) one must consider their needs and not my own. I can just hear someone saying, “Hey! How about you get off the cross, we need the wood!”
Later that day I called the afore mentioned husband and requested Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate ice-cream (to go with the cake). To what sort of sick level had I sunk? In my defense I will tell you that I was VERY careful with what I ate that day and was counting every calorie so that I would have “left over” calories to spend on cake and ice –cream. With all that said, I can report that I still lost a pound that day! Hooray! Allison 1 – Cake 0.
Before we all begin to celebrate my small victory, let me remind you of one small birthday cake detail….there is almost always leftovers. I had managed to avoid being tempted by that simple white bakery box sitting on the counter, until yesterday. The event that ultimately brought about my knee buckling down fall was twofold. I had just finished laundering two sets of 1000 thread count pillow cases (That I had purchased CHEAP from Tuesday Mornings. Insert sound of joy and mirth.) and it was way past my lunch time. Now, if you know anything at all about high thread count textiles, then you know that when you pull them out of the dryer, they look as if you have balled them up and carried them around in your purse for a week! I would like to stop here for a second and say that I am by no stretch of the imagination an “uppity” person. I don’t feel that I deserve or need high thread count sheets and pillow cases….I just want them. I love them. However, I hate to iron them! Combine my hatred of ironing with feeling incredibly hungry and you get diet disaster!!!! Ironing pillow cases for 15 minutes had somehow earned me the right to eat cake and ice-cream for lunch. Is it just me or did you just hear the sound of the needle being dragged across the record? Yes, I did it. I admit it.
I must accept that I will have days where I crash and burn, but I’m going to go ahead and let myself off the hook. It’s not worth wasting time on.
I drove past a church marquee today. Usually these little boogers are so cheesy and stupid that they are downright embarrassing. But this one summed it all up for me today. It read, “Jesus understands how you feel.” Yes He does understand! There is nothing that I might suffer that He hasn’t already suffered. He knows how I feel. He is with me on this crazy journey and for that, I am grateful beyond measure. “He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.” (Psalm 62:6)
