When Was the Last Time...

When was the last time the following songs were top-10 radio hits?

• "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears
• "I Wanna Know What Love Is" by Foreigner
• "One More Night" by Phil Collins
• "Saving All My Love for You" by Whitney Houston

When was the last time the Kansas City Royals won the World Series?






When were the following toys introduced?

• Teddy Ruxpin
• Care Bears
• Pound Puppies

When was the last time this ring was worn on a regular basis?









The answer for every question is the same: 1985.  That's 26 years ago!  That's more than half of my lifetime (so far) ago!  Friends, no matter how one views it, that's a L - O - N - G time...

I bought that ring in Santa Fe, New Mexico after my first year in college.  But within six months after purchasing it, I had gained enough weight to make it uncomfortable when on my finger.  It became increasingly difficult to take off, and I reached the point that I wasn't sure if I could even get it off after putting it on, so I quit wearing it.

It disappeared into a keepsake box and remained packed away until a few years ago when we moved to our current location.  I was quite excited to find it again, but knew there was no way it could go on my finger.  But that didn't stop me from trying.

It didn't even make it past the first knuckle join on my ring finger.  It really didn't even fit on my pinky finger.  So I put it into a drawer and forgot about it again.

As I began to lose weight this year, that ring occasionally came out of the drawer "for a test fit."  Each time, it came a little further down the finger, but not enough.  Finally I told myself that I would not try again until I broke through the 190 pound mark.  Over this past weekend, I finally did so, and VIOLA!  it fits!!

In some ways, the success of fitting this ring on my finger is even more significant emotionally than walking my daughter down the aisle last month weighing 198 pounds.  I didn't expect that to be true.  But putting on this ring effectively "erases" my adulthood obesity.  It's like God has reset my biological clock back to that 18 year old kid, but now with the wisdom and commitment of adulthood to proper nutrition and exercise.  It's also a validation of Jesus' words,

"Have faith in God! I assure you that whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea’—and doesn’t waver but believes that what is said will really happen—it will happen. Therefore I say to you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you will receive it, and it will be so for you." (Mark 11:22-24)

I have believed that God will be honored through my body, that God will give me the enthusiasm for exercise and proper nutrition, and that I will lose weight and gain strength through this process.  And as a side benefit, I now can wear something that I thought would forever be beyond my grasp!  Just goes to show, "With God, all things are possible!"

"Eat This, Lose Weight" the Headline Screams

I received the February 2011 issue of Readers Digest last week.  The cover features two sunny-side-up eggs and a slice of curved bacon.  The overall effect is a smiley face.  In bold all-caps is the headline, "EAT THIS, LOSE WEIGHT: The New Science of Dieting."

If you've read the last several posts of this blog, you know that I'm working on weight loss and healthy living, so this cover obviously intrigued me.  What is this new science that says I should eat bacon and eggs?  Something new from Dr. Atkins?  Wait, isn't he dead?

So I turned to page 110, and read the interview with Gary Taubes regarding his new book, Why We Get Fat - And What to Do About It.  (Unfortunately, RD hasn't posted the article online, so you'll have to read it in the paper format.)  Taubes isn't specifically an Atkins Diet shill, but he does support most of what the Atkins diet proponents say.  But that's not the point of this post.  Taubes is clearly on to something else when he said this in the interview:

"There's this absolutely fundamental idea when it comes to weight and obesity - that the way we get fat is that we take in more calories than we expend.  It's the gluttony and sloth hypothesis: We eat too much and exercise too little.  It sounds undeniable, as commonsensical as can be, and it's actually nonsense - it doesn't tell us anything meaningful about why we get fat.  If I get fatter, its obvious that I must have overeaten.  But if you ask the question, Why did you overeat? Well, that question I can't answer - not with the calories-in/calories-out theory of weight gain."

While I don't think the calories in/out ratio is nonsense, Taubes is absolutely right that the science behind that theory ignores the question of why the ratio is out of whack for so many of us.  Even more, it doesn't help us to know how to get the ratio back into a correct balance over the long haul.  The Yo-Yo dieter is the person who works to fix the ratio, succeeds for a while, but then the ratio gets out of whack and the pounds pour back on.  The cycle continues until one of two things happens: either the person gets the ratio permanently in balance, or the person quits trying.

I can't guess at how those two groups break down, but I wouldn't be surprised if the split were less than 5% balancing their ratio long-term and more than 95% giving up trying.  The latter group is instead increasingly turning to something more drastic than watching what they eat - they're reducing their internal capacity to eat.  Yes, bariatric surgeries: stomach staples, gastric bypasses, lap bands, etc.  A family member had this done, and the results were truly remarkable: more than 150 lbs were shed in a little over 12 months.  But there are other stories where the dream became a nightmare from complications, botched procedures, infections, etc.  I'm not convinced that's right for me - especially since I want to get to the why of Taubes' question.  Why do I overeat?

"The past 40 or 50 years, obesity research has basically been an attempt to explain why obese people just don't have the moral rectitude of lean people, without actually saying that.  It's terribly damaging.  It's inexcusable, but it's still conventional wisdom.  Most doctors don't want to deal with obese patients because they think they're dealing with someone who simply doesn't care enough to do what they do: eat in moderation and exercise."

Hmmm ... did you catch what Taubes has done in each of these quotes?  He says the established science behind obesity is treating overeating as a moral issue:  the "gluttony and sloth hypothesis" and "moral rectitude of lean people" versus fat people.  But, he says, they don't really want to admit to that.

Fat people are immoral??  That sounds terrible.  But what if it's true?  Is being overweight an example of sinfulness in a person's life?  Nobody likes to be called a sinner, and yet all of us are sinners.  No one wants their specific sins spelled out, yet confession is required. (See 1 John 1:9)  So if over-eating is a sin, then I should name it as such, confess it as such, and then repent of it.

Repenting means to do something different.  In this case, don't overeat.  Simple, right?  Not!  Remember the Yo-Yo dieters syndrome?  Or the 220,000 Americans who underwent some form of bariatric surgery in 2009?

I don't have the wisdom to provide the answer to this question.  I can only deal with it within my own self-limitations.  So far, I've successfully changed my behaviors in a way that weight is coming off.  I'm actually wearing a pair of slacks from my storage bucket today that were put away years ago as too tight to wear.  Cool!! New slacks and I didn't go to the store to buy them!!

Take a look at the Readers' Digest interview (if you can get a copy).  Read the articles on Atkins and bariatric surgery.  What do you think about all of this?  Should we think of it as sin?