The past four months and several odd days have been quite a journey for me. Most of you may not know this, and some of you do, but I’ve lost a little over 60 pounds since 27 September 2011. I am only part of the way to my destination, so the journey is still in progress.
A few people showing curiosity asked me on more than one occasion how I’ve been able to lose so much weight so quickly. I don’t tell them about the plan I am using (Metabolic Research Center Weight Loss Plan) as much as I tell them about what drove me to lose the weight.
But first, some background to give you understanding…
From my youngest years until I was in my mid 30’s, I was thin. I was very thin in high school, never weighing more than 150lbs. My sports were Cross-Country and Track, and I had the perfect body for those. In college it was much the same story. Even going into my 20’s and joining the U.S. Air Force, my weight never advanced beyond 175lbs. I exercised and did a relatively good job regulating my food intake and the types of food I ate. Even after Brenda and I married in 1991, the weight stayed stable and manageable, despite the inevitable gain caused by the newly discovered wonders of married life.
The serious weight gain began in 1997, when I was laid off from my position at Gateway Computers. Looking back, I am not ashamed to say that the trauma of losing a job sent me into a type of depression. I had a wife and two young sons who counted on me, and being laid off made me feel like a horrendous failure. To compensate for my feelings, I started to eat…and eat…and eat. By the spring of 1999 I gained over 40 lbs. By the spring of 2001, I was almost 300lbs. I stayed at that weight for 10 years, suffering numerous weight-related health effects, from high blood pressure, to joint problems and eventually liver issues.
I HATED being fat. I knew that it was not the healthy me that I had been as a younger man, but I had a mindset that I was going to be that way for the rest of my life. Of course I tried several different weight loss schemes to try to lose the weight, but none worked. Not because they weren’t proved effective, but because I was battling a mindset that said ‘you’ll always be fat.’ From 1997 until this year, food became a refuge and a crutch from negativity and unpleasant life events.
So, if you’ll pardon the pun, what tipped the scales? (sorry, couldn’t avoid the obvious joke there). It’s very simple.
I was convicted.
Honestly, I didn’t think it was a terrible thing to be fat and suffer health issues. After all, many of the people I knew and know were and are in the same boat. Because I didn’t fully realize and completely accept that it wasn’t healthy and wrong to be overweight, I wasn’t in an great hurry to lose the weight. I was sedentary and enjoying it, plus I ate whatever I wanted to in whatever quantity I wanted to.
Then two things happened.
First of all, during this past summer, I was working in my yard on a hot day. Due to the heat and the exertion, I felt like I was having a heart attack for a short period of time. This was the first major alarm bell that went off.
Secondly, a colleague of mine, who had always been heavy since I first knew him over 20 years ago, dropped almost 100lbs over the space of approx. seven months. I was astonished but convinced that it was temporary. Yet, after he reached his goal, he kept the weight off. He seemed in many ways to be a new person. Happier, healthier, full of energy and life in a way I had never seen him before.
These two circumstances caused conviction to set in upon me. I knew something had to be done, and now was the time to do it.
What is conviction? It comes from an old Latin word. It has five meanings, all of which have a legal connotation. Essentially, conviction means “the state of being convinced of error or compelled to admit truth.”
I knew by the beginning of September of last year that my obesity was wrong…that it was error. That it was and is sin. I knew the truth was that I needed to become a good steward of my body and do all the work, both dietary and exercise-wise, to get the weight off and do it in a healthy, well-managed way.
In simple terms, the conviction of my error brought me to being convinced to do something to correct it.
There’s that other word: Convinced. What does that word mean. “to bring to belief, consent or a course of action. To persuade.”
Isn’t that the reason why we don’t succeed at so many things? We aren’t convicted that our ways may not be correct, so consequently we aren’t convinced to do something about our error-filled, faulty methods. That can be true in so many areas.
- You struggle losing weight because possibly you aren’t convinced that you need to lose the weight, because you haven’t been convicted that being overweight is a symptom of a lack of self-control, and that the lack of self-control is error and a wrong way of living.
- You struggle with anger or rage because possibly you aren’t convinced that you need to stop expressing yourself this way, because you haven’t been convicted that being full of rage and anger is destructive not only to you, but to all those around you.
- You struggle with habitual sin in your life, because possibly you aren’t convinced that what you are doing is evil and wrong, because you haven’t either allowed conviction of sin to come to you, or you have ignored the conviction so long that you no longer feel the guilt and shame that is necessary to realize sin in your life.
I could list more examples, but you get the picture.
You see, if you are convinced about something, it strongly suggests that you are absolutely certain or sure about that thing.
I was convicted because of my weight. Because of that conviction, I was convinced that I needed to take charge of this area of my life, do the right thing, and drop the weight. Being obese was sin in my life, and I was and am willing to do anything it takes to expunge that sin by exercising the self-control given by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and doing the right thing. Notice I had to take the action and do the right thing. God was not the author of my obesity. Therefore the only responsible party was and is me.
These past few months have taught me much, but more than anything God has shown me that we fail because we are not convinced, and we are not convinced because we do not allow ourselves to be convicted of error, and to admit truth. We are good and well-practiced at hiding from God and ourselves, at rationalizing our sinful and error-filled behaviors, but at the end of the day, we still fail, because we refuse to follow the path of conviction and convincing that God provides for us to be free.
Let it not be that way in our lives going forward.
The journey for me continues in this area, as I know it will in other areas of life in 2012, as God chastens us and requires more from us in order to be vessels of honor and to bring the greatest honor to Him.
If you follow me on Facebook I’ll keep you posted with updates and pictures, because by the autumn of this year you’ll see a completely new Thomas, or perhaps the Thomas that I should have been all along.
Carpe Diem
The Shunpiker's Guide 