CAPTIVITY

 This is me on the left. This picture was taken on a night I will never forget. This was in 2019. A girls night out! Woohoo!! But I wasn't actually having fun. (Driving home in the pouring rain after seeing a bar full of overly drunk people singing Karaoke wasn't at all fun!) In reality, I was miserable. I was 231 lbs. The heaviest I have ever been. You see, I have been riding this weight loss and weight gain roller coaster for many years and have went from the guilt of knowing that I am in a bad state of mind to the periods of euphoria when I lost a considerable amount of weight. 

 In speaking with some friends after last night's WW Meeting, we discussed how it all comes down to the mental state of a person at any given time. Why is it that sometimes we don't we realize that we are reverting to old habits? Or do we realize and choose to ignore? Why do old habits seem ok (to begin with) until they have you miserable or unhappy with yourself? Why do we sometimes need to hit bottom and say enough is enough? I know how much better I feel when I am under 170 lbs. I know how bad it feels to be over 230 lbs. So why do I let myself give in to emotions and binge eat? I enjoy the feeling of movement. I enjoy dancing, walking and other exercise. So why do I stop? 

 It's like Paul in the Bible. Paul seems to describe a lack of ability to do anything good (Romans 7:15, 19, 24), and refers to being captive and enslaved to sin (Romans 7:14, 23). Paul says that although he wants to do what is right, he ends up doing what is wrong. 

 We want to eat right and take care of our bodies but sometimes we just go at it the wrong way. Eating nutritious food is good, but if you you obsess about it to a degree that can damage your overall well-being, then it is not good. Exercising is good but if we strain our bodies or burn out on too much exercise we are hurting more than helping. We can be in different types of captivity. 

 So what to do?  You give yourself GRACE. You tell yourself that first steps take time to become bigger steps. Bigger steps take time to become your new normal steps. You FORGIVE yourself for the past mistakes because that is what Grace is about. That's what God does for us so why can't we do it for ourselves? Of course we are going to fall short sometimes, in life and how we treat our bodies. We may have lazy days, days that we binge or days that we are hateful or unmotivated. It happens. So what? Move on! Just don't let it become a cycle and hold you captive.