How to Ruin Your Morning

This morning, for the first time in I don't know when, I was excited to get on the scale and weigh myself. For the past week, I had counted calories, even measured out portions, and I walked/ran 4 different times, which is 4 times more than the weeks prior to that. I hadn't been perfect (the weekend saw to that), but I had made a lot of good choices, and I was confident that I had lost at least a pound, maybe even two. I stepped on eagerly, waited for the numbers to appear, and then sighed.

I hadn't lost a thing. Not even one ounce.

Just to be sure, I stepped off the scale and stepped back on, hoping that it had been a fluke. The reward for my double-checking was the exact same number. No loss.

I am ashamed to say that seeing that number on the scale turned what had been a very joyful, upbeat morning to a very grumpy one. I couldn't believe that all my hard work had yielded no results. I spent the rest of the morning feeling discouraged and disappointed. What was the point of all that hard work if I wasn't going to lose weight?

What is so ridiculous about all of this is that had I not gotten on the scale, I would have had a great morning. I woke up and went for a run in the crisp autumn air, and I was still basking in the weekend's victory of having run over 2 miles consecutively for the first time since early spring. I was proud of the fact that I had stayed relatively in control of my eating choices for a week, and I was looking forward to another week of working out and making good choices.

Given all of these positive outcomes, why did I so easily let the number on the scale wield so much power over me?  After 5 and a half years of trying to lose weight, you'd think I'd know a thing or two by now, but if the past year has taught me anything, it's that I know nothing. But I do know Someone who knows all, and when I take my eyes off Him--when I focus on myself and what I think I need instead of focusing on Christ and the truth that He supplies all my needs--I find myself in the defeated place I was in this morning.

Fortunately for me, I have friends who are smarter than I am, and one of them reminded me that gratitude brings joy, so I began to thank God for this morning. I thanked Him for the fact that I woke up on time (a small miracle in itself); I thanked Him for the legs that allowed me to run; I thanked Him for the sunrise; I thanked Him for my sweet husband who loves me regardless of what a stupid scale says. And I even thanked Him for that number on the scale because this struggle with my weight reminds me of my inadequacy and my utter need for a Savior. I can always be grateful for that.

Sunrise on a recent run.

An Interview with Charlotte

I know I win the prize for lamest blogger ever, but how about a cute video of my kid? We "interviewed" her a few weeks ago, and here is the result:


 A few notes:
1. When she says her full name, it sounds like she's saying "Sorry Mount." Love it. 
2. I promise I didn't tell her to pick purple as her favorite color.
3. We filmed this video while she was eating dinner because then she can't go anywhere. :) Hence, the pretzels (which she was dipping in ketchup).
4. I filmed this with my iPhone, thus the tiny screen width.
5. Hearing her sing "Jesus Loves Me" melts my heart. Man, she is so cute. I know, I'm biased. :)


I am going to try to do these little interviews every so often so we can see how her answers change as she gets older. I can't believe she is already 2.5 years old!

The More Things Change...

If you've read even a few posts on my blog over the past year, then you know that I have been through my share of changes, the biggest of which is obviously my ulcerative colitis diagnosis. Beyond dealing with that diagnosis, the only other change that occupies much of my thoughts is my weight (I know, you're all shocked). But truly, my weight has gone up and down in truly astounding fashion. I decided to check my blog and see what I weighed around this time last year, and fortunately I found that I had actually recorded my weight for this exact date. On August 12, 2012, I weighed 178.6. Do you know what I weighed this morning? 179.6. That's one pound higher than this day last year, and a whopping TWELVE pounds higher than my weight at the beginning of this year. I managed to get down to 170.8 in the beginning of October 2012, and not long after that I got sick. I actually didn't lose a whole lot of weight when I first got sick, but when I got home from the hospital, the weight came off at an alarming rate (about 10 pounds in two days, then 5 or so more after that). At one point, the scale was down to 150. I knew that wouldn't stay, and I didn't expect it to, so when I managed to stay between 155 and 158 for about a month, I was happy. I hoped that even though I lost all of that weight because my body was sick, I could maintain the loss. I even wrote about how losing weight wouldn't be one of my goals for the new year for the first time in ages. I was filled with excitement and optimism! 

Taken in November on my first Sunday back to church. 150 pounds

Silly, silly me.

By the middle of January, five years into my weight loss journey, I was back up to 167.6. To be fair, I was on a TON of medication (including prednisone), and I do think that it wreaked havoc with my body in lots of not-so-great ways, but I can't blame it all on the medicine. If it were solely the medicine causing the problem, when I went off the prednisone in March all of my weight gain should have stopped. But it didn't, and now I find myself at a weight that makes me anything but comfortable, a weight that is almost exactly what it was at this time last year. If nothing else is consistent, at least I am consistent about gaining weight, right?

"But Erin," you say, "You had goals, you had a reward system! What happened?" In a nutshell, fatigue happened. Depression happened. Laziness happened. Honestly, this has been a HARD nine months, and the struggles manifested themselves in my eating habits. Even now, when at times I feel like I can't eat ANYTHING, I still overeat. I still eat junk. All of that eating combined with virtually no exercise due to severe fatigue is a recipe for failure.

So I find myself coming back to the brink of 180 pounds all over again, and I want it to be the last time, but part of me feels helpless. I don't know if making a plan will help. I've made plans, lots of them, and in the end they meant nothing.

The truth is, I don't need another plan. I need freedom from this bondage.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." ~Galatians 5:1