Spiritual Journey: Out of Obese City

Gotta make a move to a town that's right for me...

Obesity is becoming a big problem in the United States, literally. Sure there are some obese people that are happy with lugging 50-100 cans of Campbell's soup on them 24-7 (if you think about it, fat people probably have more muscles than most people because they are full-time weight lifters, you just can't see the muscle through all the fat).

For me, I have struggled with with my obsession with food for a long time. Call it a love affair. I don't wear my heart on a sleeve, it's all over my body! And I have never really enjoyed carrying all the excess baggage.

About seven years ago I broke off my relationship with food, and I thought it was for good. I lost about 45 pounds total and, although I was not quite as trim as I was in college, I was very close. And, btw, I was very hot, according to my hubby. It was a difficult breakup, but I achieved it through finding a new lover. A new god, if you will, to worship.

I lost the weight through a Christian weight-loss program. It was based on the literal idea of "less of me, more of God." And for me, it worked. The lady that heads this program, now she was a character. Her concepts worked well for me, and I learned a lot about myself and my spirituality through the program. I should have. I did the program three times.

Through my previous weight loss I learned that:
1. Everyone has an instinct to worship something and for some it is money or drugs, and for others, like me, it's food; 2. God has made me way more important than the food I eat, thus I master my food, not my food mastering me; 3. God is more important than food, so stop worshipping the food (less of me, more of God); 4. My body is a temple of God, and I should treat it with the utmost respect; 5. Wait for hunger and eat until satisfied, not until full; 6. Eat slower and enjoy the food when eating, savor each bite, and thank God for each and every bite; 7. If you screw up and eat too much, through Christ's redemption God forgives, so forgive yourself and press that restart button, and wait for the next hunger to eat; 8. Think, and pray, before you eat, and while you're at it, pray while you eat, too; 9. Talk to God, and often, listen, and be open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and 10. For everything there is a season... and everything in moderation.

These are concepts similar to the secular ones: Don't eat so much, pig; You are what you eat (or worship); You gotta eat less than you burn off in energy. All true and proven concepts.

Well, the side effects of using a Christian weight loss program is really delving into your spiritual side. I did a lot of soul searching and questioning where I was and where I should be. The lady who leads this Christian weight loss program was really big into questioning where people should be spiritually, but yet she said that we should be content where we are planted, too. Kind of confusing. Well, at that time I wasn't firmly planted in a church (wasn't an attending member, although I was still a member of the ELCA church I grew up in).

Anyway, I continued a journey with the Holy Spirit that had been put on hold since my college days. I remembered a mystery the Spirit presented to me at my Lutheran (ELCA) confirmation so many years ago. I wrestled with the whole issue about transubstantiation-consubstantion deal, and as I received my first communion, the Spirit said "there is more."

In college, I explored the various churches, and oddly enough, and against my Lutheran senses, I felt strangely comfortable, if you will (well, comfort isn't quite the word I'm looking for, maybe it was my spirit that was comfortable, because I felt very humbled and revering), attending Wednesday night mass at St. Stephen's Student Center (that's a Catholic church in a college town, UNI, btw) my senior year (a friend who was Unitarian Universalist asked me to accompany her to the midweek mass and oddly I was a caretaker at a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church at the time--go figure).

So, there I was about five years after college, continuing this Spiritual Quest. And going through a Christian weight loss program and actually losing weight and gaining quite a relationship with the Spirit. During this time, we were attending the Episcopalian Church (specifically the cathedral in Denver--they have a wonderful music department). I was in agreement with a lot of their ideals, until they became more than open to gays. I am usually a very open person, but the more I prayed about it, the more it bothered my Spirit that this church would accept openly and active gays to be priests. It is one thing to accept the sinner and help them to do what God wants them to do and become, but it is another to accept the sinner and let them continue to openly sin against God without remorse and lead the church. (I sometimes wonder now if gays aren't just sexually immature... I don't know. God probably does. Maybe that's another post for another time.)

Then, we moved from Colorado to Iowa, where the food ethic is to eat everything on your plate, because you know there are starving children in Ethiopia, or some other god-forsaken region in the world. I gained some of the weight, joined the Catholic Church (sure the pedophile scandals are damning to the church, but it isn't their doctrine, just human priests that sinned--which should have been sent to those silenced cloistered communities), then I had two adorable sons, which made weight gain a breeze.

It is true that food is an addiction, and yes, I am a food addict. If only I were some other type of addict... like a sex addict... my hubby would love that one.

Yes, I want to break the food addict now and forever. And, now I have a goal, too. By May 2006. (For very human reasons, my sister's wedding.)

Anyway, I checked into that Christian weight loss program online, and that lady that heads the program.... Well, I told you she was a character, but I should have known better. I mean, really, the word "sham" is in her name. I should have known better. She started her own church. Well, if I remembered right, she said that we should be content with where God has planted us, but apparently she wasn't content, so she started her own garden.

She really changed her image, too. When I first took her Christian weight loss program, she looked like a modest woman in the modern world, with just a bit more makeup and nail polish than I would prefer, but respectable. Well, the last time I checked her website, her photo was the dominant feature, and was it dominant! Sadly, she reminded me of a whore with so much makeup and hair as big as she could get it (when I was in high school--the taller the bangs, the more desperate you are).

So, now that leaves me without a Christian weight loss program to follow. I have joined Curves, just because I know from experience that weight loss happens faster when combined with excercise, and we'll see how that goes. But, I know that the kicker for me is to continue the Spiritual Quest. I know I have a long journey ahead, so please pray for me. I don't want to lug around 50 cans of Campbell's soup for the rest of my life.