Getting rid of your fat rolls

Yes, I am still obsessing about fat rolls. But for whatever reason, God is showing me cool stuff about fat rolls, so I'm going with it. :)

One of the things about fat rolls is that you don't just wake up one morning and realize, "I have fat rolls!!" It's a slow process. I'm going to make a confession, and I know some of you will want to stop reading and kill me for it. Bear with me. I promise it'll be worth it. I've been a size two most of my adult life. I stopped growing at age 14 and haven't changed since. Sick, I know, but there it is.

So this morning, I was sitting here wondering how I went from a girl who ate like a pig and STILL couldn't gain weight or go above a two, no matter how hard she tried, to someone who regularly gets the "you need to lose weight" lecture from her doctor, and is thrilled when she can get into a size that's a single digit. And yes, I know that's still tiny to some people. But look at it this way. Think of the size you are now. Imagine going forward a couple of years and being several sizes larger. OUCH!

It's not about what our picture of the "right size" is, but what's a healthy size for you. I'm not at a healthy size for me. Yet, it seems like no matter what I do, I can't get down to where I'm supposed to be.

I'd be remiss if I didn't give my standard lecture/disclaimer here. I feel really strongly about this, so I know a lot of folks have heard this a lot from me, but you're getting it again. Everyone is different. What is healthy for one person is NOT healthy for another person. What society says is beautiful or "the right size" does NOT fit all. Do not use that standard to judge. I will never again be a size two. When I was a size two, the doctor wanted me to gain weight-I tried, but couldn't. (Oh, the irony) I do not WANT to be a size two. I want to be the weight my doctor has told me is a healthy weight for me. Please use that standard in determining what size you should be or how much weight you should lose. Don't compare yourself to others or to what your favorite supermodel looks like.

Okay, off the soapbox and back to my fat rolls. :) How did I get here? Like I said, I didn't wake up one morning, and POOF! I'm twenty pounds heavier. It was a series of small decisions. Going from a 2 to a 4 was no big deal when it happened. A little curves, not bad. When those pants started fitting a little tighter, it was easy to justify going up a size so I had a little extra room. (I despise tight fitting clothes) And when THOSE started fitting tighter, I thought, well, I DO have a little extra baby weight. And so on and so forth. Until I look back, and WOW! I'm several sizes larger.

How did I get several sizes larger? It was all in the little decisions that added up. At first, it's easy to spy that last piece of chocolate cake and think, I'd hate for it to go to waste. So you eat it. And at first, it's a debate. Ultimately, you decide that one extra piece isn't going to hurt. Over time, though, that extra piece of chocolate cake becomes automatic. You're used to eating that piece, and it's no longer an extra treat, but part of your regular diet. You start skipping the gym, each time, it's a different, but still very good reason. Until finally you wonder why you bought the membership in the first place. So you don't go at all. You think, I'll pop in an exercise video, since you have so many. But then you realize that you don't have the full 45 minutes, so you decide you'll do it when you have more than 15 minutes to spare. Which never seems to happen, so all of your exercise videos are now gathering dust.

I look at the other fat rolls in my life. The dishes I say I'll do later. The dusting and vacuuming that doesn't get done because I don't have enough time to fully devote myself to doing the job "right". The prayers I don't say because I don't have enough undistracted "quiet time". The Bible studies I've set aside because of all the times I've said it was okay to skip "just one day".

Sin is a lot like that. It's always a small decision at first. One white lie won't hurt anyone. And then, you find, that because that one lie went down so well, one more won't be so bad. And then another. And another. Then, because that sin didn't seem to have an impact on your life, maybe there's another area where you think it might be okay if you played around in the grey areas. Stretching it. Making it not seem so bad if you did it "just once". But it's never "just once."

The trouble is, once you begin consistently making the wrong decision, it stops becoming a decision and is now a habit. It's a habit to go ahead and eat the chocolate cake. It's a habit to go ahead and tell those little white lies to stay out of hot water. You don't even think about it.

If you want to get rid of the fat rolls in your life, whether they be literal or figurative, you have to become more conscious of your decisions. Each piece of food you put in your mouth has to be a conscious decision as to whether or not it's something you need for nourishment or if it's going in for some other reason-and maybe not the best reason. It means choosing to stick in that tape, or take a walk around the block, even if it's only for ten or fifteen minutes. It means thinking about the things that come out of your mouth and what your motivation for saying it is. It means taking a step back when you start to justify and really ask yourself what you're justifying. It means realizing that you don't have to be perfect, that even a little effort in a particular direction, whether it be the cleanliness of your house, your spiritual life, or even getting that book written, will get you a lot farther down the road than simply doing nothing. If all you write is a page a day, in a year, you'll have an entire book written. But if you wait for "enough time" to get some significant writing done, you might not find that time in a year, and so at the end of the year, you'll have nothing.

Most of us don't fall into sin with one big decision. And yet, we think that one day, because we said just the right prayer, God is going to wave His magic want, and POOF! it'll all be fixed. We got ourselves into this mess by making a lot of little, but wrong, decisions. To get ourselves out, we're going to have to make a lot of little, but right, decisions. And if we're trusting in God to help us with those big things, we need to trust in Him to help us make those small decisions as well.