Here is my testimony and my struggle. Please let me know if youd like to share yours. With God, All Things are Possible I was the skinny kid who didn’t eat enough. I was forced to sit at the table until I had eaten everything on my plate. I often fell asleep there. Being the middle child between two other girls very close in age, I was the only one left at the table. Many members of my family were overweight; my parents, a couple of my grandparents, my siblings, my cousins. There was obviously some family history of obesity. Fast forward to puberty. I made up for lost time. My body changed, my metabolism changed and suddenly I found myself “chunky”. So being a teenage girl, worried about my weight, I developed some bad eating habits – more than I already had created. I ate only small amounts of junk food – nutritious food was very limited in my diet. At home, both of my parents worked, so we girls were frequently required to make dinner. Often it was boxed prepared meals. I wasn’t really taught how to cook or to love cooking. It was more like “read the directions on the box” type of cooking. Fast forward again to marriage and children, I married a man who had many foods that he would not eat and a daughter who developed her own eating issues. Trying to please everyone at mealtime was a real nightmare. We would eat out frequently. I had been gestational diabetic when I was carrying both of my girls. I put on pounds after delivery both times, since I was released from the restrictive diet I had been on while pregnant. Over several years, the pounds just keep slowly creeping on and adding up. Around the year 2000, I was put back on a diet by my doctor to try to help control my blood sugar levels. I lost 25 pounds and looked and felt much better. The new “diet” slowly faded away into life of a working mother with two small children and a husband who was deployed off and on. Trying to juggle life left my health issues on the back burner. The pounds returned. I never gave up trying to maintain my weight. I would go through months of good exercise levels and bad eating or months of good eating and bad exercise levels. I could never seem to get it all together. I was just doing my best to keep my weight stable and not continue the upward creep. Nothing seemed to help me shed the pounds. I tried fasting, counting calories, writing down everything I ate, walking with friends, etc. I thought if I made enough small changes to my lifestyle surely that number on the scale would start decreasing. It didn’t. I even had two big life events to motivate me to shed the weight – the wedding of my oldest daughter and my 25th anniversary cruise. Still no results for my efforts. Every failed attempt added more discouragement. I just resigned myself to accept what my body was – to love myself for who I was. I had watched my older sister gain weight and lose weight over and over. I wasn’t alone in this struggle. I had pleaded with God to help me control the weight. I sought His help and strength throughout this time. As much as my husband would try to encourage me, I just felt judged by him – he was the fit and trim athlete/soldier with the overweight wife. My doctor pointed out that I wasn’t just overweight, technically I was obese and borderline diabetic. As I entered menopause, I learned at the same time that my back and foot pain that I had recently been experiencing was due to a broken vertebrae and two degenerating discs. The next year God answered my prayer in a way I never expected. He called me to walk the pilgrimage route across northern Spain. Of course I thought I’d really lost my mind. Obviously God had called the wrong person. There was no physical way I could complete this calling. He impressed it upon me so persistently that I finally relented and laced up my tennis shoes and went for a long walk. That was the beginning of my healing. I’ve lost 28 pounds so far. I’ve had to dramatically change what I eat to be obedient to God’s calling. I had to examine my past. I had to be honest with myself about my eating. I’ve had to be intentional about my time and my activity level. I’ve had to say no to many “good” things in order to put in the time it takes to train my body for this pilgrimage. I attended one of Heather’s seminars on healthy eating. I’m learning about clean eating, paleo diets, glycemic index foods, reading ingredient labels, making different choices, and I have an accountability partner (who is not my husband) to help encourage me. I feel better. My pain is still present, but my body is able to do much more than before. I believe that I can complete God’s calling on my life for this pilgrimage. I am still overweight and have more weight to lose. Once I reach my goal, I need to find the right level of healthy eating and exercise to maintain a healthy weight. I thank God for the church body that we have, and I know that He is doing great things among us physically and spiritually. I hope you will join us on this journey! Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:24-28 ESV) Follow Him. All things are possible. Blessings, Sheri Olson
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 22:35:57 +0000