Here it comes, I am about to give in to the frustration. Here I started to diet and exercise for my health, and people automatically make comments about losing weight. I heard it all day long. I really want to shout it out loud, but at the moment I'll just shout here in all caps. Excuse me for one moment.
I DO NOT CARE ABOUT LOSING WEIGHT!!!
I'm not trying to make my body look better. I'm not going there. As a matter of fact, I really don't care what you think about my body. As long as I please God and my husband, nothing else really matters, right?
I know that I still get the question that by the way is extremely rude: "are you pregnant again?" No. The fact of the matter is that because of the way that my skin stretched during the twin pregnancy, fat tends to stick to the skin that I haven't worked to lose. I really don't care. And by the way, even if I was, what is it to you? Don't get that disgusted look that comes from thinking that I shouldn't continue to procreate. I don't care if I already have 4 kids, if God continues to bless me with children, I'll take them and thank Him for my blessings. Now, He would have to get past the surgery that I had done to prevent further pregnancies, but it isn't beyond His power. But I digress...
Now, I have decided to begin to record progress in weight loss/gain, but really that's a family thing. My father-in-law came up with a plan for the family to work together to lose weight. Honestly, I'm doing it for him. It's a family thing. If I happen to lose weight while I exercise and try to work on my cholesterol, then hooray, I've done something for the group. That's awesome. I actually expect to lose some anyway, I may as well do it while encouraging others. I'm trying not to lose focus, though. It's hard. Everyone else wants to lose weight. Whether it's for health issues or not, their focus is different.
So here I am. My main issue I guess was going to church all day for our annual car show. Two meals, breakfast and lunch, and neither were on my diet. Pancakes, sausage, and eggs for breakfast. All of which, when prepared correctly with the right ingredients would be just fine, but since they were all basically delicious balls of cholesterol covered in butter, they were not just fine for me. Barbecued pork sandwiches smelled wonderful, but my heart just couldn't take it. I asked Tony to go get me something else. He came back with a chicken tostada salad from El Pollo Loco. Yum. This made people wonder why I wouldn't like the food that people worked so hard to prepare. I don't mind telling people that I am on a diet, I just wish that they didn't just assume that I want to get rid of baby weight. I must look awful to them from the response...over and over. I really wouldn't care if it was just one person, but it just continued all day, and it just got irritating after a while.
By the way, I've walked another 6 miles since Wednesday, making it 10 since I began the count. Not that I plan on updating every couple of days or anything, I just thought I'd say something more positive in this whiny blog.
So here we go. I have a challenge for you. Say something completely honest and positive that as far as you know would not be misconstrued into anything negative to someone every day this week. No more "I didn't mean it like that." If you can't think of anything, work on it. Don't say something like, "wow, you're starting to look good. The diet is working!" Yeah. I don't care to be reminded that you thought I looked horrible before. Not that the comment should be to me, but you get my point. Spread a little love. No more verbal halitosis.
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Ephesians 4:29
I know, I'm convicted by this verse, too.
2 comments:
It's because of the word "diet". If you are on one, you are trying to lose weight. That's what people think.
Of course, for me, it's a whole different ball game. I do need to lose weight but I'm healthy. Kinda freakishly so considering how big I am.
Here's to us and hoping by the time we see each other, we will have accomplished a few of our goals.
Wow. That was a lot of bitterness over people who were probably more or less just tactless. Of course, I understand completely. I have found myself hating the people who have asked me the inappropriate questions about being pregnant (up to and including what kind of birth control I was using...). But I have had to really try to not react to just what I hear coming out of their mouths, and realize that they are just trying to have a conversation with me, and sometimes all they know about me is that I am pregnant. The very fact that this is all they know about me, is, of course, what usually bothers me so much, but I am trying to remember that their heart intention is usually just to be a friend in the only way they know how. How can I be bitter about that?
The losing weight thing is also sensitive. Being pregnant comes with all the personal questions, whether or not it was planned, if I am going to work, whatever. But losing weight has the whole social view of beauty attached to it as well. So of course when someone says that you look great for having lost a few pounds or something, I can see how you can deduce the converse, that you did not look great with the pounds. But my humble suggestion is that we give them the benefit of the doubt. They may have never meant that--you may look great both ways. Or maybe they did mean it like that, but still, what they actually said was just a compliment. And so what if it is a side effect of another goal? It doesn't make a compliment less meaningful, I think. It just means that your priorities are where you want them, and if they are where God wants them, that great. These people are not privy to all your goals, in fact all they can see is your appearance, so it seems like a very natural compliment.
For me, when I was trying to really determine if I was eating for God, one of the side effects was that I lost weight. But my problem was that it was more just hard for me to keep being pleasing to God as my goal, rather than actually losing weight. Because I could be bulimic or something, lose weight, and not be pleasing to God. So compliments from people on my weight were hard for me to handle, just in terms of keeping my own priorities straight, but I don't blame them for that. They were just trying to be nice.
Anyway, I know I went on and on, but I sympathize with a lot of what you are saying, and have actually spent a lot of time in prayer and thought over similar issues.
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