Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: Breaking the Rules (08/16/04)
TITLE: Breaking the Rules By Jennifer Harrison 08/23/04 |
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT SEND ARTICLE TO A FRIEND |
This person could not be me! I looked again and grimaced because I knew it was, but this was not going to beat me! So I purchased every ab-roller, and starvation diet kit known to man, and about 200 dollars later, I realized there was no easy way out of this. With much support from family and friends, I took some well-heeded advice and went to a Weight Watchers Meeting. Now, I’m not trying to “sell” Weight Watchers here, I’m not the Duchess of York, but for me, this is working. I’ve been going all summer, and haven’t missed a meeting yet, even though I’m sure all the skinny people use me as their reminder to quit eating, you know, like I am sure they all sit around with their salads and bottled water and say things like, “Suzanne, don’t put that extra crouton on your plate! Do you want to look like Jennifer from our meeting?!”
So nevertheless, I struggle with the “rules” of my plan which consist of staying within a certain amount of points for the day, and everyone gets “flex points,” which is basically to assure us overeaters that we can blow it every once in a while. Now, I’m not picking on anyone here, but I have a friend who attends with me and is not having much luck. While I bend the rules every once in a while for that extra chip or one more lick of the ice cream cone, she completely breaks the rules. For example, she says things like, well the points start over again when you leave the zip code you are in and go to another. And whenever we go to eat, she’ll say, desert doesn’t count if you eat it first because then your body has more time to break down the fat. Now, I don’t where she gets this stuff, but while I have lost a whopping 35 pounds eating carrots and rice paper, she has managed to lose all of nothing this summer.
When I think of her and her rule breaking, though, I have to think of my walk with Christ. It is so easy for me to break the rules a little, just like my friend, and then before I know it, I am breaking all of the rules, and find myself with nothing. Just like my friend who makes up her own weight loss rules as she goes along, I hear people all the time making up their own rules and translations for what they think the Bible really says. The bottom line is that there is no miracle diet, but there is healthy eating and exercise. There is no easy way into heaven, but there is the miracle of Christ’s resurrection. The only real rule is to follow him and everything else will fit into place. Only by following the rules of my program will I see weight loss, and only by following the rules of God will I see Heaven. So I guess the next time I think about switching my radio from Christian music to secular music, or skipping a prayer I know I need to have, I’ll think about my points system and my friend, because at the end of the day, I would rather be the one who is following the rules and seeing the results, and the results of a close walk with God are unweighable.