Woman vs. Cupcake Cake

On January 28 my daughter Charlee turned 3. Time has gone by so quickly. She is a bundle of personality and joy. A tradition we started with our kids is they get some of their presents and birthday cake for breakfast the morning of their birthday. On this morning had victory over the cupcake.

January 29 the day of the party my husband picked up the cake and met me at the party. It was a Dora cupcake cake. Do you know how much icing they use for these things? Do you know that is my favorite part of a cake? The smell was intoxicating. My husband and some sweet friends passed out the cake to the guest to help me not give in. Again victory over the cupcake.

January 30 I was left alone with the leftover cake. I had work to do this morning and we skipped church. David took the kids to the park, so I could work. When my family left, my first thought was: I am alone with cake. This was scary. Could I trust myself? I threw myself into my work in my bedroom.....the farthest room from the cupcakes. Later in the day, I wrap up my work and begin on things around the house. I am feeling very overwhelmed with things that need to be done at this point, and the thoughts of a little bite enter my head. I get irritable, frustrated. I felt like I was doing all the work and my husband was not helping. Did I ask him to help......? No. I think my cupcake thoughts invaded my brain and made me crazy. We got into a little argument because of this, which intensified my desire and temptation for the thick icing on those cupcakes. So, I went to church. It was good. It was a time of praise and prayer and boy did I need some. Add insult to injury the kids heard our fighting. I was now on a guilt trip. The trip was lengthened when I got home and my husband informed me of comments made by my oldest daughter. When she arrived home I told her we were sorry for fighting and that mommy and daddy loved each other very much. My husband made the kids some dinner, with a cupcake. Uggg....I felt drunk from the fumes. I had to call my sponsor. The air between my husband and I was not completely cleared, so words were still a little short. He said he would throw the cupcakes away, and my statement was: that does not mean I can not get them out. He said now that is just gross Shelly.

I know its gross. I know how sick it sounds. However, that is what a compulsive overeater will do. Any lengths to get the bite. I did not want to ruin my days of not eating those certain sweets, but I was overwhelmed with life and temptation. I talked to my sponsor and my mom who helped me through and my husband ran an errand for me and threw the cupcakes away...far far away.


Woman 3 Cupcakes 0. Victory.

Two weeks later we celebrated my husbands birthday with no temptation to the cupcakes.

Woman 4 Cupcakes 0. Victory!!!!

update

27 days my friends of laying off the sweets!!!! Now, do not get me wrong, I am not sugar free, but I am not eating many things I binged on before. I bet you are wondering what......? Lets see, things like cookies, candy bars, icecream, cake.


I made it through Christmas easily and feel like it is still not as hard as I thought it would be. I almost grieved, ok not almost, I did grieve losing food when I made this choice. It has always been my source of comfort and validation and I was choosing to quit some of my favs. I have had moments in these past 27 days that I wanted something, but have not given in to what I call my abstinence. I have had more energy without so much sugar.

I do admit I have binged on other things and food needs to be laid down at the cross daily and I struggle with this. I need a food plan. What boundaries will I allow? Yet, I feel like my focus would be food, and that is what I do not want to focus on. Yet, we have to have food for life. Uggg....! I want to continue to to work on being healthy and work on trusting Jesus with my life. I have many times paid others to tell me what to do with my food plan. I have spent alot of money on weight loss programs. Just ask First Bank of David. Getting healthy is not just about the food plan though. Its about healing the pain, anger, sorrow, scars of the past. Letting them go. Its about allowing myself to feel something through instead of eat something through. Do you ever just let yourself feel? Its about trust in the Lord. Its about showing my kids that although I have sinned with gluttony, and used food as a drug, that there is forgiveness and healing. That if you work hard change can happen.

We talked about determination in Sunday school this morning....and perseverance to finish the race. It is about being determined to live the way God desires I live. Its about allowing Him to change me and mold me and use me. It is about doing the impossible with the possible God. What is impossible for you today? Remember Philippians 4:13 says I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Friends. I am so looking forward to all the holiday fun with loved ones even the crazy tiffs that always seem to occur. As you know I have written before about my weight loss journey and I ended up not doing so well. Diets are such a struggle, and the last time I knew I really needed to work through my issues with overeating, not just lose the weight and get healthy and I tried, however it was not meant to be at the time.

Since late October I have been attending Overeaters Anonymous. I felt so strange at first, attending meetings so similar to AA, and not paying someone to weight me in and analyze my food journal. It was people like me who have issues with food. I chose to quit drinking dark sodas again when I began attending meetings, the 27th will be 60 days. Yeah! Through attending meetings, getting a sponsor(who rocks by the way), and beginning to work through the steps of the program I have come to understand how much I like an alcholic I am. I have always understood that I was an emotional eater, but I never realized how unmanageable it was for me. I have always been so scared to let God be my strenght and comfort where I use food. I have come to realize there are certain foods that if I have one bite I am sucked into the overeating compulsive cycle. My gift to myself and my gift to Jesus this Christmas is to not have sweets. Today is day 4. I have done great so far. I have even seen that it is different from a diet. When dieting there are rules to follow and I get caught up in that, if I break them I feel bad about myself. With this I choose to not eat sweets, if I wanted it I could have it. I am not breaking or following rules. I am choosing. I want to lay down this idol.

May your Christmas be great friends. Jesus is the reason for the season!

News/Updates

Wow. I am a total slacker! I can not believe it has been almost a year since I posted something. I confess, I quit doing the diet program I was doing and thought I could manage on my own. Guess what that did not work, however I did run my first 5k in May! That was amazing. I trained doing the couch to 5k program and ran the whole thing in about an hour. I had only done 30 minute runs, but after I ran the first 30 minutes, I wanted to finish, even if it was at a turtles pace. I found I really like running. So, my goal is to begin blogging again about my journey.

2010

Well, we have made it to the year 2010!!! Happy New Year my friends. I pray that this year blesses you all.

It has been a while since I posted. The holidays have come and gone. We had such a blessed time. I have survied the season and have reached a weight loss total of 42 lbs. Yeah! However, I did not stick to plan great or I would have lost much more. I admitt the food tasted yummy!!! I noted though that I feel much bettter physically when I do not stuff myself with so much food. I did not feel so great on those days. I like feeling in control of the food too. With all the food spread out in the kitchen it feels like it controls me. I was able to exercise at time....with a horrible ear infection that lasted 5 weeks, and then went away, and is now back, it has been hit or miss, but I discovered Zumba. It is a latin dance class at the YMCA, and is so much fun and great calorie burner. And Santa gave us a Wii. I love it. So much family fun!

I do not really make New Year's resolutions, but I want to reach my weight loss goal this year and I have huge to do list. I pray that I will also do better about abiding in Jesus. He is the vine.

May you reach your goals this year.

Struggle

Well, what is a struggle? Websters says "to proceed with difficulty or great effort". Are you struggling with anything right now? Sometimes we struggle to get up in the morning, make dinner, work out. Everyone has them, but it is hard to learn to cope with them in different ways. Food has almost always been my coping mechanism. Today I was told to not really workout till my ear got better. (that is another story), and now I can't use that to help cope. What do I do? I have a lot going on right now, just like everyone, but I am to chose a different coping mechanism. How? I have blogged about this sort of thing before, but I think as one chooses a weight loss journey or any journey you have to face your issues your struggles usually more than once.

I was doing my bible study today. It is Esther by Beth Moore and it was talking about failure to decide and I had a light bulb moment. I pray I can really apply it from this day forward. We get choices everywhere, with food, with obeying God, with exercise, with our time and if we fail to decide what to do in the struggle than we may risk gaining weight, our destiny, our health, our relationships. I never want to fail to to decide. We should be intentional about our choices, our lives, our attitudes.

Believe in myself

I was reading an article today from one of the biggest loser contestants....and she is all about believing in yourself. Do you believe in yourself? Do I believe in myself? I do in some areas, but when it comes to weight loss it is hard. I know I have come a long way, but I have never fully succed at this journey. I have tried many times and failed. It is disappointing, frustrating, and makes me feel like I can't do it. I have had a rough few weeks.....not everyday, but moments. I could give you a long list of excuses(hormones, hormones, and hormones, and life, and I have been sick.) I had another one today. I was so hungry and wanted a snack. I made my protien drink, but still wanted a crunch....so it went like this in my mind "one nilla waffer will not be bad, you can have just one". That one thought grew into too many wafers. And after swallowing my apple cider vinegar...the consuqence of my choices of eating, I thought this is just like sin. It is that one thought that creeps into you mind, and we act on it, and it turns into too many whatevers.........We have to nip it in the bud at the thought, the temptation.

I want to have resolve like Daniel did....Danile 1:8 says "But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with they royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way." Resolve is a strong word that means to be devoted to principle and to be committed to a course of action. I want that.



I can believe in myself, because Jesus believes me. I have to get up and move on, Jesus is the lifter of my head. I don't have to hang it down, even when I have made a mistake. I can brush off and keep at it.

In the bible study I am doing the other day, I heard a new phrase..."false shelter". I think this is sometimes what food can be for me. I am learning though to not let food have control of me, but me have control of food.