By: Ed Sywyk
I love Jesus with all my heart and I make Him first in my life, but I also have a strong desire to eat. I don’t see this as gluttony, but as something that makes me feel good. I was told by a friend, “some people eat to live, but you live to eat.”
I found nothing wrong with eating but Proverbs does warn me against overindulgence. My excessive focus on food indicated that it had become important to me. I remember when I was growing up, I was told “not to waste food,” or “don’t take more than you can eat,” or “you need to finish your plate before you can leave the table.”
Our Men’s Coffee Hour was asked to sing for our morning service. When we met the next week, we all watched our performance on YouTube.
I could not believe what I saw, I had so much more weight in comparison to all of the other men. A fact that awakened something inside of me, and I wanted to do something about it. 1 Cor 10:31 says, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (NIV) Your body is a sacred gift, and managing it well is an act of worship. I became determined to lose weight. I talked it over with Vicky and the following day I made a change in my life.
I abruptly stopped eating all bread products, anything with sugar (like jam, desserts, ice cream, etc.), and I turned to green salads and yogurt. Breakfast now consisted of just a cup of yogurt and I refused to eat lunch. When it was time for dinner, I told Vicky I would still eat whatever dinner she had prepared, just less portions than I use to eat. I drank considerable amounts of water whenever I felt hungry. Vicky supported my efforts in lots of ways including using the oven, our crock pot and our air-fryer more often.
Keeping my calorie count below 2,000, I maintained this lifestyle for several months. No I did not starve myself, as some of my friends thought, for I never experienced hunger pains. I am also NOT a fan of vegetables. Maybe that was why I originally gained all that weight, but I did eat more salads than potatoes, regardless of how they were prepared. In Vicky’s defense, she did place some vegetables on my plate occasionally and despite my protest, I did eat them.
I needed to keep track of how much I was losing, so I purchased a bathroom scale. Disciplining myself, I only checked my weight every Tuesday morning. At first losing the weight was easy, but after a couple weeks, I had to intensify my efforts.
I was told our building had a designated exercise room for the tenants to use. 1 Tim 4:8 which suggests “bodily training is of some value,” convinced me to sign up and I began to exercise daily. I started off slowly with just the exercise bike, then added the treadmill to my daily routine. I found exercising in the mornings generated a better result then in the afternoon. I even asked Doug, a member from the Gospel Knitters, to help me since he showed concern for my progress. Doug encouraged me, and I appreciated his efforts keeping me on track.
I also needed to seek God’s wisdom and guidance for this to work. When I prayed to Him, asking for assurance that my food choices were a blessing to my body and I was bringing glory to Him, He answered my prayer. One day I was talking to my pharmacist about my diet and he told me he was losing weight too. He was taking an over-the-counter product for help and he recommended it to me.
There were times when I wanted to quit, thinking I had lost enough, but the Holy Spirit kept encouraging me. From that moment on, I realized and gave credit to, Our Lord for sustaining me through it all, for I could not have accomplished this on my own.
My family doctor wanted to make sure I was not compromising my health, but my blood work revealed I wasn’t. Both times when I stepped on the scale, my doctor was surprised on how much I was losing compared to my previous visit. My clothes became too big for me, so I bought new ones. This surprised me when I discovered the clothes were six sizes smaller. I also needed a belt to hold up my new pants.
September came and I decided to stop losing weight. I was proud of what God accomplished in me and now I have to maintain my new body. The first week I ate a little more and I was looking forward to the things I couldn’t eat while on my diet, (in moderate amounts, of course). When I stepped on my scale the following Tuesday morning, I began to think of other people I talked to who had lost some weight.
“I gained it all back” they told me. I pray I don’t fall into that category. Looking down at my scale showed I had gained a little but I anticipated that. I realize if I want to keep this form, I can never go back to my old ways of eating.
My new goal is to treat my body as a temple of our Lord, by honoring Him through my new balanced and healthy lifestyle. I no longer want to live in vanity, but instead glorify Jesus as a proud steward.
P.S. I would also like to send out my sincerest thanks to all who encouraged me or said a kind word to me while I was losing my weight.
