Day 980: Concentric Circles

The rapidly-heating water bubbled tauntingly around the slices of onion in the pan; splashes playfully flicking off grains of pepper and salt before subsiding into oblivion. Mindlessly, I picked at the onion slices with a fork, each one perfectly round and consisting of so many perfect concentric circles. Ring by ring, I transformed the precise structures into a tumbled, chaotic beauty.

This must be the hundredth time I'd made squash and onions. Always the process was the same. Cut the onions and saute them for a couple minutes, softening the stiffness before adding the zucchini and squash slices. A fork tine caught one of the loops still wrapped around an ever-decreasing collection of onion rings.

Funny. I don't ever remember the onions looking like this. All round and ring-y.

An idea struck with revelatory force. Over those hundreds of times preparing this dish, not once had I ever cut the onions in circles... always wedges or longitudinal slices. But why? Why had I never cut them in circular slices? Not an over-important question, but one which grabbed my attention (a task at which the squash had failed).

It simply had never occurred to me.

So simple an answer, but stunning. How many things do I do out of pure, mindless habit? What changes and interesting worlds am I missing because I never stopped to evaluate the "why" behind what I do.

For me, this was the third day on the VeryStupidDiet, known to many as the Cabbage Soup Diet. The previous two days had been spent in the most unrelenting of tortures and drowning in the screams of dying sugars inside me. My head pounded non-stop for 60 hours, every sound was torture, daylight had a dark tinge, and overpowering all faculties of reason was the compelling desire to eat. something. sweet. Anything sweet. More specifically these nasty Kirkland Peanut Butter Cups.

I came to understand the meaning of the phrase, "I would kill for a [insert craved food here]" - even one Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate chip would have sufficed. Dude, I was even on the verge of jumping the diet because I so desperately wanted to eat HMR pre-packaged meal replacements! I cried. I barely restrained myself from throwing things. I pouted. I screamed so loudly inside, I feared it would actually come out.

...and then I started praying.

And in that moment, I realized my focus was horribly, horribly wrong. I was a thirty-year-old with emotions which would rival the most terrifying of two-year-olds. Nothing could help in that darkest of moments. No word, no kind gesture, no loving deed (and Jason did try).

For so many years, I have mindlessly plugged various holes in my life with food. Feeling overwhelmed? Starbucks always did the trick. Unexpectedly pregnant? A soothing bunch of Snickers bars. Bored at the computer? A fix of Ghirardelli chips. Didn't want to make dinner? Activate eight cell phone buttons to summon Pizza Hut. Sad because I gained back so much of the weight I'd lost? Fountain Pepsi was the appropriate balm. Filled with self-hate and self-loathing at seeing recent pictures? The only fix was a full-out Outback or Olive Garden feast.

Habits die hard and food habits die hardest.

Then and there, head about to explode with pain, I admitted to God I had a problem... a problem with gluttony, and even that was just a symptom. I was filling emotional holes with food instead of Him. Within minutes, the massive headache faded to a not-as-bad-but-still-bad railroad spike behind my eyeball and my attitude started to change.

Day Three dawned with no headache, increased energy... and food was not the focus any more. It was a chaotic day. Such an one in the past would have required lots of chocolate and soothing drinkies, plus a pizza and movie at the end of the day. Yet, as the day drew to a close with no emotional, food-related outbursts, I realized (again) I wouldn't actually breakdown or become incapacitated without junk food; it didn't have to be a habitual response to every thing happening around me.

And so I continued picking at the circular onion slices, marveling at their pure simplicity and the lesson they held... habits can be changed and realizing there is a habit to be changed is the first step.

How will you slice your onions?



photo courtesy of kateiredale. typepad. com 

Day 953: Cutting Lessons

My house has a tendency to look overgrown. There is a row of overfull, unwieldy azaleas which have been steadily taking over; rising above the windows, overshadowing the walkway, spilling their wildness into every available space. Across the street and to one side of us, beautifully cared-for yards display restrained and controlled beauty - a degree of elegance which, I will admit, I envy. 


For almost two years now, I have mentally planned how to make our landscaping more crisp, more purposeful. Thousands of times (in my head), I've trimmed the azaleas and transplanted them to a better part of the yard, installed beautiful plants, erected privacy fences, painted the house, ground up submerged stumps to flatten the yard, added trees, planted more grass, and generally increased the aesthetics of our outdoor presence. 


I'm not sure why it takes me SO long to do almost anything, but yesterday, after taking a plethora of "before" pictures, I attacked my collection of straggly azaleas with loving energy. As I tried to shape and cut back each bush to a modest size, I realized many of these azaleas were masquerading as full and healthy bushes. 


Oh, to be sure, the tops and sides were full and magnificent, but trim one branch and peer inside the bush and the true situation became clear. Every bush had one to four feet of plain, unadorned branch before fluffing out in a blanket of green. There was simply no way to prune or trim these azaleas without resulting in an array of odd-looking, leggy, top-heavy bushes.


With reluctance, I began to cut each branch, not where I preferred to cut it, but where it needed to be cut. It was painful and seemed massively unfair to reduce such large bushes to such small stubs. Poor azaleas, what did they do to deserve such treatment?


And then I saw an important lesson.


My reason for cutting the azaleas wasn't rooted in hatred or spite or the desire to curtail their rambunctious beauty. I was cutting the dead and unlovely parts, working from the inside, out. True, what appeared to be healthy loveliness on top was sacrificed in the process, but the end result will be a healthier, happier, fuller bush - from inside to outside. This was merely a preparation to move them to a new spot where they will thrive and be able to display their new growth and beauty in a much friendlier environment... no more sun crisping them from sunrise to sunset.


And so, with each snip and cut, a life lesson became obvious. 


Perhaps my weight-loss journey should not be viewed by me as a mostly failure interrupted by a brief success. Time to face the facts. Yes. I did lose 119 pounds in ten months. I looked awesome. I was a source of inspiration. People loved my story. I was a weight-loss poster child. Me, me, me. I was just. so. cool. And I did it all myself. Yay, me.


And where was God?


While the weight loss was absolutely real and absolutely fought for, it was a sparkly, amazing exterior that covered an inner self which had never learned to lose weight from the inside, out. My outside was thin, but my inside was still obese... in less than a year, 67.2% of the weight came back. 


I have to wonder if this setback is not really a setback, but God letting me know I cannot succeed long-term without His help. Perhaps my awesome, successful facade was clipped away to bring me to a stub just so I can do it all over again, but with God. Because now I know I cannot permanently change this horrible, embarrassing aspect of my life into a truly sparkly, amazingness without Him. 


I want an exterior which accurately reflects what is within.

We do not (and perhaps cannot) know the complete purpose of our lives. Our outside lives may appear complete and indicative of great growth and structure within, yet is hiding behind all that is dry, dead, and bereft-of-life. When the cuts come and it seems all is lost or being lost, remember the lesson the azaleas taught me. There is a greater purpose.

To be great, we must first be made small; all facades stripped away. Not to cause pain and misery, but to allow new growth.


photo from tdjordan.tumblr . com

Day 884: One Year from Now

Hello. My name is Ruth Cooper and I am overweight... again. It has been 261 days since my last post because I could not bring myself to admit the level of backslide and defeat which has taken place. It was easier to not update my weight-loss LillyTicker, showing 27 pounds away from my goal weight. It was simpler to leave older, thinner photos on my Facebook wall instead of updating with current images. It was preferable to stay at home, rather than have you see the work I've undone.

In Hebrews, we are reminded we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses and Mark reminds us nothing is done in secret which shall not be seen in the light. I started this blog 883 days ago as a form of accountability and a way to embody a small percentage of the cloud of witnesses I know are watching.

This blog has been re-activated.

I am not perfect, nor do I pretend to be here... but something needs to change. I don't have the answers; I don't even have a plan at this point. Over the past 14 months, I have slid almost to the foot of the weight-loss mountain I worked so hard to climb. The peak was in sight, I had 27 "steps" to go and I quit... completely and without struggle.

As of today, I have re-gained 75 pounds of the 119 I lost. True, I'm still in far better shape than I was last time I weighed this much - more active and still involved in running - and I didn't gain it ALL back. There were plenty of warning signs and turn-around points on my slide to today, so there really can be no excuses.

This blog has (apparently) inspired others during it's heyday, so I'm hoping to be inspired by my readers yet again. Having done this before, I know what kind of work needs to be done and how hard it was. I simply don't want to.

Feel free to be as bluntly honest with me as I am here on this blog.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day and it stabbed to the heart...

One year from now, you'll wish you'd started today