Let’s examine the precious life: You have potential energy

Let’s examine the precious life: You have potential energy

This may seem weird that in a blog about losing weight I would dare to write about life. But I think that in order to lose weight and to keep that weight off we need a deep, deep personal motivation. This motivation has to be life long. It has to be a motivation that overpowers our cravings for food and for the comfort that comes from eating food.

There is sensuous satisfaction in the taste of a cream filled donut melting in the mouth. The taste buds explode with delight as the sweet flavors fill the nodules in the tongue that relay those flavors to the brain. It’s wonderful! It truly is. Then as we gorge ourselves on this sweet delicacy the stomach fills and the hunger in the stomach begins to dissipate into a temporary feeling of satisfaction and fullness.

It’s this way with all food. If food tastes good, and it smells good, and we’re hungry then we eat it. We do it to satisfy our hungers. We satisfy the hunger that says I have to survive and live, and we do it to satisfy our sensual hunger. The sensual hunger is the feelings we get as the flavors of food touch our palettes and fill our brains with feelings of delight.

There is one more subtle reason we over eat. We do it to fit in with what is going on at the time. It's called submitting to peer group pressure.

It’s that relative that acts insulted when you refuse to eat all the spaghetti and meatballs piled high on your plate. Then there are the people at the party who jeer at you for not having another beer and getting sick as a dog. It’s the uncle with you at the buffet who paid for your meal and then tells you to forget your diet for today.

Did you ever run across the people who get upset when you mention the word diet? I have. This word pricks the conscience. Never mention the word diet. Just be gracious and then not eat everything in front of you. Eat what you think you should eat and then say, “Oh, I feel so full.”

Did you ever ask yourself why am I eating what I am eating? Do you care? If you don’t care then don’t read anymore of my blog. Forget this exists and go on with your life.

I mean it. I want you to stay, as you are, a preponderant beast. Yes I wrote preponderant beast. I mean that only if you don’t care about who you are and what you are eating.

Why do I use the word beast? It's because a beast is an unthinking animal. This is the character who for whatever reason never thinks ahead about the consequences of his / her actions. A beast satisfies its needs for the moment and doesn’t give thought to a possibility for future needs for self and for others around it. A beast’s time is now, not tomorrow or the next day.

I wrote preponderant because it means, “tipping the scale.” It means overwhelming. And when someone is preponderant, he / she is tipping the scale. If you were put on a giant balance scale on one side, and on the other side sand bags that represent what your normal weight ought to be, would you tip the scale down? If this is so then you are preponderant.

Does your scale wince with pain when you step on it? When was the last time you weighed yourself?

Why acted shocked and insulted? If it’s true, it’s time to wake up and face reality. A problem can’t get fixed until it’s acknowledged as a problem. Then the problem has to be cured.

I won’t lose weight if I don’t acknowledge that there is a problem with my weight. It’s a stinking, nagging, preponderant problem. I hate it.

I wish that I were like some people who could pile food into the mouth and never see their weight go up. I wish I didn’t have to go hungry. I wish it could be different. It’s not.

Here in lays the problem; I like so many others have to think about what it is we eat. I wrote it before. I will write it again.

As I started out with the title of todays blog I thought about life, and what it is. Is it a good life, or is it a bad life? Am I a victim of all of life, or can I alter even just a little bit of my life? I am talking about my life. Can I make it any different?

It's not as if there are armed guards standing over me with plates of food. My jaws aren't locked open with vices, and then the food is poured down into it. There aren't plungers rammed into my mouth to force the food into my throat and my stomach.

No, unfortunately, for most of my life my intake of food has been voluntary. My mom and dad don't sit by my high chair telling me to eat anymore. I am not sitting at the family dinner table being reminded about starving children in other parts of the world.

You aren't either.

I didn't get fat deliberately. (Maybe you didn't either.) I have actually been seeking to lose weight. However, all my efforts failed. Oh, I lost the weight before. It's just in time, I put it back on. I prayed about it. I asked God for an answer. I got the answer. And the answer is evolving.

My motivation came from being sick and tired. This is what I wrote before. I got sick and tired of tight fitting clothes. I got sick and tired of looking in the mirror at a bloated face. I got sick and tired of sore knees and joints that were collapsing under too much weight. I got tired of huffing and puffing. I got tired of not sleeping at night. I got sick and tired of just being tired.

I also had to think about the quality of life that I am living. What is the quality of life for a preponderant person? What is your quality of life? What in the world is your life like? Do you care?

If you are reading this blog, then maybe I can help you. I am flesh and bone. My feet are made from clay. I stumble and I fall. It's just for some strange reason I manage to find my way back up onto my feet.

Maybe you are frustrated. Maybe you say to yourself, "I want to lose weight but I can't."
I too have felt this way.
I will continue tomorrow. Chew on these thoughts for today.

One final note: This morning I weighed in at 208 pounds. That's just a bit higher than I was yesterday. In the middle of the day I stepped on the digital scale and weighed 206.4 pounds. I am slowly losing this overabundance of food energy.