Weight Loss Adventure - Week #4

So I'm heading into week four of the South Beach diet. I started the diet weighing 236.6 lbs, and I weighed in today at 225.6. 11 lbs in 3 weeks is pretty good! Hopefully I continue to lose at about the rate of 2 lbs per week. At that rate, it'll take about six months for me to get to my goal weight.

I've been working out too. About 3-4 times per week. Mostly upper body stuff (I think that's typical of most guys). But even in this short time I've seen improvements there as well. I've had to increase the weight/resistance on some of the exercises by up to 10 or 15 lbs. I guess that means I'm actually getting some muscles again. That's nice. So hopefully, six months from now I will be a slimmer, more muscley, sexy dude! Okay...that actually creeped me out to say it...

Catching Up

I talked to an old friend last night. It was wonderful to catch up. It's been maybe two years since our last communication, and it was clearly long overdue. There are definitely some interesting dynamics in our relationship that I'm still working through, some emotional scars, some relational hiccups.

I hate to admit it, but there seems to be always an air of skepticism in me when we talk. I'm never quite sure what to think about the things he says. I'm always curious about what's behind his words, what's going on in his brain as he says the things he says. I've always acknowledged that these suspicions may very well be nothing more than some sort of strange paranoia, but they are not without reason. I have felt somewhat manipulated by him in the past, and it really hurt.

Last night we talked a lot about my recent and unfortunate adventures in ministry - namely, my being jettisoned from my position at Hope Chapel. It was ultimately a very encouraging conversation. My friend, and my old pastor, were both very supportive and expressed a great deal of genuine concern that was greatly appreciated. My pastor related in a letter how he had experienced similar things in his years of experience in ministry, and that as ministers we are in good company with those who have gone through similar rejections. That was encouraging. Even Jesus, the perfect minister, was rejected, thrown out of synagogues, accused falsely, etc. Thus, what might appear to be a severe setback, may actually be a part of God's plan, one of the many mysterious ways that the Lord deals with us, matures us and strengthens our faith. But then...

Then came the suspicion again. My friend made a strong plea, sincere as I believe it was, for me to come to NY for a "sabbatical." A time for me to simply get away and seek the Lord and to do some ministry at his church, all in an environment where I could be free. Though this actually does sound wonderful to me, there are several things that are standing in the way of this becoming a reality.

He said several times that He felt that "the Lord would be in it." I've heard similar words before. Basically it means that he feels that the Lord has spoken to him about this, and thus the truth of it (from his perspective) is ironclad. Placing spiritual implications on "suggestions" usually heightens these "suggestions" to a prophetic level. This means that if I fail to act on this "suggestion," then it is basically equivalent to me being disobedient to "the word of the Lord." Why is this a problem? Because God didn't speak this to me. My friend feels that God spoke to him about something that I should do. He sincerely asked me to pray about it. I am. And I will continue to do so. But if I happen to come down on the side of not going to New York (which frankly seems more likely), then I run the risk of getting a sort of spiritual cold shoulder from my friend. This has happened before as well. He feels something from the Lord about what I should do. I don't do it. He feels like I "missed the Lord," and thus all our future conversations are tainted with a sense of disappointment from him.

I say all this, knowing that my friend is being 100% sincere. He is concerned for me. He wants God's best for me and I feel nothing but appreciation for it. But several years ago God dealt with me. I had harbored an unwholesome need for approval from this friend, and from this pastor. I NEEDED them to see me and feel like I was smack dab in the center of God's will. Then God dealt with me, much the same way as he dealt with Peter in John 21. Peter gets upset about what the Lord says to John, and Jesus basically says, "Don't worry about John, Peter. You follow me. Let me worry about John." So I've come to that place. I'm just going to follow Jesus. I am always open to suggestions, but I can't follow suggestions - I have to follow the Lord.

You know, there are a lot of sheep in flock, who only ever follow the tail in front of them. It's been said that if one sheep walks off the edge of a cliff, there's a good chance the whole flock will follow him over. But then there are those few who, instead of following the tail in front of them, listen instead for the Shepherd's voice. I want to be one of those few. There's a lot of sheep to follow. And sometimes you've got to listen real hard to hear the Shepherd's voice over all the bleating. But it's worth it, because the Shepherd will never lead you astray...

Some pictures...

The groomsmen.

Dave (the groom) on the floor. From left to right: Brian, Steve, me trying to lick Steve, John (the brother of Dave, and best man), Phil.

The groomsmen swinging their vests in the air. I'm on the far left (you can't see my face, but it's me).

Me dancing on the far left.

Me dancing.

Phil gettin' down!
Brian gettin' down!

Holly and Dave - the happy couple.

Me eating chicken wings. Mmmmm...

The fabled garbage plate! Mmmmmm??

Slight Sertback

So, as I figured, this trip set me back a few pounds, but nothing huge. I think I gained back 3 lbs from the 10 that I lost. Then I lost another 2 yesterday. But, I mean, c'mon! I had to have some chicken wings...and a garbage plate...and a couple of delicious brownies at the Bachelor party, oh and a couple hamburgers, oh yeah and some pizza, and one morning I had pancakes...

So no biggie.

Back

So I'm back from NY. The trip was AWESOME! Saw old friends. Made new ones. Saw the old stompin' ground. Cookouts. Swimming. Tons of food. (I swerved off of my diet a bit). Chicken wings. Garbage plate. Wine. Beer. Dancing. You heard me right. I danced. Hard. Sat at the head table (that was a blast - first class service). Lots of hanging out. Lots of fun. I think I'll do it again next weekend!

Almost 3am....

So I just got home from NY (an hour to Boston, a two hour layover that turned into three, 5 hours in the air, an hour of getting lost in an unfamiliar part of Phoenix, and two hours back to Tucson). I can't sleep...Actually, by NY time, it is almost 6am for me...

One week down...

So, first of all, I'm going to stop weighing myself daily, and I am going to switch to one or two times per week.

I weighed in at 230.0. That's 6.6 lbs in one week! Not too shabby. Of course I was at this weight three days ago. But, clearly the diet is working. I don't feel like I'm being deprived of anything, really. I have the occasional craving for a piece of bread, or a bagel or something. But other than that, it's been great. I've actually eaten some great meals so far. Different stuff. Stuff I probably would never have eaten had it not been for this diet.

The diet touts that most people lose 8 to 13 lbs in the first two weeks. I've lost almost 7 already, so I guess I'm right on track (even if the weight loss has slowed a bit). I'm a little concerned about this week, since I am going to NY on Thursday, and it is going to be much more difficult to stay on the diet while I'm there. But I am definitely going to try and make healthy choices. So we'll see what damage I do to my weight in NY...

Book-a-Week challenge

So my first book may or may not count. I read the South Beach Diet book. Not necessarily the most enriching or fascinating book, but definitely pertinent to my life currently.
I have a feeling that commenting on the quality or literary specifics of the book would be futile, and boring, frankly. It's a good book if you are planning on going on the diet. How's that?

The next book I am reading, or rather, re-reading is The Practice of the Presence of God. It's small, so it won't take tons of effort to get through it. I'll let you know in a week!

Delicious!

It seems impossible, but this diet has turned me into a chef. I cook every day, sometimes more than once. And the weirdest part - I'm enjoying it...

So I just made a recipe from one of the South Beach cookbooks and it was OUTSTANDING! And super healthy!!! I figured I'd pass it on with a few of my own suggestions...

Mexican Chicken Soup

Prep Time: 10 min --- Cook Time: 15 mintues

1 tablespoon canola oil (I used olive oil)
1 small onion, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons cumin
5 cups lower-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 2-inch strips
2 cups mild refrigerated fresh salsa.

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and jalapeño; cook, stirring often, until veggies are tender, 5 min. Stir in garlic and cumin; cook 30 seconds more.
Add broth, increase heat to high, and bring to a rapid simmer. Add chicken and cook until no longer pink, about 3 minutes. Stir in salsa, bring back to a simmer, season with salt and pepper to taste, serve hot.

Okay here are my suggestions...

More veggies. Chopped celery, green onions (as a garnish), maybe a little cilantro.
I used ROJO'S© Fresh Cut Salsa Medium Southwest Fire Roasted (scrumptious -- does saying "scrumptious" make me sound gay?)
Also, tortilla strips would be PERFECT!

Try it, you will love it (it has a kick)!

...

Okay, so my weight went up again...Once again, it was minimal - 230.8 lbs (another .4 lbs up), but what the heck! This is why you're not supposed to weigh yourself every day, I guess...

This was actually surprising, since I ate next to nothing yesterday. No breakfast. A late lunch. No dinner (just the way the day went). Oh well. Maybe I'll get out of the '30's tomorrow.

Jeff's Devotional Blog

I created a new blog to record my more spiritual musings. Check it out...

http://jeffsdevotionalblog.blogspot.com/

Wrong Direction!

So I weighed in at 230.4 this morning! Though it's minimal, it's the wrong direction!! I was hoping to break out of the '30's today. No such luck. Well, I anticipated a little fluctuation. And here it is...

My Business...

...doesn't exist yet. But soon.

Yes, I am thinking about going official and starting a Web Design business. I will be going to school for web design in the fall, and am really looking forward to that. I sat down tonight and thought through all the stuff that I would actually need to successfully design websites professionally. Here's what I came up with...

A Mac Book Pro (and I'll probably buy a separate monitor for desktop use). About $2,500 (insert "cha-ching" sound).

Adobe's Creative Suite 3.3 Web Premium software package which includes: Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Fireworks, and a few others. About $1,600.

Really that's it. Not a lot of overhead in a web design business. Everything is virtual! But it looks like it's going to take about $6,000 to get what I need. Anyone feel like donating??

Spiritual lessons from dieting...

So I've been on a diet now for less than a week. It's not exactly a rigorous diet, but there are some significant restrictions (though only for the first two weeks). Basically the idea is no bread, pasta, rice, fruit, cereal, etc. Nothing that is high in carbohydrates. The theory is that most people are overweight because they've trained their bodies through constant abuse to process sugars poorly. Anyway, I digress.

I notice pretty much every night after dinner that familiar desire to have something sweet. A piece of pie. A scoop of ice cream, or whatever. In the past, I would indulge so long as the sweet stuff was available. But now, I am having to consciously resist those cravings.

I have realized that the difficult part is not the loss of the specific food, but rather the loss of freedom. I have to be more intentional now. I have to be vigilant, aware, constantly cognizant of what I allow into my body. I am no longer free. Or rather, I have willfully stripped myself of some freedoms to achieve a greater benefit. I wish I could be this vigilant in my relationship with God! How often do we simply do whatever comes into our mind to do. How often do we abuse our spirits with the "sweeties" of the world (Narnia reference). We know we shouldn't. We know that they will only bring us harm, but we figure that this one indulgence won't be so devastating.

That's what is hard about Christianity. We have to give up some freedoms in order to serve Christ. We don't like thinking about that, necessarily, but it's true. We have to give up our freedom to sin. Even harder, we have to give up our freedom to define sin for ourselves. This is a big one in our culture. We have to give up our freedom to choose what we want to do with our lives. Every day we are called to make sacrifices. Small ones, big ones. Sometimes HUGE ones.

I am reading Practicing the Presence of God. It is one of the most challenging books I have ever read. Brother Lawrence talks about three types of union with God: "the first is habitual, the second virtual, and the third actual." Here's his basic definitions of the three. Habitual union refers to the union all Christians share with God. We are unified with Him through grace, through the blood of Christ. Virtual union is basically temporary union. Say, through prayer, or a time of worship. We experience union with Him for the duration of that action. Then, we sort of "part ways." Actual union is a constant, unbroken abiding in the presence of God. In Lawrence's words, "[this union is] more intense than fire, more luminous than the sun in a clear sky."

That kind of abiding would take some serious sacrifice. As Lawrence puts it, it requires the exclusion of every distraction, no matter how small. How many of us would be willing to give up EVERY distraction in our lives?? Is blogging a distraction?

Yet of how much more worth will it be to hear my Father say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest," than to weigh 175 lbs???

The Mighty Randomthought #3

Email Grammar.

does it bug anyone else how some people refuse to use caps or punctuation for that matter in emails i for one cant stand it im a bit of a grammar nazi anyway and so when i get an email that looks like this i just want to pull my hair out

Okay, enough of that! Seriously, what is the deal with this total disregard for any sort of grammatical formatting. No caps, commas, periods, apostrophes - not even paragraph breaks! It makes it really hard to read, and for some strange reason I always find myself reading emails like this in a low monotone voice in my head without any pauses or breaks. Try it. It somehow seems to fit.

This phenomenon also exists in the text messaging world. Though I get that it is harder to text at lightning fast speeds if you have to hit the caps button, or find the right punctuation, but who cares?!?!? I always go back through a text message to insert commas and periods and apostrophes, etc.

The worst part is that it seems to be intentional!! It almost seems like it's somehow cool to refuse to use punctuation in an email. It's not that these people don't know how to use punctuation, they simply choose not to. Personally, I had to do a lot of backspacing in that little section above to change capital letters, to erase commas and periods. I simply cannot email like that. To this is an awful trend. What's next?

arewegoingtostartemailinglikethistoeachotherwhynotiteliminatesonemorekeyonthe
keyboardthatwedonthavetouse

And that's all for now...

Another Day....

One more day of stickin' with it. Weighed in at 230.0 this morning (only .4 lbs less than yesterday - lame!). The book says that you should lose 8-13 lbs in the first two weeks, and I've lost over six in less than one week! I guess I'm doing pretty good. Maybe my body is evening out now.

There and Back Again...

So I've decided to brush the cobwebs and dust away, and reopen this old blog Amusing Musings, basically because I don't like the MySpace blog very much.

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So my friend Scott put out a challenge to read roughly one book a week, and I'm going to accept that challenge. I'm also going to give a counter-challenge.

Recently (and completely unrelated to the above challenge) I decided to begin an Intensive Bible Reading plan. I emphasized Intensive because once I started doing it, I realized that it really wasn't that intensive - 20 to 30 min. per day of reading. I kind of developed it myself based on my own queerness and distaste for most Bible reading plans. Most plans employ either a front-to-back method, which is sensible, but you end up spending the first 3/4 of the year in the OT. There are also chronological plans, which are actually very cool, but with the same problem. There are plans out there that call for a few OT verses, a few NT verses, and a few verses in the Psalms or Proverbs or something. This seems better, but usually ends up being sort of disjointed and it becomes difficult to follow because you are reading from 3 or 4 places every day.

My plan groups sections of the Bible together so that you follow a particular theme through to it's conclusion (the Pentateuch, the Gospels and Acts, Paul's letters, etc.). It bounces back and forth between Old and New Testament sections, so that every few weeks you will be reading bits from both. It also recommends reading bigger chunks of scripture than most reading plans (like 8-10 chapters at a time, instead of 2 or 3 chapters at a time). This idea was prompted by the realization that we would almost never read any other book at the rate of 2-3 pages a day, generally. Many people sit down with a novel and will read 100 pages or more in a night! So why do we feel the need to read so little of God's Word every day?!?!

So here it is. In this plan you will get through the Bible in a little over 5 months. You could read the Bible twice through in a year, and have about a month's break in between (maybe study up on some of the more difficult passages??).

Rule: Read 8-10 chapters per day

Reading Breakdown:

• Pentateuch: approx. 3 weeks
• Gospels and Acts: approx. 2 weeks
• Early History - Promised Land thru David (Joshua - 2 Samuel): approx. 2 weeks
• Middle History - Solomon thru the Exile (1Kings - 2Chronicles): approx. 2 weeks
• Late History - Return from Exile (Ezra - Esther): 3 days (a book per day)
• Paul's Books (Romans - Philemon): approx. 10 days
• Hebrew Poetry (Job -Song of Solomon): approx. 4 weeks
• Major Prophets (Isaiah - Ezekiel): approx. 3 weeks
• Minor Prophets (Hosea thru Malachi): approx. 1 week
• Apocalyptic Books (Daniel & Revelation): approx. 1 week

I like simple, and I think this plan is simpler than most. There isn't a "daily reading schedule." Read 8-10 chapters until you're through the section, then move on to the next. If you only read 4 one day, no sweat. If you get really into it and end up reading 15 chapters, awesome!
The other unexpected benefit from this has been that I feel more focused. I realized that 2 or 3 chapters is about what it takes for me to get into "reading mode." I have trouble focusing at first (as usual), but after 2 or 3 chapters I'm clear and focused. It's great!

Any takers?!