When the sun goes down, so does my willpower.

I got a great FB message from a friend today who struggles with...wait for it...snacking late at night. WHO DOES THAT?

Is everyone raising their hand right now? Cause I am.

Ok, here is her email:

"SO..weird thing is, when you facebooked me back..I didn't respond bc i was falling off the wagon...when i wrote you first i was doing SO well! lost 23 lbs and tHEN....ive gained 10 back. How do you continue to stay motivated?? Thats what im missing! food plays such a big part in my life, when im happy, sad, lonely, entertianment or just plain hungry!....ive noticed just recently i can go all day eating so healthy! and then night comes and i eat EVERYTHING in sight...literally thousands of calories and i cant break that habit! so everything i do during the day gets cancelled out by night time. I love following your blog bc i feel that you understand what im going through. Let me know if you have any tips at all..greatly appreciated! :)"

Can you relate?

So last night, I got home home around 6:30 and ate dinner. Then, the night time is here. Shoot. The tv comes on, and so does my desire for snacking. I had been eating great all day! Was I about to blow it by eating whatever I want while watching RHONJ? (Team Manzo all the way.)

Here's the thing: mindless eating is just that...MINDLESS. We are stuffing things into our mouths without even looking at what's going in there. No portions, no rules, and sometimes, no chewing. Just that general shoveling motion. I have some tips that have worked for me in the past, so take or leave whatever might work for you:

1. Don't eat straight out of the bag. Those calories are adding up, and they will end up on your love handles. Trust me. Portion out whatever you want, and take a small bowl to the couch, NOT the whole bag.
2. Cookie time? Try Luna Fiber bars, or Clif Kidz bars. Both are only about 120 calories and taste like Nutrigrain bars or can be great cookie substitutes. Clif Kidz bars have awesome flavors (Oatmeal and Honey Graham are the bomb). If you love brownies, get the Fiber One peanut butter brownies. Oh. My. Gosh.
3. Skinny Cow Ice Cream. If you just HAVE to have ice cream. These are right around 100 calories and come in a ton of varieties. Basically, you just have to find substitutes that work for you.
4. If you have $250 to spare, I highly recommend getting a Vitamix blender. The Ninja blender is another option (about $100) that people use and like. Both of these will blend leafy greens down to a pulp and you can hide your vegetables in fruit smoothies. For instance, last night I did two bananas, almond milk, ice, spinach, and Hershey's syrup and it's the closest thing I can get to a milkshake without impeding all my progress.
5. Sometimes you're not really hungry, but thirsty. For some weird reason, ice cold water will get me through that initial craving part of the night where I am DYING for something to eat. Your body might just want something to drink and fill you up. Try that one, it might work!
6. Find something else to occupy your hands. Try smoking! Sike. Try video games, or a puzzle, or going for a walk or reading. Watching tv, for me, always means snacking, so I had to change up that routine. I think my hands just got used to automatically feeding my mouth. Sort of like a trained dog. But we are not dogs. Food is not our reward.
7. The kitchen is closed. At around 8pm, I need to declare OUT LOUD that the kitchen is closed. No more snacks, no more nothing. I can have water, and fruits and veggies, but nothing else. Give yourself about 4 hours before bed to declare that you are done eating for the night.
8. Think about how you will feel in 5 minutes. The cravings I get, as soon as I satisfy them, are gone imeediately. And then they are replaced by guilt and regret. How many times have you said "Why did I just eat that?" How many times do you want to say "I'm so proud that I didn't eat that."
9. Do the math. According to this article, One single tortilla chip topped with 7-layer dip would take 9.5 minutes of stair climbing to burn off. There is more scary statistics in the link, but it opens my eyes to why the heck I am eating like I eat.
10. Be a smart grocery store shopper. It sounds crazy, but don't go alone if you can't handle it. Don't push by the ice cream section if it's too much. And don't ever go to the grocery store hungry. This spells disaster for even the strongest person.

Hope this helps. And thank you to my friend for asking a practical food question. This is good for all of us, because we are NOT alone.

Amen!
-Liz

Jesus in the grocery store

I am roommate-less for the next few weeks while my little sidekick Baby Dee is on vacation. Roommate-less sounds like it would be so great. Freedom! Freedom! Turns out I got too much...FREEDOM!

The reason I know this is because I went to the grocery store by myself on Sunday afternoon. First mistake. And I also went hungry. Second mistake. So I got all the fruits and vegetables I needed. Picked up some other fresh foods on the perimeter. Then, I ventured inland to the danger zone.

And there I was. Alone with the Entenmann's raspberry danish twist. Before I knew it, it was in my hands. I was reading the nutrition facts, praying to God that they had found some way to infuse the deliciousness with fiber and low fat goodness.



Quit your smiling, tough guy.



This is where it got weird. I looked up and saw a man walking towards me in the dairy section. His cart was filled with big foods. Big foods, to me, are like - whole turkeys. And cheeses. And bacon and sugary cereals and sweets and pastas. Big foods. And he was a big man. Probably 400+ pounds.

Then I heard God say "Liz, you are not going back to that. I won't let you."

So I dropped the raspberry danish twist. Then I pushed around my cart of kale and carrots and almond milk and 40 calorie bread. And then I pushed it in a circle and looked at the Entenmann's one more time. And then there was that man, one more time.

And then there was God saying "Just walk away. You are not going back to that."

So that was that. Grocery stores are my retail therapy, because food has always been my therapy. What a terrible therapist. Yesterday I survived. I hope today I make good choices, too.

The small things matter. If you forget that, remember this story. Because Jesus met me in the grocery store, so there is NO LIMIT to where He'll meet you.

-Liz

Be your own best friend.

I have been noticing how hard I've been on myself lately. Watching the scale #s, counting calories, watching the time tick away on the treadmill. Very methodical, very scientific, and very...unforgiving.

See, if I had a friend like me, and I saw someone picking on them, putting them down, and being unforgiving towards them, I would immediately stand in the gap and fight for them. Don't treat my friend like that! Why are you being so hard on them? This is my best friend and I won't let you treat her that way!

So why do I do this to...myself?

I'm changing it up. For me, and for the world of us that are too stinking hard on ourselves. I will not, however, give up this fight. I am just choosing to remember that the fight is not against myself.

-Liz

When stupid sayings come true.

"The journey is the destination."

What a stupid saying. At least, that's what I've always thought. I hate admitting when I'm wrong.

A few days ago I fell off the wagon pretty hard. I had some alone time, so I decided to get Cookout. Cheeseburger, onion rings, and a milkshake. I was bracing myself for that terrible feeling of guilt and gluttony afterwards. But it never came. You know what did come? Satisfaction. So that began two days of eating whatever I wanted, not counting calories, and chasing that overfull feeling. At the end of day two, I was actually done with it. It was like I went to visit an old boyfriend, had a fling, and then remembered why I broke it off with him.

Pretty soon, I will hit the one year mark of when I really started doing this weight loss thing. Lately I have found myself in that desert though...where I am not where I was, but I'm not where I want to be. I'm not at my destination. Will I ever get there?

But what if...I'm already there?

And so brings me to my true confession...yes, it's true. The journey is the destination. If I keep living like I am waiting for this to be over, like I am waiting to finally get there, I will always be disappointed and in a rush. I will never live up to my own expectations, and I will be heartbroken.

So I am going to embrace that cheesy saying and admit that it's true. I never believed other people when they said that to me, but they were right. It just took me a while to get there myself. I need to quit being a snob.

Now, let's all get off the internet and journey outside for a run. Keep fighting for yourself!

-Liz

Cheers to the Unknown

Before I even graduated from college, I had a plan of what I wanted my post-college life to look like. I was dead-set on moving to Jamaica to do missionary work for a while. My family and friends from home know that I am a person who loves to be on the move, going from one thing to the next (I promise I really do miss you all). I guess you could say that I have a hard time sitting still. I avoided any plan of getting a “real world” job right after college, and it was no mistake that I never stepped foot in a career fair at Penn State.

While I was so sure that Jamaica was going to work out like I planned, I find myself now living in NC for an indefinite amount of time. This not only takes away from my control to plan out my life and my future, but it also forces me to wait on the Lord’s plans to happen in His timing. I have learned to accept and appreciate two important things from this:

1. “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” - John Lennon

If I truly believe that Jesus is my Savior and my reason for living, I need to start not only letting Him into my life, but letting Him lead it. While we believe we know what’s best for us, there is a God who has already planned out our lives and knows where and how to specifically utilize our gifts and our passions. He knows where you are supposed to be, when you are supposed to be there. While we spend so much time planning out our own lives in such crazy detail, we are missing all the blessings He is placing in front of us on this very day.

2. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” - Neale Donald Walsch

Pastor JD from The Summit once said that how we respond to our disappointments reveals whether or not our plans were God-focused or from selfish ambition. Through that kind of lens, I see now that I’ve been completely leaving God out of my decision-making process and relying on my own desires and strength. For those who are struggling with plans that are failing or falling behind society’s twisted timeline of when things are supposed to happen, I say embrace this season of confusion and the unknown. The reality is that God’s timeline and our personal timelines will never match up how we’d like them to, but they will always turn out to be way more beautiful than we could ever imagine for ourselves when we trust God with our futures.

When the door closed to intern in Jamaica, I was devastated. God kept making it clear to me that it wasn’t supposed to happen, but I refused to listen and kept pursuing the idea of it. My friend explained to me that when you try to open a door that is supposed to stay closed, you could really get hurt trying to pry it back open. I guess you could say she is pretty wise, and that she was right.

So here I am, getting ready for my big girl job in Durham, NC. It wasn’t my plan, but I know that God orchestrated this for a reason. I have no idea what’s next for me, but I know that there is beauty to be found. Today is your chance to find yours!

-Dee

The glass slipper of motorcycle jackets

November 2011

I don't have the energy to write a well thought out post today. But I didn't want to pass over a cool moment I had this weekend.

I really want to get a motorcycle soon, against my better judgment. The serious downside to riding a motorcycle is that I can, well, die...but that doesn't hold a candle to how AWESOME I would look pulling up to work on a motorcycle. Like everything in my life, being a bad ass is priority one, so we'll see what wins out.

Last weekend, my friends Pam and Barb rode with me to try on motorcycle jackets at Cycle Gear. The jacket that I have now is a men's jacket and is like 3 sizes too big. I only wore it once back in October when we took our riding class, and now it just sits in my closet.

The big win for me was that I tried on a women's jacket. And it fit. And it wasn't even the biggest size that they had. Last fall, when we all went there, I couldn't find a jacket in the whole store that could fit me...men's, women's, whatever. Nothing. Now I was in the women's section.

Imagine that. A woman shopping for women's clothes. Even if they happen to be women's motorcycle jackets.

-Liz

Do you know that this is the fight of your life?

I have watched the scale go down this week. Then up. Conversely, I have watched my emotions go up, then down. More than that, I am slowly seeing the reality of the fight that I am in.

And today I am wondering if maybe some of us don't realize the fight that we're in?

When I started all this, it was about losing weight, but I had a feeling that it was about a lot more than that. So just like peeling back an onion, I didn't realize all the layers, all the depth, and all the tears that would come.

Today I feel like everyone around me is feeling this way. That this is MUCH bigger than we all thought it was. I actually just got done working out with my friend Lauren. Neither of us wanted to work out. Both of us were yawning on the treadmills. 2 pm workouts are not smart, but today it was our only option. We were bored. We powered through. And then we talked about the situations we are both in. We lost weight. We gained some back. We overate. We are trying to get back on track. We struggle, we struggle, we struggle.

For what?

Do you know how I know that this is the fight of my life? Because food has had control of me for WAY too long. My weight has held me back from LIFE. And if weight isn't your issue, maybe something else is. Maybe something else is trying to fill the place in your heart that only God can fill. What is it? The way you can figure it out is to ask yourself one important question: "What do you run to when you need comfort?"

All week, I have had friends say things to me like this:

• I wish this was over.
• I don't feel good about myself, so I don't want to go.
• I had a family crisis, and I immediately ran to food.
• I found myself eating ice cream in bed at 10 pm last night, because of stress.
• I have been eating crap all week, and I feel like crap.

This is the fight of your LIFE. Make no mistake. And don't play it off like it's not a big deal. Don't go out to girls night and eat what they eat because you are "celebrating." Don't buy ice cream at the grocery store and bring it home because it's "not a big deal." Don't skip your workouts this week because you just "need a break."

You know what we need a break from? Living in bodies that we feel uncomfortable in. Beating ourselves up. Letting our weight consume our emotions. Working SO HARD to lose weight, only to let ourselves gain it all back and feel even worse.

THIS, my friends, is what we need a break from. So whatever your next step is, watch where you put your feet. And make sure they aren't in the frozen foods section.

-Liz