-120 milestone

After saying three masses today and getting lunch with a friend, I was pooped. I took a nap, but not before realizing that I needed to capitalize on the beautiful weather we're having. I became my usual comatose Sunday afternoon self, but had the alarm set for 5:30 pm, knowing I'd still have enough light out for a good workout. 

I got down to the gym and took a walk along the riverside, figuring out with mapmyrun that the normal walking path is about .7 miles a lap. I went into the gym finally and did 2.4 miles on the elliptical for a total of a 5k for the day. I would have done a full 5k on the elliptical, but my feet were kind of sore from being on them all day, and I didn't have my earbuds (I lost my apple earbuds the other day...so sad). 

I got on the scale right after the workout. 343, plus or minus 1 gives me 120lbs
of loss since October! I didn't overeat today, logged all my food, and feel a sense of great personal accomplishment.

Tomorrow I will celebrate Memorial Day not with traditional all you can eat barbecue. It will be remembrance of all who have died having served our nation. I will gladly take to my elliptical machine and the outdoors again, enjoying the freedom that so many people have fought to give us. Requiescant in pace. 

Resurrection

I just finished celebrating my second funeral at the new parish and am filled with a sense of the eternal as I contemplate the mysteries of death and the Resurrection. Death is a sobering reality. 

When my doctor stressed the severity of the conditions that had crept up as a result of my weight gain and diet, I had two choices: the way of death, which would be inevitable, or the way of life, which would be a hard task, but obviously rewarding, happy, and well, nobody really truly desires to die, so...life it was! 

Ultimately, the Resurrection gives us hope, that no matter when we die, and in whatever circumstances, if we have believed in him who put an end to death, we will rise with him and enjoy the rewards of eternal life. I am in solidarity with all those who have died as a result of an eating disorder, and pray that they are on their way to heaven. 

The way of life means that we all will eventually die, but the great grace of the here and now is the fact that we can live life abundantly today, and for one day at a time. 

With God's help I can respond to the grace to live life to the fullest, striving so that my eventual death does not have to be the result of my eating addiction. Today I can choose and experience the freedom of the way of life. Today a little bit of the glory of the Resurrection can shine in my life. May it be so for you! 

The way, the weather, and the road

Yesterday the Gospel referenced again the phrase used for the title of this blog, so I shamelessly plugged the blog in my homily. I really connect to this message, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. For me I need to surrender daily to this fact, that God's ways are so high above my ways, and so following his will is better for me than giving into relapse. This is in fact one of the 12 steps!

Step 11:
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. 

Sunday, of course, is a day of rest set aside to do this. It's also the day a priest works the hardest. When afternoon rolls around, I want to be comatose in my bed. Needless to say the last thing I want to be doing is working out. After I finally got up and went to dinner with my pastor before he takes off for Europe for the next few weeks, I returned to the rectory with a choice. Do I become a couch potato for the evening, or do I enjoy the beautiful weather outside?

Luckily for me it was so amazingly beautiful this weekend that I remembered wanting to chastise anyone who didn't take advantage of doing things outdoors. No, improving my conscious contact with God at the moment involved two things: 1. getting out of the house, and 2. starting my journey towards the road race I hope to enter one day.

Recently I picked up the Mapmyrun app, and found that a lot of my friends were using it. It's great because it syncs with myfitnesspal and automatically adjusts my calories burned from running outside. I tried it out the other day, but decided it was time to walk a little further and try jogging for once. I want eventually to be able to do a 5k, then a 10k, perhaps even talking marathons in the future. I knew I had to take the first step on this new way, the roadway. Jogging on the road is so much harder than the elliptical, but I'll get used to it! It was great that after my jog and logging it on mapmyrun, a college friend of mine who just completed her first half marathon gave me some encouragement. Shout out to Suzy! I got 2.34 miles in on a full stomach, just under 19 minutes a mile walking/jogging. For this big guy, I'll take it. It will definitely get easier as I lose weight, especially in the heart-rate department.

I look forward to continuing this new road to a 5k. Keep me in your prayers, and if you have some nice weather, take advantage of it! It's God's will for you to enjoy his creation!

Spirit led recovery

I left pretty early for a talk I was booked for on the Holy Spirit at a local church, when I discerned that the Spirit was calling me to visit the Dominican Monastery in West Springfield to at least pray and perhaps make a good Confession, if a priest were available. It was almost very much like, "Go to the Dominican Monastery, pray with the Blessed Sacrament, and go to Confession to Fr X (we'll keep his name private)." When I arrived I noticed that the chapel would be closing in 15 minutes. I went in and found that the sisters were just chanting their vespers and there were a couple of faithful in the chapel pews. Sure enough, Fr X, the very same priest I had envisioned hearing my confession, was there.

I knelt down in front of the beautiful sanctuary, with Jesus awesomely enshrined in the monstrance above the altar, and there I poured out my heart with regard to the last two weeks in which I lost my abstinence with food. There were other sinful things, too, for which I wanted to beg the Lord's forgiveness. But for those moments I was quickly drawn into praise and thanksgiving. It was a new day. The birds were chirping around the stark quiet of the monastery grounds. The nuns were singing, trying their best to match the key of the organist, but nevertheless faithful and strong. I was transported into another world of holiness, of truth. I thought to myself, yes, this is real. The ways of the world are so futile. Jesus is truly present. Jesus, you want me to be holy. Jesus, you want me to recover.

I remembered my duties for the evening, how I would need to beg the Holy Spirit to supply the talk on the Holy Spirit for some local parishioners. First, I needed to go to confession. I waited until Fr. X rose from his pew and made his way toward the door. Of course he agreed to hear my confession, and he searched for the key to the confessional. I knelt down in the stall for the penitent, and without starting the confession, Fr. X prayed a prayer of blessing: "May the Holy Spirit enlighten your mind and heart that you may confess your sins and know his mercy." Boom. Game, set, match. That wrote most of my talk. This is a Spirit led recovery.

Abstinence Only!

Did the title grab your attention? In food addiction circles abstinence is not refraining from eating (one must eat to live) but refraining from compulsive eating behaviors and binge foods (not living to eat). 

I recently got to travel with my best friend to visit friends and do a wedding of a college friend. I broke my abstinence. It's the first time since December 31st that I have not tracked my food, gave into overeating, and ate a lot of what are some of my binge foods. It wasn't worth it. I gave into justification: it was a party, I was with friends, I can get right back on track!!! Working out with my trainer the other day really helped me face the music. I gained 5 lbs over the past two weeks.

But facing this reality with my trainer and my support network, I am able to move on. I'm back in the gym, back tracking my food, regaining from eating junk food and drinking caloric beverages. I've already lost one of those pounds. 

Abstinence as defined above is the only way to go. Once you give in it spirals pretty quickly. It's so easy to keep putting off the date to get back on track. This is why having a sponsor, having people to call, and having to show up at a certain time at a gym is so important. Even this blog is helping me to keep accountable. I can't go back to where I was. Abstinence only! 

Vacation means no excuses!!!

Credit vs Debit

In the midst of addiction, one can get to a point where personal finances and other important commitments and obligations fall by the wayside. As I continue to recover, my eyes have been opened to the reality of the hold my food addiction had on me and my finances. 

During my months of therapy in Rochester, I had the opportunity to receive some cognitive behavioral therapy. It is the idea that there is a direct relationship between thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. One of the techniques that Judith Beck uses in her book "The Beck Diet Solution" is giving yourself credit for the good things you've done in the day to promote your recovery. Addicts tend to dwell on the negative, or see the work they must do to recover as an obstacle too great to overcome. That's why letting personal finances slip is very easy. The practice of giving yourself credit helps to inculcate a sense of daily accomplishment. 

Once you become able to say things like "today I ate all my meals in the kitchen and logged them, I went to the gym and ran a faster 5k, I didn't snack when I wanted to, I gave in just a little bit was able to stop after I called a friend and went to a support group meeting," you start to grasp the fact that you do have the power to affect small changes that will add up over time. 

I do my credits when I plug in my phone at night. If it helps, you can call them whatever you want, your blessings, your high moments, your accomplishments. At the end of the day we want to be thinking of credits, rather than debits. 

Today I give myself credit for making steps toward paying off some debt I incurred while not caring about my finances! 

"I am the way, the truth, and the life" -John 14:6

Today's Gospel for the feast of Sts Philip and James provides the text from which the name of the blog is taken. Jesus responds to Philip's question by revealing to him the intimate nature of his connection to the Father. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. In other words, the very meaning of his existence is to show us the way to live, to reveal to us all truth, and to give us the abundance of the divine life which he shares with the Father. 

I'm writing to you from the parking lot of my gym as I finish my Subway sandwich and rest from the 5k on the elliptical I've just done. I'm going back for one more 5k to make it 10k for the day. I'm so encouraged by a friend of mine who is running a half marathon tomorrow. (Prayers for Whitney!) 

When I reflect on the title "the weigh and the truth," I think about how each one of us is coming to a sense of their own way and truth with regard to weight loss. Contrary to the meaning of the Gospel, no one routine or workout schedule or diet plan is good for everyone. We must all struggle to find what works best for us. I highly encourage you to speak to a physician and/or nutritionist, and work with a personal trainer to help you find what's best for you. What I can say with great confidence is that the spiritual message contained in the Gospel is a sure way of maintaining the spiritual and emotional strength needed in the battle. 

"I do not do want I want" -Rom 7:15

It's been great to have a friend here to reminisce and have some fun. I've been working since Holy Week on social media and a new website for the parish, and trying to balance work and recovery, so much so that it's presented the first real challenge to my eating and workout efforts. I've been going on a clip of about 6 workouts a week and 2000 calories a day for the past 5 months. My weight loss had been pretty steady during this time, about 3-5 pounds a week. Since coming home from treatment at the beginning of April I've lost 12 lbs, so the weight loss has been on the lower end of this. It seems in the last week, though, that I am starting to plateau. All this is to say that I had a day yesterday where I didn't want to do anything in the way of recovery. I wanted to stay in during the only reasonable time I could go to the gym.

Luckily, my friend being here, I said "tell me to go to the gym....now!" I can intellectualize the fact that you need motivation sometimes, and that these kind of moments come. Those that continue to recover are those that make the critical decision to do what they know they need to do when they don't want to do it. Here's the rub, though: if your will can kick in right then, this is obviously the best case scenario. You just get there. Once you're there, you will just do it. They say getting to the gym is 75% of the battle. The rest is "easy."

Yet I was reminded in that moment of the intensity of the struggle, and how I have struggled in the past. It wasn't always as simple as just going. If we're gonna be honest about addiction, it's not simply about saying to people "you just gotta get there," or "you just have to eat this," or "you just have to stop eating so much." The problem isn't a problem of will power. In fact, most of us that struggle with addiction have excellent will power. That's why the power of the addiction is so strong. There are times when I know what I need to do, including knowing that I know what I need to do means that I should do it right then.

Whether or not St. Paul actually struggled with addiction, he captures this idea well. In his letter to the Romans, he writes:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am!
(Romans 7:15-24a)

Depression and despair could follow all this. I've tried. I just can't right now. What am I to do? St. Paul continues: Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24b-25) The process of surrender here is crucial. It's not your own power that continues your recovery, or your "deliverance", but it is a higher power which enables you to do what you truly wish you could do. Surrendering to this power is more essential to the struggle than just getting there.

I'm thankfully at a point where the "just get there" is the result of this surrender. It may sound a little crazy to attribute the main cause of my getting to the gym to God, especially when all the external signs looked like a friend telling me what I needed to hear and looking a lot like my will was what got me there. Without this surrender, though, I don't know if I could keep telling myself "just get there" everyday. With an addiction, for human beings, it is simply impossible, but for God all things are possible. (cf. Mt 19:26)