Opus 2025-212: Lost and Found

I would venture to guess that many of you are aware that you need to lose weight.  It seems to be a common thing in America.  If you’re like me, you have tried many different avenues, many different approaches, many different diets.  Most of them work well on the short term.  The problem is the long-term discipline that is necessary to keep them in place.

When I accepted the fact that I was diabetic and decided that I really didn’t want to start having to use a needle, I got serious and found a way to take the weight off that worked well in the long term.  It had at its core a commitment to change my basic habits and understanding that it was a lifetime commitment.  That was at least 10 years ago and I have gained a little bit back but I’m still in the struggle.  I’m still fighting . I’m still doing the things that I did before.  It’s just not working as well as it did when I was going to school every day and on my feet walking around yelling and screaming at kids.  Retirement has a way of slowing you down.

One of the unseen problems that come up in trying to keep weight off is the sabotage that goes on by people who claim to love you.  I’m sure they do.  At the same time in their attempts to show that love, they undermine your efforts.  Recently, my wife shared with me that she had bought me a bear claw when she went to buy donuts for herself.  When I looked in the box, it was an apple fritter, not a bear claw.  Bear claws are OK but Apple fritters are super tempting.  Now I have a choice.  Do I eat the apple fritter and verify the fact that she bought this for me?  Do I wait until she’s looking the other way, act like I ate it, and dispose of it?  Do I do the impossible, and eat just small portions of it over several days?  Imagine my distress when I picked up the one apple fritter to eat, right now, in one setting, and found that there was a second apple fritter underneath.

We have the grandchildren over.  She announced that for breakfast we would be having sausage and eggs.  She expects me to cook them.  Sausage is very high in calories.  I never eat sausage if I have a choice.  It’s not a religious or spiritual decision.  It’s just pure rationality.  She knows this.  She still thawed out the sausage and announce to the kids that we were going to have it for breakfast.  Is this love or is this sabotage?

Keep in mind that the battle is not just one that you were fighting against your desire to eat, but it also involves people around you.  Sometimes they do things unconsciously.  Sometimes they do things deliberately.  Even when it’s unconscious there’s a very good chance that down inside they know what they’re doing.

I don’t have a solution for you.  I don’t have a solution for me.  All I can offer is an awareness of the conflict that is going on.  How we face it is an individual issue.  May you be blessed in your decisions and discipline.

homo unius libri