Journey of a thousand miles

As I was doing some reading this morning, I was reminded of the saying, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".  When I started Optifast, I knew it would be a journey for me because I didn't have just 40 pounds to lose.  I knew it was going to be significant.  As the weight started dropping off, though, I got in this mindset that I should be losing a minimum of double digits every week.  A little insane?  Definitely!  As my friend Melissa blogged about, it is a process.  I have been fortunate to have lost more than the average person almost every week.  I mean, when I think about it, I lost 45 pounds in the first month alone.  Now that is crazy.  Granted, I started off needing to lose a lot but I never expected to shed so much in 30 days.

As time marches on, it's now been five months that I have been on product.  And it will likely be almost as long until I reach goal weight.  That little girl inside of me, who is super impatient, is loudly stomping her feet in the corner screaming about how unfair that is.  Ten months of no food, not even healthy food, let alone the stuff that got me here.  That's a long time.  Women conceive children, deliver them and take them home in a shorter amount of time.  While I don't have desire for food, I do think about how I have been able to do it so long already and how I will be in the second half of this.

The truth is that I don't have some magic source of willpower.  I don't have this resolve inside that says I am just going to do this!  If I did, trust me, I would not be doing a medically supervised liquid program.  I have people that contact me and flat out ask me how I am doing this, especially when it seems to come so easily to me.  I don't know.  When I came to the Optifast doors, I knew I had to follow directions and not try to say "Yeah, but" at every opportunity.  I needed to give up the fight and let go of all the notions I had about how to lose weight.  I was desperate enough to shut up about it and put that one foot in front of the other.  No one can appreciate the true challenges that come along with this type of program, not only the physical ones but moreso the emotional ones, until they have done it themselves.  This program is unique in that it does take off the weight, but it does not end there.  In fact, for most people who've already been through the program, they say this phase was the easier part.  The hard part is maintaining it and living regular life.  I can well imagine that's true. 

My daily journey right now as I face more weight to lose is to focus not on how long it is going to take me to get to a satisfying place, but to focus on where I am right here and now.  That road of a thousand miles is one foot in front of the other that, for me, must be done with peace.  I can't spend the time doing mathematical formulas as to how many calories I'm burning every day, looking at my carbohydrate ratios, trying to get away with eating foods that are "free", obsessing about how long it takes me to walk while I'm exercising or any of the other things that sometimes plagues people when they are losing weight.  Instead, I need to celebrate my daily successes.  I can honor the journey I have already been on and feel the power of that.  And each day that I arise, I can remember that all I have is that one day to be present in, not the past and certainly not the future.  There is beautiful peace in that, a peace I would rather live in humbly and by the grace of God.  So if you see me exercising, I am not timing how long it takes me to walk a mile.  And if I cry on the way home from one of my weekly Optifast meetings, it is not because I did something wrong ... it is because I am in a place where it feels like the weight is just being taken from me, but with love and encouragement.  I feel this miracle in my life so deeply and if there is ever a time where I take it for granted and think I should have lost ten pounds during the week, God reminds me where I have been by a person I meet, an old picture of me at my heaviest, the look of shock on someone's face when they haven't seen me in a long time, the happy smile on my face when I look in my own mirror or even just the gentle breeze I feel when I am outside putting that one foot in front of the other.  I get to celebrate all of that every day.