One of the things that has struck me this year, considering the oddity which is much of the world self-isolating to "flatten the curve" of the COVID-19 pandemic, is that we have a rare opportunity to relate to the disciples of Jesus that first year: the Shepherd was struck and the sheep were scattered.* Only John was present at the crucifixion - the disciples and followers were afraid, very understandably, and wouldn't have gone to the Temple or any synagogue that Sabbath day, for fear of the powers-that-be, the same powers that coerced Pilate to crucify Jesus after he found him innocent of the charges brought against him.
His followers were afraid and isolated and the world seemed very dark and hopeless.
We have an advantage over them - we know what they wouldn't know until after sunrise on the first day of the week: the tomb in which He had been laid was empty.
Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.” (Matthew 28:1-7)
And we have enjoyed centuries of gathering together as communities of believers, remembering the Passion of our Lord and Savior, observing Maundy Thursday, walking through the Stations of the Cross and grieving the extraordinary act of love that He committed upon the Cross "...for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16).
In the midst of our tears, we have been together in the remembrance of His great sacrifice.
But this year, we have the unique opportunity to experience something more like the very first year, in a different emotional state, a profound lack of physically-present community. And maybe we ought to lean-into that a little bit and feel the isolation which has been imposed upon us, let it be part of Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Our Jewish friends are celebrating Passover this week and it's a very odd Pesach for them, too - instead of larger family gatherings going through a seder together they are hunkered down in households, sometimes alone. There's a way in which that first Passover started a season in which the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were isolated from the rest of the world ...for forty years, as it turned out, since they refused the invitation to enter the land after two years (Numbers 13 & 14).
Steve Bell is a Christian singer-songwriter and a number of years ago I had the opportunity to see him live and hear, for the first time, the following pair of songs - and I was destroyed, I just wept and wept. The first, Big Mistake, is Israel as the betrothed of God, and the second is the response of the Lord in Lenten Lands - I commend them both to you for your edification. God bless you and yours.
https://soundcloud.com/pilgrimage-steve-bell/a-big-mistake
https://soundcloud.com/pilgrimage-steve-bell/lenten-lands
You can buy the album from which these two songs come here.
*Jesus says this in Matthew 26:31, referencing a prophetic word in Zechariah 13:7
Friday, April 10, 2020
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Breaking Silence, Losing Weight
January 2nd is my grandmother's birthday; I always figured it's the WORST day for a birthday: people are exhausted from all the gifts and celebrations and just want to climb into a cave for a few days. But J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday is January 3rd, by which point folks are willing to remember enough to raise a toast to "The Professor!"
I'm sharing this now because a lot of people start the year with a resolution and, for many, that resolution is often to lose weight.
In this past year (just over a year, I'd started changing the way I eat in mid-December of 2018) I've lost a bit over 50 pounds and, having been seriously obese for most of my adult life and continuously for the last 40-plus years, that's kind of a big deal.
What I've learned --and the reason for this post is to share what I've learned-- is that we have LOTS of bad information about how to lose weight and surprisingly little good information about how our bodies work and process food and regulate fat.
So, after years of blithely saying, "I gave up sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, I'm not giving up chocolate," I was assigned a new doctor by Kaiser and she was simply the right person at the right time with a message I could actually hear: she said, "you're really healthy but you've been obese a long time and it's going to eventually catch up with you. Read this book."
I was grudgingly listening, trying to avoid my knee-jerk response, and then I saw the cover of the book on her computer and I realized, "I already OWN that book!"
The book is The Obesity Code and I'd bought the audiobook from Audible (it was probably the Daily Deal one day... and I hadn't listened to it yet) - so I went home and started listening to it, as I worked around the house, as I drove up to Los Angeles, etcetera.
There are a number of things which I found challenging to wrap my brain around: calories aren't the issue, dietary fat is not the issue, and we don't get fat because we overeat: we overeat because we've gotten fat...
That's still hard to wrap my brain around, and sometimes it has more to do with the way an author expresses himself (or herself, as the case may be). A second book that has been very beneficial is Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It; both books are complementary and present a compelling and, for me, effective argument for eating very differently from what the U.S. government food pyramid advocates.
In a nutshell:
1) Sugar is the primary enemy and refined carbohydrates aren't far behind. Both books advocate removing added sugars (and not replacing them with artificial sweeteners as they don't really help and simply prolong the craving and taste for sweets - over time my sense of what is "sweet" has radically changed);
2) Don't "graze" - it's better to eat a few large meals than continually nibble and thus keep the blood insulin elevated;
3) Only eat when you're hungry;
4) Eat whole dairy - whole milk, butter, eggs with the yolks, etcetera;
I was leery of not starting my day with breakfast, in order to tell my body, "it's okay, we're going to eat today, you don't have to go into starvation mode!" since, sadly, I'd put my body into starvation mode in my early 20s, trying to take off the last 20 pounds that I'd gained after having my son (and falling into a pattern of eating from boredom) - I was eating one small meal a day and not losing weight. When I started eating like my boyfriend (breakfast, lunch, early dinner, no evening snacks) I lost weight, despite eating easily three or four times more food.
But, after a year of allowing myself not to eat until I felt hungry, it's working. Some days I have only one meal, some days I have three, most days I have two. It turns out that giving your body a nice long fast overnight is very good for your metabolism and gives the insulin system a rest.
So I've changed the way I eat and, since I didn't completely cut sugars out of my diet, I never had the killer sugar withdrawal headache, and my taste for sugary things has pretty much gradually disappeared. I feel free to eat whatever I want, I just think about it first - so I'll have a little corner of this or a small piece of that, if I want - but I don't have to and THAT freedom is really nice. I'm not thinking of this as a "diet," like I'll go back to the way I used to eat, once I get down to my desired weight. In fact, I don't have a "desired weight" other than to be on the 'under' side of 200 lbs. I figure my body will stabilize at a certain point and I won't be losing weight.
My doctor is very pleased, as you can imagine, and my blood work is happy (it wasn't bad before but it's better now). I feel good and have a lot more energy than I did in the past and THAT is a very nice thing, as an aging human! I haven't weighed this little since some point in the 1980s - and that's a very good thing.
So I encourage you, if you're resolving to lose weight in 2020, consider reading one or both of these books - and may they serve you as well as they've served me.*
*if you follow the link to Amazon and buy the books there, I may earn a few pennies in the process.
I'm sharing this now because a lot of people start the year with a resolution and, for many, that resolution is often to lose weight.
In this past year (just over a year, I'd started changing the way I eat in mid-December of 2018) I've lost a bit over 50 pounds and, having been seriously obese for most of my adult life and continuously for the last 40-plus years, that's kind of a big deal.
What I've learned --and the reason for this post is to share what I've learned-- is that we have LOTS of bad information about how to lose weight and surprisingly little good information about how our bodies work and process food and regulate fat.
So, after years of blithely saying, "I gave up sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, I'm not giving up chocolate," I was assigned a new doctor by Kaiser and she was simply the right person at the right time with a message I could actually hear: she said, "you're really healthy but you've been obese a long time and it's going to eventually catch up with you. Read this book."
I was grudgingly listening, trying to avoid my knee-jerk response, and then I saw the cover of the book on her computer and I realized, "I already OWN that book!"
The book is The Obesity Code and I'd bought the audiobook from Audible (it was probably the Daily Deal one day... and I hadn't listened to it yet) - so I went home and started listening to it, as I worked around the house, as I drove up to Los Angeles, etcetera.
There are a number of things which I found challenging to wrap my brain around: calories aren't the issue, dietary fat is not the issue, and we don't get fat because we overeat: we overeat because we've gotten fat...
That's still hard to wrap my brain around, and sometimes it has more to do with the way an author expresses himself (or herself, as the case may be). A second book that has been very beneficial is Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It; both books are complementary and present a compelling and, for me, effective argument for eating very differently from what the U.S. government food pyramid advocates.
In a nutshell:
1) Sugar is the primary enemy and refined carbohydrates aren't far behind. Both books advocate removing added sugars (and not replacing them with artificial sweeteners as they don't really help and simply prolong the craving and taste for sweets - over time my sense of what is "sweet" has radically changed);
2) Don't "graze" - it's better to eat a few large meals than continually nibble and thus keep the blood insulin elevated;
3) Only eat when you're hungry;
4) Eat whole dairy - whole milk, butter, eggs with the yolks, etcetera;
I was leery of not starting my day with breakfast, in order to tell my body, "it's okay, we're going to eat today, you don't have to go into starvation mode!" since, sadly, I'd put my body into starvation mode in my early 20s, trying to take off the last 20 pounds that I'd gained after having my son (and falling into a pattern of eating from boredom) - I was eating one small meal a day and not losing weight. When I started eating like my boyfriend (breakfast, lunch, early dinner, no evening snacks) I lost weight, despite eating easily three or four times more food.
But, after a year of allowing myself not to eat until I felt hungry, it's working. Some days I have only one meal, some days I have three, most days I have two. It turns out that giving your body a nice long fast overnight is very good for your metabolism and gives the insulin system a rest.
So I've changed the way I eat and, since I didn't completely cut sugars out of my diet, I never had the killer sugar withdrawal headache, and my taste for sugary things has pretty much gradually disappeared. I feel free to eat whatever I want, I just think about it first - so I'll have a little corner of this or a small piece of that, if I want - but I don't have to and THAT freedom is really nice. I'm not thinking of this as a "diet," like I'll go back to the way I used to eat, once I get down to my desired weight. In fact, I don't have a "desired weight" other than to be on the 'under' side of 200 lbs. I figure my body will stabilize at a certain point and I won't be losing weight.
My doctor is very pleased, as you can imagine, and my blood work is happy (it wasn't bad before but it's better now). I feel good and have a lot more energy than I did in the past and THAT is a very nice thing, as an aging human! I haven't weighed this little since some point in the 1980s - and that's a very good thing.
So I encourage you, if you're resolving to lose weight in 2020, consider reading one or both of these books - and may they serve you as well as they've served me.*
*if you follow the link to Amazon and buy the books there, I may earn a few pennies in the process.