Kick-Starting Your Diet

Intro by Laurie Epps

My new fitness routine is going pretty well, although, all good workouts have the support of an equally good diet. What we eat is not just fuel, but it can be the difference between feeling good during your workout, or feeling sluggish or just not too good during your workout. If your goal is to lose weight, then it's essential that your food intake goes hand in hand with your fitness regime. If you're a beginner, that's ok. I started with working out due to the ease for me, since diets seem especially daunting. If you're the opposite, and choose to start with your diet, that's ok. The import thing is that you start the journey to better health. 

Please welcome Cathy Baker, my friend and fellow writer who's going to talk to us today about her first days on her diet. I hope you'll give her the same attention that you'd offer up to me.

When Your First Step Becomes the Kick-Start You Have Always Wanted

By Cathy Baker

All I wanted was a kick-start—something, anything, to help me lose the first ten pounds. If a herbal pill or eating a particular food could melt the pounds, I was willing to try it. The combination of longstanding thyroid issues and an endocrinologist telling me my efforts to lose weight were useless, left me feeling hopeless and desperate for anything coated in chocolate.

My turning point came in a most unexpected way. Following gallbladder surgery, I noticed how well my husband cared for me. While a blessing, it also awakened me to the fact that if I continued waiting for a kick-start to magically boot me from behind it would only be a matter of years before my husband became a full-time caretaker instead of a temporary one. That wasn’t the woman, spouse, grandmother or friend I wanted to be for them, or for myself.

The idea, however, of beginning a whole new regime seemed overwhelming so I began praying about one thing I could do. Just one. That’s all I could handle. A few weeks after surgery, a friend invited me to Weight Watchers. I’d been there, done that, and with little success I might add.  In 2012, when I last attended, it took me six months to lose ten pounds. Never mind that I’d never taken the point system seriously. I wanted to improve my eating habits while having my a cake too (white with buttercream frosting, please.)

This time I decided to take the plan seriously, mainly out of curiosity to see if it would actually work. Before I knew it, the first week was up. Stepping on the scale, I sensed a confidence in knowing I’d followed the plan well. Even if the scale didn’t budge I had a healthier body due to my choices that week. And then there it was—in all its digital glory—a three-pound loss! Since then, I’ve continued losing, thanks to strategies I set up for myself along the way.

If you find yourself deeply desiring to find that one thing to help jumpstart your weight loss journey, whether it’s in the form of the latest herbal supplement, exercise device, or cabbage-laden diet, I encourage you to, instead, shift your attention to the big picture at stake. Stay alert to pivotal moments that sneak up on your soul, resonating with your deepest desires, and then take action by choosing one step you can take toward your goal. Who knows, you may just find your first step being the jump-start you’ve always wanted.

Cathy Baker is an award-winning writer who delights in observing God at work in the nuances of life. Her work has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Upper Room, Focus on the Family’s Thriving Family, etc. Her award-winning poetry has appeared in two anthologies. She is also a regular contributor for Inspire A Fire and a member of Cross N Pens, as well as the Light Brigade. With four grandchildren, a mustache-laden husband, a spoiled pooch named Rupert, and a 1963 Shasta Airflyte Camper called Buttercup, she considers life to be quite the adventure. Visit Cathy's blog, Fragrant Ink, at www.cathybaker.org.