2023 – Hunger

Here I am again, one year later, back to talk about my word for the year. I ended last year’s entry with this sentence, ” ‘I want II Corinthians 3:18, “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit;’ to be my destination.” That is a destination that will only be reached in Heaven. Here on Earth it will always be a striving we seek. In 2022 I kept my focus on transformation in the striving to be transformed into Christ’s image. I can look back and see growth. I feel the growth in my mind and in my countenance. I also feel the struggle where I still need transformation. I see this as growth too, because you have to know about it to change it. As a former professor continually told us, “you can’t do what you don’t know.”

Reflecting on this past year’s word and letting a new revelation about it become known in anticipation of next year’s word what I am seeing is the being aware, the needing to know. At the beginning of 2022 when I chose the word Transformation, the image I had in mind was of a seed that is planted, cultivated, and then transforms into a flower, a fruit, a tree, a weed, a transformed object. A seed is placed into a dark, moist, almost abandoned place to do what feels like fending for itself; but what is really happening is the seed is cultivated there, fed, nurtured, and longed for as the planter anticipates its growth, its transformation. As the year ended I was wearing a necklace of butterflies to remind me of my transformation journey. The caterpillar prepares itself and a place for a drastic process of dying, disintegrating, and re-forming to emerge unrecognizable yet beautiful and free able to fly above the ground it once creeped across.

My journey through the year was like these images in that in the beginning I needed to be placed, nurtured, and tended to by an external source like a seed. Then my journey led me to a place where I was aware of my need, my process, and hopefully my outcome so I could work from an internal place. Working from an internal place requires a constant assessment of where I am, where I want to be, and how to get there. This is a spiritual journey so the how to get there is simply Jesus. I need my focus to be Jesus so He can transform me into his image. It isn’t a focus on Jesus so I can transform myself into His image.

That brings us to 2023. Any diet I have ever done starts with me taking note of what I am currently eating. I have to know what I am doing so I can know what I need to change. After I notice my eating habits and note where I can change things I methodically make changes over the course of time. Tweaking some things, like changing fried chicken to baked chicken, and eliminating some things like my several cans a day Coca-cola habit I ended years ago. Some changes stick and my diet is transformed, but some things creep back in and more work is needed. Weight gain/weight loss are a never ending battle. Satisfying physical hunger gets confused with satisfying all types of hunger so we eat “comfort foods” and “celebratory foods.” We have treats and rewards centered around food. We fear actual hunger and set a daily schedule to ward off that emptiness – we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner as daily routines. We think morning snack and afternoon snack are essential to most days. Hunger is believed to be bad.

The Israelites were disciplined because of their grumbling about hunger. They wanted to be satisfied in a very specific way, but it wasn’t God’s way. God provided for them – yet they still grumbled, so it wasn’t physical hunger they wanted satisfied because there was food a plenty to take care of that. The crowd near Galilee was in a similar state of questioning God. They had just been fed via a miraculous event, yet they asked for more signs and wonders like Moses providing Manna in the desert. (I think it’s funny they are asking for the Manna that their ancestors grumbled about.) Jesus corrects them saying that Moses didn’t provide the Manna, God did; and for them God has provided the Bread of Life. That’s better than Manna in case you missed the impact of His statement.

Jesus called them out, “. . . you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (John 6: 26-27).

I want to take in this enduring food, this Bread of Life. I hunger for Jesus. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6: 35).

I have taken inventory and I know who I am – a sinner, condemned to die. My thoughts and my actions may be in a process of transformation but they fall short. I still HUNGER.

This past year I started two business ventures. One is a company I created called Nea Nea’s Nibbles. I do prepared freezer meals to sell for folks to have on hand for convenience. My desire is that more families will take time to dine together with friends and family even in their busy lives, so I take some of the prep time out of the excuse, to free them up to enjoy those around them. I also do occasional baked items and I started making bread too. The other venture is being an Independent Consultant for Pampered Chef. My goal is to help those who do cook to have the tools available to make meal prep easier, faster, more convenient so they too will spend more time dining with those around them. In these businesses I have also focused on meal prep and planning for my own family. I spend time once a week figuring out meals for the week so I am way less stressed about getting food on the table and I’m in a better mood when I sit down to eat.

If physically preparing food in a less stressed manner can lead to better interactions with friends and family then I can only imagine what spiritually prepared food can do for my countenance and thus my relationships. I will come HUNGRY to the Bread of Life to be satisfied. I will HUNGER and thirst for righteousness to be Blessed, so I can be a blessing to others. (Matthew 5:6).

You are welcome to feast with me. Let me know you’re coming and I’ll add a plate to my table. Let me know what you’re reading and I’ll share the bread on my plate with you. I will be more intentional in 2023 about dining around a table with family and friends. I will be more intentional in 2023 about feasting on the Word, the Bread of Life.

Me and Food

If you have read many of my blogs or know me well then you know that I am not a Foodie.  I have never gotten into gourmet foods.  I don’t think about food until I have to decide on a meal.  Food is not a go-to item for comfort or celebration.  Food is a social vehicle or necessary for sustaining life.  Or at least that is how I see it.

A few years ago it would have been hard to believe that statement because I was overweight.  How can someone who doesn’t like food be overweight?  Well, it is because I am a carbs junkie.  If I have to eat then I want to eat breads and pastas.  Once upon a time those were my staple items.

A couple of years ago I decided it was time to get back down to my ideal weight.  I set a goal weight and ideal weight and started restructuring my eating habits.  That process is outlined in a previous blog if you are interested.  Now that I am dancing around between my goal and ideal I am maintaining.  This has not been all that hard to do since I restructured how and what I eat.

My personal (non-fitness) goal for 2012 is to be more intentional about eating healthy.  Before, I was cutting out bad stuff, fattening stuff, but not really focusing on healthy stuff.  I have started cooking at home and actually enjoy it more than I thought I would.  That is good because I will stick with it longer if I don’t think of it as a major chore.  Of course I have always enjoyed grilling and that is pretty much what I am doing now, only it is on the George Foreman in the house and not the grill on the patio.

In order for me to fuel properly before, during and after, hard cycling efforts I met with a nutritionist.  I was having problems with post effort bonks which were borderline dangerous.  About 3 days after a big event or big ride weekend I would be lethargic and weak to the point of nausea and spacey thinking.  I even left work early one day because I was so bad I was not being productive and I just wanted to sleep.  I needed to just eat.

Meeting with Meredith was great.  She really knows her stuff and was well prepared for our meeting.  She gave me a lot of good advice and more importantly she gave me numbers.  I like numbers.  I can see numbers.  I can understand numbers.  I can relate to numbers.  Now I have to make the food become numbers.  One suggestion that Meredith had was to track my intake and output.  This is easily done through a food and fitness journal.  But that doesn’t make it numbers for me.  She also suggested using the free Livestrong – myplate website to track my meals.

I am a cyclist and I can appreciate what Lance Armstrong has done as a cyclist and the inundation of marketing he provided for cancer patients, but I do not like the man personally.  I have many reasons to not like him and therefore I don’t want to be associated with him in any way.  This becomes a problem on many levels.  I work for a Trek dealer and I ride Trek bikes.  That associates me with him on one level.  I love professional cycling and to talk about the professional peloton with non-cyclists you usually end up talking about Lance.  That is another level.  Folks that know me think of me whenever they hear or see something about cycling, so they mention any news they hear about Lance.  That is another level.  Now, I am supposed to utilize a website that bears the name of his organization – Livestrong.  How many connections to a guy I can’t stand can I tolerate?  I guess we will find out.

Since I have this aversion to Lance and all things Livestrong – I delayed actually using the website.  With my 2012 goals starting in, well – 2012 – I needed to get on the ball before the 1st month ended and I was behind the curve.  I have always kept some type of a fitness journal.  A week ago I started with the food journal.   That wasn’t too difficult since I already journal almost everything else in my life.  I just added a food section to my existing journal.  It is true that if you are writing down what you eat, you become very aware of every bite you take.  I think about a snack I want and then I think, “do I want to write that down in my journal?”  If I don’t want to admit to it on paper – in ink, then I don’t really want to eat it.

Now that I have a full week’s worth of meals written down, I decided it was time to try out the Livestrong – myplate feature.  It is quite an amazing tool.  I entered everything I ate.  Most of it was preloaded in and after typing the first couple of letters or first word a list of options came up for me to choose from.  A lot of what I have eaten is listed by the actual brand name and therefore the nutritional information has been verified.  The stuff I cooked at home was either listed by name (Kroger frozen talapia) or there was a generic enough equivalent to match what I had.  For 9 days worth of meals I didn’t have to manually type in any calorie amounts because the preloaded stuff was good enough or right on accurate.

This makes the food become numbers.  What I found out was the same thing I have been told by multiple sources – I do not eat enough calories in a day.  I get way too much sodium, but my fat calories and sugars are much better than they used to be.

Meredith plugged my information (age, height, weight, fitness, etc) into a formula and stated that if all I did all day long was lay on the couch and breathe, then I needed 1335 kcal per day to survive.  This is why my primary care provider chastised me for my 1200 – 1500 kcal per day diet 2 years ago when I had my physical.  Meredith went on to add in fitness numbers and stated that I need to be eating an average of 2300 kcal per day.  My reaction to that was a bit of shock.  My first thought was that I would have to eat constantly all day long to get that number of calories.  She assured me I wouldn’t.  She would help me find high calorie yet good for you foods to make it easy to reach that number without eating all day long.

This is my off-season, so I am not working out and definitely not riding like I do during the late – Spring through early – Fall.  This means I do not have to eat 2300 kcal per day.  I am very thankful for this because it gives me time to learn what I am eating and where I can increase.  What I found out today is that I am averaging about 1500 kcal per day over these past 9 days.  Not bad but not ideal.  With the ability to turn food into numbers I will learn over time how to manipulate that number the way I want and need to manipulate it for weight loss, general health, and preventing post ride bonks.

When I got a perfect score on a nutrition test in college I joked with my Dad that I passed the test by answering, “I’m deficient in that and have these symptoms, I am deficient in this and have those symptoms.”  After my past 2 physicals, where I did have some deficiencies, that joke isn’t so funny anymore.  My hope is that with this new way of looking at food and being intentional about eating healthy I may correct that balance and be able to stop taking supplements.  In a few more months I go in for updated blood work and I get my first glimpse into how I’m doing.

So, my relationship with food hasn’t really changed in that I still only eat because I have to in order to survive.  But, I am at least giving it a little more thought and doing a little bit more about planning and preparing healthy foods rather than grabbing whatever is fast and cheap to keep me going.  The true test will come this Summer when I am in full training mode.  I plan on riding A LOT this year.

P.S. – you really should check out the Livestrong – myplate.  No matter how you feel about Lance – it is a great tool and it is FREE.

Food vs. Sleep

I love sleep.  I love being wrapped up in warm blankets.  I love having my pillow tucked between my sholder and cheek just so.  I even like stretching out in a sleeping bag as I awake from a night of being curled up in a ball inside it. 

I think I love sleep so much because I don’t do it well.  I am a light sleeper so I rarely sleep through the night.  I wake up several times a night, readjust my position and go back to sleep.  My Mom says I have to “build my nest” before I can go to sleep.  My sister hates having to share a room or more so a bed with me because she is so worried about disturbing me that she doesn’t sleep well.  She hates how light of a sleeper I am.  She can sleep through anything.

Now, food is something I would prefer to live without.  I have said many times in my life that I wouldn’t eat if we didn’t have to do it live.  Taking time out to eat is a waste of my time.  Unless it is a social setting then eating is just a nuisance to me. I hate going to the grocery store (it is so overwhelming for me).  I don’t care to cook and I usually don’t enjoy the flavors of the foods.  My brother says I have an uneducated palate.  I say I have a very poor sense of smell which affects my ability to enjoy food.  I cannot eat something and then name every spice included in it like most of my family can. 

Now my Dad, loves food.  He has even been known to stop at a grocery store just for the fun of it.  He did that once coming home from Dallas one day.  He said it was one of the highlights of his trip.  It was a unique store with hard to find food items and flavorings.  Dad will sit down with a cookbook and read it like a novel then head to the kitchen and start making cooking noises.  Growing up if we asked what he was doing he always answered “making a mess.”  We learned through the years that he wouldn’t tell us because what he picked out of the cookbook may not be what ends up on the table after he gets done playing around with it so he didn’t want us to get our hopes up for something only for it to be different later.  We also learned that if dad was “making a mess” to leave him alone and stay hungry because something good was coming.

Dad has also been heard to say that sleeping is a waste of time.  He does not share my affection for the zzz’s.  His philosophy is that we will get enough sleep when we die.  He thinks there is too much to life to miss out on any of it by sleeping.  He has perfected the “cat nap” method of rejuvinating himself.

So if I am tired and hungry, sleep will win out every time.  If Dad is tired and hungry, food will win out every time.

Isn’t it great that God lets us all be so different and speaks to us in ways that make sense to us.  He says all who are tired and weary will find rest with him.  I really love knowing that.  He also says that there is a feast being prepared for us when we are all called home to Heaven with Him.  My Dad is really looking forward to that.  God is really quite amazing.  I will get a Heavenly sleep like none I’ve ever experienced and Dad will get the best “mess” he could ever hope for.