Destination

Some of my posts may be a little disjointed as I post in a number of places and cannot always remember what I wrote where.  For me, this journey to my leaner, healthier body is now turning more spiritual.  I recently read this book by Pastor Andy Stanley called The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.  God is really putting the right people and things in my path to confirm the direction I'm going in is the right one.  It is not the path of least resistance, but one that requires a great deal of commitment to clear out the junk and keep pressing forward no matter what.

A verse that I am now adopting as a part of my set of life verses is found in Proverbs 27:12.

A prudent (wise) man when he sees danger, takes refuge.  A simple (naive, foolish) man keeps going, and suffers for it.

This is one of the life verses of Pastor Stanley and as I reflect on my life, I can see so often, inspite of being a very intelligent person, have found myself where I have not wanted to be because instead of heeding the red flags, I just kept going in that direction, thinking I was the exception.  In the end, I have always suffers for doing that.

The more I grow in my relatinship with Christ, the more I am proving the Bible right.  Yes, I have accepted as long as I can remember from a wee little girl that the Bible is true.  However, I did not live as such, rather I continued to test whether what was written in it was true or not.  God, in His infinite mercy & grace has not allowed the worst harms to come to me, but He has allowed some things to help teach me.  Sometimes those teaching opportunities really are not so pleasant.

The book I mentioned is just not for Christians, rather I think anyone can gain value from reading it.  I certainly wished that I had the book when I was a teenager, as it would've saved me so much heartache & pain that I've experienced doing things my way.  I think Pastor Stanley would've made a good engineer from his logical, reasonings in the book.

How does this apply to me getting from where I am in bodyfat (right now 24.15% again) down to 15%?  Bear with me. 

The prudent don't react to what they see in their current situation, rather they react to what they see on the horizon.  The wise see later as NOW. 

Why don't you soak in that statements for a bit?  Reflect on your life where you wisely planned ahead, had the discipline & consistency to follow through.  What were your results? 

On pages 39-40 of his book, he talks about connection and disconnection.  A prudent man knows that all his decisions today he makes are connected to what he experiences tomorrow.  This is EVERY SINGLE decision.

A simple man lives disconnected, thinking the decisions he makes today has no bearing on tomorrow. 

Most of us would say we do not live disconnected, but most of us do.  For example, me eating this bowl of ice cream DOES have a bearing on tomorrow.  It is an action and that action repeated produces a result, reinforces the direction you want to go in.  Otherwise, if we lived connected, we wouldn't be here looking to get rid of or manage our diseases, excess flab, injuries, etc.

There are 2 key points to this book:

• Your direction determines your destination
• Your attention determines your direction.

The destination we all want are flat abs, fitter & healthier bodies, no excess flab, right?  What is our direction?  Intention does not signify direction.  What commands your attention and affections?  Where do you spend your time?

For me, I spend a lot of time acquiring knowledge, with my children, getting enough rest, recovering from injuries, and sometimes just plain wasting it by getting distracted with all sorts of other things.  Yes, there are other things I do, but these things overall command my attention.  Does this help me get to my destination?

Exercise, eating and this whole realm of health/fitness has consumed my adult life.  I've been such a control freak in this and boy, do I love my data collection.  Not saying it's bad, but the focus was on ME having control and getting the results.  Guess what?  I haven't gotten the results and in fact, lots of negative things have happened to show that I am utterly incapable.

Seriously, I've been consistent about being inconsistent.  Willpower & self-control are really no lasting ways of having great health & fitness.  Do I need willpower and self-control in NOT smoking?  Absolutely not.  I don't smoke because I abhor it and think it's absolutely disgusting.  You couldn't drag me kicking & screaming to put that death stick in my mouth.

I have so much emotional baggage and stuff going on that it will take God and me relying on Him every single day throughout the day to have all the elements of healthy & fit living become so ingrained in me like NOT SMOKING is to me.

My greater focus in the program is to have a deeper, more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, and I do believe a byproduct of that is taking care of this temple the Lord has entrusted to me.  This next round of the Ageless Abs is a spiritual one and I'm curious to see as I surrender & submit to God in this whole thing what He will do through me and what kind of results I'll get.

I don't have a goal of releasing (I will attempt to replace the word "losing" with "releasing" as people generally don't like to "LOSE" anything) X% of bodyfat or weight in these 12-weeks or even becoming specifically fitter or healthier.  I do believe that dealing with the root of where I am today, that will steer me into the right direction of where I'd ultimately like to be.