A Day Late and a Pound-and-a-Half Short

As you can see from my title, I'm a day late on this post. I apologize, especially to those who have been following me faithfully. Thank you for that. I don't like to "talk" about my journey, but I appreciate the opportunity to share and get feedback. Passive-aggressiveness at it's worst, huh?

I had a variety of other topics floating around in my mind, until the bombs were detonated at the Boston Marathon. Instead, I have a few thoughts after my weigh-in results and ramblings.



Week 9 Weigh-in Results
Last week's cumulative total: -13.5
This week's total: +1.5
Total weight loss: -13.5

To be perfectly honest, I don't really want to talk about this week. I've got one specific habit with which I am sabotaging my progress, and I've got to decide when I'm ready to tackle it. Doing so will make a huge difference, and I am being stubborn. It might take a couple more weeks of going back and forth to -15.0 to decide to kick this habit in the butt and get moving again. I'll stay with it if you'll stay with me.

In the meantime, I'm in better shape every week. I'm not ready to run a marathon (although I am going to walk my first 5K in May), but I feel a little better every day. Clothes are looser than they've been in a long time, muscles are getting stronger, and my stamina and energy are up.

Most importantly, my back hasn't felt this good since sometime in college.

I gained a lot of weight after college, and this contributed to serious back problems that began in my early 20s. They were a combination of physical stress (obesity, poor flexibility, bad posture, hormonal cycle etc.) and mental/emotional stress. Turns out, when I stress out, it goes right to my lower back and tightens that muscle. If it's bad enough, eventually it won't untighten without help. (That's my personal explanation of what happens. Also, I'm pretty sure I made up the word "untighten".)

In 2009, serious lower back issues led to serious sciatic nerve issues that ended in FMLA leave and a cortisone shot. Becoming more active helped, as I began to add activities like Frisbee, dodgeball, volleyball, or racquetball to my regular routine. However, making swimming (specifically AquaFit) my main fitness routine for the past nine weeks has made an incredible difference. I only wish I wouldn't have let others opinions' intimidate me into trying the AquaFit class out. It's only been nine weeks of AquaFit and only a little weight loss, but now I move with virtually no pain. It's been a decade since I have felt like this.

A decade.

The things that have been predictable "triggers" in the past have almost no effect. My chiropractor has just about done a happy dance at my last two bi-weekly visits. I'm still "aware" of my back, which is good, but I marvel at feeling like I didn't think I'd ever feel again. I thought I'd live with chronic pain for the rest of my life, and it's improving by leaps and bounds.

How will I feel when I reach that 40 lb goal? 60 lbs? 100 lbs? Maybe I will be able to run a marathon.

Speaking of marathons...
I've had a million blogging topics on my mind lately - healthy eating at Target Field, Jackie Robinson, and the inscrutable Minnesota Twins, to name a few.

However, Monday was the day the bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon. After work, I went to the gym and hopped on a bike for about 20 minutes, crying while I watched CNN. Tuesday, I just wasn't up to writing. Tonight, I taught a 6th grade Faith Formation class. I rarely have the opportunity to teach, so this was special. The class was already scheduled to talk about the sanctity of all human life, as well as about how God is present, even when we are hurt or something bad happens.

Clearly, I wasn't the only one who had a hand in the scheduling when I plotted out the lessons last summer.

One of the takeaways was that God will always bring about more good than any evil that occurs, a notion that is at the heart of the Catholic faith. In the Paschal Mystery, a terrible thing happens - the Son of God dies a horrific death. Instead of letting sin and death have the last word, God went so much further in the Resurrection. Those 6th graders really got into the lesson, talking about real-life examples and how they experience God's presence in their families.

Why is it than when one just starts to feel some hope, something else happens? I came home to images of the explosion in Waco, another mind-blowing catastrophe. I think of those in southwest Minnesota who survived days without power after what an insurance company would call "an act of God." I think of an old friend whose family had been forced to publicly live the nightmare of a murder trial.

Then, I think about my discussion with those wonderful, hopeful, impressionable youth, and I wonder, how could I possibly inspire them to believe in hope when mine waivers so much? At times, I can't wonder that there is so much despair and hopelessness in this world.

The only answer I can come to is that we can't overcomplicate God. In the end, he is so very, very simple. God works through the smallest gestures in the meekest people, and that is where we must start when we are lost and without hope.

Mr. Rogers always found a simple and profound way of explaining things, so I'll let him give words to my meaning: