The Fat War Diaries Part 4

There is no final victory in the weight loss war.

As long as I have a mouth and stomach, the battle will rage.

For anyone with long-term weight issues, an important truth needs to be remembered: The fight to control your weight is much like the war against Terror.

There is no conclusive point in time victory, just a long struggle ahead. The battle field shifts and changes and the enemy is everywhere. Territory that has been conquered yesterday can be up for grabs tomorrow.

This is not meant to discourage anyone but it will help us be realistic about the battle ahead.

In fact, the same truth applies when dealing with other temptations. No one ever gets final and complete victory over lust or covetousness. But it is a daily battle that can be won as we rely on the Lord.

I have found two powerful weapons in the battle of the bulge: weight training and jogging. I hated both of them when I began the journey, especially jogging.

It was because I could barely jog more than a few hundred metres at a time. It was agony trying to push around my large frame with Matt next to me hardly breaking a sweat.

The weights weren’t that much better. I was so out of shape that even after a light session I was ready to puke and to cap things off, was sore all over the next day.

All you need to do is a five minute search on Google to discover the benefits of weight training and jogging. I always feel invigorated after a good work out.

While no amount of exercise can undo bad or over-eating, these disciplines will speed up the weight loss and will actually make you healthy rather than simply not fat anymore.

Any food lovers amongst our readership will also be glad to know that if you exercise more (particularly weight training) you can eat more!  Not too much but a bit more nonetheless.

The Bible talks about believers ‘building up’ each other and being ‘exercised’ or ‘trained’ by God’s dealings (though sometimes hard) with us. In other words the Christian life involves deliberate activity, change, response and growth.

We have to move from the theoretical (or should I say theological) to the practical. It is not about head knowledge only.

Matt was at me for weeks about correct diet before the penny dropped and I started doing what he was telling me to do. Then the kilo’s really started to drop!

All the newly acquired knowledge was of no profit unless some action took place.

Action that I trust will simply be the beginning of a lifetime of changed habits and actions by the grace of God.

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit Jude 20

Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11

By Robert Apps

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