Mirror, Don't Lie....

Original Instagram post: Here

In spite of losing 30 lbs. I look in the mirror and still tend to underestimate the progress I’ve made. My legs still aren’t thin enough, my stomach not flat enough, my arms not tone enough. I’ve spent so long accepting how I looked when I was at my highest weight that I’m finding it hard to to adjust my thinking to how far I’ve gotten and how much I've actually lost, and that my appearance has changed dramatically. 

Because I’ve been unable to adjust my mindset, I’ve become incapable of contentment with the weight I’ve lost and have continued to lose. My goal was 135 and then 130 now it’s almost 125. That’s the thinnest I’ve been since 2012.

It also doesn’t help--at times--that I’ve always compared myself to beautiful female celebrities that do inspire me to work out and eat healthy, but I can become too hard on myself to strive for a look my body type was not made for.

L-R: Vikings actresses Kathryn Winnick and Georgia Hirst,
 and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman)

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with finding inspiration with public figures. 

Kathryn Winnick is just gorgeous and absolutely fit (at 41 years old)! And I found myself somewhat intimidated at how stunning she is and feeling my own insecurities come to the surface every time I saw a picture of her. 

Georgia Hirst may not be a well known name, but I saw her Instagram posts of her workouts and healthy eating and I would think to myself, "Why can't I do that? Why can't I take care of myself like that? She's so beautiful. I could be doing so much better."

Gal Gadot is almost 6 ft tall and is an iron railing, but she weighs in at 130 lbs. At my highest weight, I was 30 pounds heavier than her and I'm only 5'5". I'm smaller than her and so I needed to weight less than her.

My general ambitions was to care for myself the way these women did by working out and starting to eat better. And believe me it really has worked. However, I can't fall into the obsessive thinking of wanting my body to look like theirs.

So now the question is how far do I keep going before I become so overwhelmed with the number and the excitement of the weight loss? I was 157 in July of last year. Now I’m (as of this morning) 126.2. That number is nothing to balk at, but to get to the next number has almost become an adrenaline rush for me.

The scale is not my enemy, it’s tool for my development. The mirror shows me what’s there. I’m not writing this to have people feel bad for me. Rather just to come to the acceptance that I have to learn where my limits are and how to practice the hard art of contentment with my hard work

Aren't you on the ministry team? Not today!

 If you are a need of a good laugh, I highly recommend this painfully accurate video about church life. I watched it three times last night and each was funnier than the last. This guy has totally nailed the American southern church.