Knowledge Isn’t Power

One of my favorite radio stations of all time is KLOVE. I listen to it religiously because its slogan is Positive, Encouraging, KLOVE. How great is that?! I also really enjoy the music. Well…last night as I was listening they were talking about Baskin Robin’s 31¢ scoop night and this lady called in and went on and on and on and on and on about Rocky Road ice cream. Rocky Road is my FAVORITE! I mean I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! Decision made…I’m having ice cream for dinner. As I wandered through the store I was talking on the phone to my friend, Ivonne. We were talking about life and she was asking me how I was doing. We talked for a bit more as I stood in front of the ice cream selection. Just as I picked one out she said, “Where are you? I’m coming over.” Crap. I put the ice cream back. She knows my goals. How can I sit here talking about how much I want to improve my health while I have Rocky Road ice cream for dinner? That is when it hit me. She inspires me. I already considered her a great friend but it goes beyond that. I have so much respect for her that I actually want to be a better person when I am around her. I never told her I was at the store getting ready to buy ice cream but I knew I would be such a fraud if I did. I then ticked through my list of friends and found that most of them are like that. When I am around them I feel a deep desire to pursue my best version of myself. How lucky am I to have friend like that?!

Ivonne came over and I showed her my room. It is not nearly as bad as when I first showed it but she saw my laundry pile. Yikes. She then was like okay…let’s get to it. We did 3 large loads of laundry, finally put together my 2 book shelves I am going to use for my shoes, and hung 2 pictures. She got me so pumped that I moved my bookshelf in my room, decided to get rid of a pile of books and magazines, moved my dresser, laundry basket, and I put some of my shoes away. Funny enough my cleaning buddy, who is helping me on Saturday, was like, “What are you doing?! What are we going to do on Saturday?!” I calming assured her that there was plenty of clutter to last the whole weekend and even into next week if she wanted. She also now gets to help with more of the fun stuff like hanging pictures and whatnot. She also brings joy to my heart. Again…how lucky am I?!

Anywho, back to KLOVE. What had been a bad influence last night quickly turned into a good influence this morning. This morning they were talking about nutrition and they played a little snippet from a Christian nutritionist who said the greatest thing ever. 

Knowledge isn’t power. Discipline is.

Isn’t that freaking awesome!? And so true. I have talked to overweight woman after overweight woman after overweight woman who all say the same thing that I did. “I know what I need to do. I just need to do it.” See? It isn’t about the knowledge at all. Most of us know enough of the basics to make better choices.

1. You need to burn more calories then you consume in order to lose weight.
2. Exercise is important.
3. You need to change your eating habits for life because diets don’t work.

Those are the 3 basic elements for losing weight that all of us know. Most people know even more about what food they should eat. They generally know about what exercise is good for them. They know that there are tons of books out there that are all written to bring you any knowledge you feel you need. They know that there are tons of people in the world who can help with with learning how to work out properly, eat properly, and can even address the reasons behind their weight gain. What is missing? What is the one thing they can’t buy? Discipline. I personally don’t have a lot of it. If I did I wouldn’t have been getting ready to eat ice cream for dinner last night because it didn’t mesh with my goals. Thank goodness I have awesome people in my life that can help me in areas that I fall short even if they didn’t know they were helping me…like ice cream for dinner.

The nutritionist went on to say that we need to ask ourselves a couple of questions. I almost started laughing out loud at one of them because it was what my entire post was about yesterday. He said we should ask ourselves why we are eating. So simple yet often we aren’t eating because we are actually hungry. We are eating because we are happy, sad, bored, stressed, stoked, angry, upset, thirsty, and really any other reason you could possibly imagine. We eat to reward ourselves. We eat to fill a void in our hearts. The nutritionist went on to say that we should pray and ask for God’s help in our weight loss journey. That we should pray for discernment to know when we are actually hungry and when we eating for any of reason beside that. He also recommended that we pray for discipline. Let’s just say that God and I had an interesting conversation this morning.