self rules
Don’t Make Food into an Idol or an Addiction
I just finished lunch a little while ago. a totally scrumptious bowlful of lentil-and-vegetable-and sausage salad with my homemade creamy Italian dressing. I enjoyed every bite. And now, if I’m wise, I’ll consider myself to be off the eating bandwagon until dinner, at which time there will be another good meal, perhaps some spinach lasagna with whole-wheat pasta. Or we might go out, it being Friday night and all.
A Happy Perspective on Food
Just finished a fascinating book mostly about food and our relationship to it. Frank Bruni, who was the restaurant critic for the New York Times from 2004-2009, spent most of his life battling his weight. He grew up in an Italian-American family that put great emphasis on having mounds of food available at any and all times. If there wasn’t enough food on the table to make it sag, then there wasn’t enough. As Bruni moved into young adulthood he tried amphetamines, forced vomiting, and other extremely unhealthy measures to control his weight. After college he became a journalist, and at one point he was following George W. Bush on his campaign trail. He calculated that there were eight meals served daily to the press corps in an effort to keep them (literally) fat and happy so that they’d report positively on the candidate.
Don’t Fuss at Yourself!
The first sentence of the introduction to my book says, “I just got back from a wonderful women’s retreat.” Well, guess what? I just got back from another one. Really, really great. Food, conversations, speaker, the whole ball of wax and enchilada. But remember how I kind of spoiled things for myself recently because I was so worried that no one was going to show up at a book signing I attended? Well, I just did the same thing this past weekend: I fussed at myself for some very minor missteps. Why wasn’t my packing more organized?
A Happiness Paradox
If I plan ahead for an event and am able to relax and enjoy it, I’m sorry when it’s all over. If I procrastinate and have lots of last-minute anxiety, it’s a tremendous relief to have the event behind me. These strange feelings have become especially obvious to me as I’ve looked back on the retreat breakfasts I’ve overseen this year for my wonderful chorale. (But we still have one more concert, and therefore one more Friday-night reception for me to agonize over.)
Where’s My Reward?
I’m concentrating right now on building happiness by establishing good habits within the limits of my character. This emphasis has grown out of Gretchen Rubin’s new book that I wrote about yesterday. I’ve been sharing my struggles to put accountability structures in place that will work with my obliger tendency, but I’m realizing that for some habits I’m just going to have to use some other prod or prods. I’ll be writing about these ideas over the next posts. I love putting my mind to a problem and finding a solution once I realize that there is a problem.
Keep on doing . . .
. . . the small things.
I know. I’ve written on this subject before. And I hope this particular story doesn’t come across as trivial. It struck me as an interesting object lesson, so I’m passing it on.
The picture is of the diamond stud earrings that Jim bought me for our 12th anniversary. (Diamonds for the dozenth, you see.) [Please note: When we moved this site to a new platform I lost a lot of images, including this one–and I’m too lazy to take a new one!] I must admit that I did sort of tell him that I wanted these. Anyway, they’re very beautiful, and I wanted to wear them all the time, but I also wanted to be able to wear my regular earrings, so the only solution was to get another set of piercings on my ears, which I did. It took quite awhile for the new holes to heal, but I persisted.
Some good news, but . . .
. . . no free pass.
I wrote early in January about my higher-than-expected blood sugar levels and my intention to be very strict about sugar intake during the month and then get the further testing the doctor recommended. The second test was done on Feb. 3 and I got the results later in the week. Fasting blood glucose was 99, which is just one point below the 100-125 range that is considered pre-diabetes, so I’ve apparently moved back down out of the danger zone. But not by much. My insulin level was 2.6, which is apparently quite good. If you have high fasting insulin levels, especially above 5.0, you almost certainly have insulin resistance; that is, your cells don’t take up glucose easily and so your pancreas has to pump out more and more insulin to get blood sugar down. But of course you have to have enough insulin. I’ve been finding it difficult to get a good take on how low is too low. There was no indication in the report that anything was amiss with this number, though, so I guess I’ll take it as okay.
Eliminate . . .
. . . and concentrate.
Great advice from Christian writer and speaker Anne Ortlund, who died in November 2013. I’ll be doing a book club post on Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman, her 1977 classic, later on this month.
For now, though, I’ll just concentrate on these three words. You may think, well, easy enough for her to say. What on earth can I eliminate? I’d love to concentrate just on what I love the most, what I feel most called to do, but hey! What am I supposed to do with all this other stuff that’s been thrust upon me?
No easy answers here. I do think, though, that sometimes we take on responsibilities that don’t belong to us. Many years ago I read a statement in a Bible Study Fellowship commentary that would have saved me from some unwise commitments of my own had I followed it. I can’t quote it exactly and can’t remember what we were studying at the time. The general idea, though, was that if you take on something that really should be done by someone else, not only are you overextending yourself and probably therefore shirking your real obligations, but you are crowding out someone else who could and should do that job. Isn’t that an interesting idea? Your overcommitment is someone else’s deprivation.
The only person I can change . . .
. . . is myself.
Just one more day of the old year. I think my only resolution should be to remember that I can only make resolutions for myself. I want to set the very highest standards for myself but refuse to apply those standards to others, to remind myself that people are (or at least may be) doing the best that they can, to carry out the description of love in I Corinthians 13:5: “It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” As I’ve said many, many times, I am the Queen of Grudge-Holders. If I concentrated on just that italicized phrase all year I’d be much easier to live with. (“If thou, O Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, who should stand?”)