losing weight, fast

I made a bad decision there. Couldn't think of anything significant to give up for Lent. So at the last minute I just took the standard option - desserts and chocolate. Two days in and I'm already three pounds lighter, and I don't have too much spare weight to lose. It's 2.30 on Friday and I can literally feel myself losing weight. I need those calories. I may need to do some kind of a transfer deal with the Lord, or I will have disappeared by Easter.

Comments

[Mike]

I've given up on chocolate, and was thinking of a transfer deal to get back chocolate and to not do the essays and dissertation that College want from me before Easter.
I almost gave up my cups of tea, but I thought that might be straining my ability to work late.
When does the season of Lent officially finish? 40 days doesn't take us to Easter, and I've heard some say it doesn't include Sundays, others say it finishes on Palm Sunday...

[Paul Willis]

One thing to remember, Maggi, is that Jesus didn't diet in the wilderness - he fasted. So dieting is a step in the right direction! And just think, when Lent is over, what will be waiting? - all those chocolate eggs. Shame...

[Kathryn]

Maggi...can we somehow trade metabolisms for Lent? Then you could give up choc without fading away to nowt (I know this from bitter experience)
My husband's family has always excluded Sundays from the Lent fast, on the basis that each is a mini Easter...but since this can encourage excessive Sunday consumption of whatever it is that's been given up, it rather defeats the point, I reckon. I'm still trying to give up guilt :-)

[rowan]

help- I have to do a children's talk at church tomorrow and anything I try to say about giving things up just sounds really negative...

[lillylewin]

hi maggi and rowan...
1. maggi, i'll trade you the 5 pound i gained over the holidays! it looks like the lenten thing for me has to be exercise, cause eating less just isn't doing the trick..
which leads me to 2. rowan...my priest suggests "adding" at lent..something you don't normally do...like making up the bed with out being asked/yelled at, or taking out the rubbish (same thing), or writing friends you haven't kept in touch with in ages...
for myself, (along with the exercise), i have adopted edward hays as my lenten guide...who encourages us to be on honeymoon with jesus during the 40 days of lent...doing/adding things that help us fall in love with jesus, or subtracting the stuff that keeps us from passionate relationship with him!
just some thoughts..and know maggie, i too am jealous of your metabolism! : )

[mark]

I was once laughed at in church (well, it's happened more than once, but I'll tell you about this time) for suggesting that we eat more chocolate for Lent - confining ourselves to Fair Trade chocolate, though. Actively promote it (and eat it and give it) and help others to a better life. I still think it's a valid Lent discipline. Giving out free chocolate and explaining why - now there's a good children's talk! (I'd go).

[Radicalfeministpoet]

Nobody "gives up" anything for Lent any more, even among the RCs (who used to be the only people who stuck ashes on their heads and "gave up' anything--no self-respecting Anglican would do that, prior to Pusey et al.).

No, these days, trendy people DO SOMETHING (rather than not do something) for Lent...eg, attend a demonstration, smash some patriarchy, or make unsolicited phone calls for Labour, etc. I'm trying to get vicars to commit to DO SOMETHING: to actually obey the church canons and read daily MP and EP in their parish churches, preferably at a time when normal working people can attend--none of this 9 am or 4 pm nonesense. So far there have been few takers. And I bet they're not giving up chocolate either.

[maggi]

Hmmm. All this talk of "dieting" and negativity leads me to think that I might post a little more on why we give stuff up for Lent. It seems to me that the point of it hasgot badly lost somewhere.
I'm preaching on it tonight, so whall have to think of some good stuff to say. It's not about self-improvement, that's for sure. If we could improve ourselves by fasting, why would we need a Redeemer?

[Caroline]

I'm with kathryn on the metabolism swap, Maggi!

this is my first visit to your blog and it's now going into my favo(u)rites list, thank you

am I allowed to say I hate all thin people who lose weight now (in love of course)? :-)

[maggi]

Funnily enough, I haven't always been slim... I worked very hard at it when I was younger and was hungry for about 10 years in the name of fashion. Suddenly I stop caring and all of a sudden I can't keep the pounds on. No Idea what happened...

[rowan]

maggi, might it possibly have something to do with the amount of time you spend in the gym....?
Thanks (especially to Kathryn) for all the helpful suggestions about the childrens talk- we turned a sandpit into a wilderness and it went ok!
radicalfeministpoet, I agree Lent should definitely have more to do with taking things on than giving them up- but not the daily office, that's compulsory in these parts anyway!

[chris]

been off the alcohol for lent,its almost like im discovering the world again, in sobriety everything feels a little more realistic if thats possible.

[x]

Fasting is about abstaining from sin, from the things that separate us from God. It's not about deprivation, etc etc. It's about preparation, making room for God. One way or another that can happen through prayer or other discipline or practice. But that's really the point.

I was raised to think all the time about needing to be *thin*. There was this great emphasis on what I looked like. When I diet (in any form) I become a maniac, obsessed with my appearance and being thin enough. Fasting has the opposite effect on me it's supposed to, so my Lenten discipline has to be on prayer. When I'm "larger" than the ideal I was taught to aspire to, it basically serves as a tool to learn humility and to quit thinking about what I look like all the time, to focus on the inside and not the outside. So fasting doesn't work for me - and it's essential to remember what fasting was supposed to be *for* in the first place.

[Indeera]

why im loosing 46 pounds less than 2 months

[calexandra]

In the Orthodox Church, fasting is used as a tool in cooperation with repentance....discipling the body so that we may attain more virtues as a result of the sacrifice of things that are pleasurable. It's not simply about "giving up" something you enjoy. It's not all about the food. Fasting without repentance is pointless - like the Pharisees who fasted but paraded themselves around with their so called "righteousness." Fasting must have repentance and from that, other virtues have the opportunity to grow. See the following website http://www.oca.org/QA.asp?ID=93&SID=3
From that site: Fr John Mustiak says ---The purpose of fasting is not to "give up" things, nor to do something "sacrificial." The purpose of fasting is to learn discipline, to gain control of those things that are indeed within our control but that we so often allow to control us. In our culture especially, food dominates the lives of many people.In our culture especially, food dominates the lives of many people. We collect cookbooks. We have an entire TV network devoted to food [the "Food Channel"]. We have eating disorders, diets galore, weight loss pills, liposuction treatments, stomach stapling -- all sorts of things that proceed out of the fact that we often allow food, which in an of itself cannot possible control us, to control us. We fast in order to gain control, to discipline ourselves, to gain control of those things that we have allowed to get out of control. Giving up candy -- unless one is controlled by candy -- is not fasting. It is giving up candy, or it is done with the idea that we fast in order to suffer. But we do not fast in order to suffer. We fast in order to get a grip on our lives and to regain control of those things that have gotten out of control. Further, as we sing during the first week of Great Lent, "while fasting from food, let us also fast from our passions." ---