Attempt number five

I think this is my fifth attempt at weight loss – official attempts that is, through attending a weight loss class. Attempts one and two were successful – I lost the desired amount of weight. Attempts three and four were not successful – I gave up after the first stone or so. I suppose that to some extent none of the attempts were truly successful in that the weight went back on. I might have lost weight but I never really changed my eating habits – I just put them on hold for a while!

Attempts one and two were sensible eating combined with aerobic exercises – my leotard and leggings are in the wardrobe. I look at them occasionally and remember the days when I was bounced around on an exercise mat! I started at a lighter weight and had fewer pounds to shift in those days. I hovered between a size ten and a size twelve.

Attempt number three was never going to be successful. Every week the leader of the class showed up without a hair out of place and with make-up flawlessly applied. It was like the old Charlie’s Angels series – battling the bad guys without breaking a nail. This woman was dainty, power-dressed to the nines and I really couldn’t imagine that she ever battled with her weight. She encouraged us to take our Weight Watchers mayonnaise on holiday with us and keep counting the points. How real is that? I didn’t feel that she was in my corner fighting alongside of me.

Attempt number four I can’t remember that much about. It sprang out of a challenge from the pulpit to join a club, make friends with people and share Jesus with them. I joined WW, but never quite got around to evangelism!

Attempt number five is turning out to be a marathon, but I love the leader! She confessed this evening that over the last year she has put on a stone in weight. As she says, she didn’t just wake up one morning and there it was – an extra stone that wasn’t there the day before! It was not keeping track of the points, not measuring the quantities and looking out on the cold and cloudy days and deciding not to go for the walk! This is a woman that speaks my language!

She is like me! She is real! She is not dainty and power dressed with every hair in place and make-up flawless. She does not tell me the take my low fat mayonnaise on holiday with me! She knows that birthdays happen, that Indian curries taste divine and that you can’t be good all the time! Most of all she fights along side me! She is flawed!

There is nothing more soul destroying than feeling that the leader you are following is so far in front of you that you have absolutely no hope of ever catching them up. They are so far divorced from the reality that you face that they have nothing to say to you. They live on a different planet!

Jesus is quite unique in his leadership – He isn’t flawed and he doesn’t require me to catch up with Him. He slips back to walk beside me and never makes me feel that I am failing because I don’t get it right first time. He doesn’t tell me either to take my low fat mayonnaise on holiday with me!

Incidentally I lost a pound this week!