By SparkPeople member
Patty McIntire (NIKNAKPATTYMAC)

"Your words can crush things that are unseen
So please be careful with me, I'm sensitive
And I'd like to stay that way."

--Jewel, "I'm Sensitive"

I've run into several blogs written by people who are truly suffering, who are slaves to the scale. They are desperate and miserable and my heart goes out to them, and how sad that they (and we) obsess over the number on the scale. If you are doing most everything right (and believe me I need to hear this for myself as well) and the scale doesn't move, it doesn't mean anything other than the number hasn't changed on that instrument.

It doesn't tell you that your blood sugar is down.

It doesn't tell you that your blood pressure is lower.

It doesn't tell you that your cholesterol and triglycerides are better numbers.

It doesn't tell you that, by continuing to work out and eat better, you continue to improve your health and lower your risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke, cancer, etc.

A scale doesn't give you the most important information, so we have to stop obsessing about it not moving for a day, a month, or a year. Heck, the scale has not moved for me in years and yet I'm significantly healthier now than I have been in 30 years. My blood numbers and my sense of physical well-being tell me what I need to know.

Certainly, I look at my wedding picture of 30 years ago and see a beautiful, skinny woman and I wonder where she went. But, that young girl went through a whole lot of livin' and raised two tremendous young men...I'd say it was all worth it. What's the old saying about, when I was a child I did things as a child and now that I'm grown I put away childish things?

One of those things is the childish desire of an adult to be 20 again. We need to love who we have become and the road that got us here. Or, at the very least forgive ourselves, pick ourselves up, and move on. We must be kinder to ourselves.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and make all of us healthy, happy, and THIN, but that ain't gonna happen. What can happen though, is that we can find our own sense of joy and happiness within us and our lives and hold on to that. Hold it close to our heart and foremost in our mind and carry it fully in our spirit, so we stop destroying ourselves by abusing the little one that lives within each of us.

I've heard the term anawim--an old Hebrew word meaning "poor ones" and expanded by the Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox to include those who are forgotten and deemed unnecessary by society. When I think of my SparkFriends who use hateful words to describe their behavior with food and their laziness, even for brief periods, I cannot help but feel a very deep pain in my heart for their spirit within. It helps to envision this fragile spirit as our inner child. And, like it says in the Bible, "what you do to the least of these, you do to me." The least of these is the anawim--including your inner child--YOU.

What I'm asking of each of us is to honor our spirit, the little one that is within. Please be gentle with your words and thoughts. Love ourselves inside today, even as we hurt and feel lost. Our little one feels lost as well and needs to be cared for and nurtured. If we do not nurture our spirit with love and comfort, I fear we will never overcome our addiction to food and bad habits.

A thin person with a wounded heart (from the abuse we pile on it with self-hatred and nasty words and thoughts) is not a whole person, is not happy with themselves really--only with their appearance to others. So, the weight comes back on.

I have a soft heart that hates to see us be so mean to ourselves.

Start your journey, to health, joy, and thinness, on the inside. At the very least, we must mind our thoughts and words...they cause us greater harm than we realize.

Or, they can heal us.


About NIKNAKPATTYMAC:
Nine days after my first son’s due date, I was playing a very aggressive game of volleyball. No surprise, I gave birth the next day. I was nine months along with my second child when an umpire told me to tuck my shirt into my maternity pants while I was batting at a city softball game so he could see the pitch. Yep! That was me--active and determined not to let motherhood slow me down. But it did. I got lazy about my team sports and activities. It seems chasing around two little guys, shift work, being a wife, and maintaining a home didn’t leave time or energy for such foolishness. Eventually, I quit work to raise the boys, returning to my career in molecular biology when they were mid-teens.

At an early point, I decided to just raise the kids and deal with me later. I hope it’s not too late. I have a wonderfully supportive husband and father of our two boys. He sees me as the embodiment of a fulfilled mother with the resultant weight gain that goes with it--as if it’s my hard-earned badge of honor, you might say. So, appearance is not my big concern. Health is. Finding SparkPeople has been a true miracle for me. No meetings to attend. It’s all at my own pace. And no one is judging me. I’m accountable to myself, with the resources, support, and encouragement right there if I need it and ask for it.

Mostly, I seek out the small teams because I enjoy the closer relationships that are possible, while at the same time joining a couple of larger teams where I can be invisible, but still gain from others wisdom. My favorite team is “Virtual Cycling—Touring the Globe” because we get to pretend we are touring other countries while putting real miles in on our bikes. Our next “tour” starts this September.

Do you have an inspirational story you think we should include on the dailySpark? Do you have any funny stories about weight loss? Send them to editor@dailyspark.com. Include the subject line: From the Mouths of Members