already griped<\/a> about the joy that some Catholics take in telling everyone else that they should be doing positive things like prayer rather than giving things up.<\/p>\nBut at the same time, here\u2019s my experience:<\/p>\n
For most of my life, I haven\u2019t had any problems with my weight; I\u2019m not especially thin but have been somewhere in the \u201cideal\u201d weight range for my height, though maybe at the upper end, but, then, I\u2019m definitely on the shorter side (nearly a full foot shorter than Megan McArdle), so the actual number of pounds is on the lower end. \u00a0I lost the baby weight three times without too much trouble \u2014 and then hit the trifecta of turning 40, working at home, and the youngest starting school, and I started gaining weight. \u00a0Not too much weight, but more than I should, and it\u2019s much more difficult to lose the weight than after the babies. \u00a0(And trust me \u2014 I gained a LOT of weight when pregnant!)<\/p>\n
So last year, spurred on first by New Year\u2019s and then by Lent, I lost a good five pounds, only to gain it all again over the summer. \u00a0(Too many trips for ice cream or other treats with the kids, rationalized because it\u2019s a walk or a bike ride there, but far from enough, or just treats at home.) \u00a0And all this past fall and early winter I kept telling myself, \u201ctime to get serious and stop snacking,\u201d without actually doing so \u2014 because my weight-loss method is, in fact, to cut out the between-meals (except, say, mid-afternoon) and after-dinner snacking, and my worst tendency is, after working or reading or watching TV in the evening upstairs, to go downstairs to lock up and decide, \u201ctonight\u2019s dinner was pretty good, I think I\u2019ll eat some out of the pot,\u201d followed by, \u201cwell, now there\u2019s hardly enough left for it to be worth putting it back in the fridge. \u00a0Might as well finish it up.\u201d \u00a0Oh, and my mid-morning Bad Habit is to say, \u201cI\u2019m getting pretty hungry. \u00a0Well, clearly I didn\u2019t have enough for breakfast, so I\u2019ll just promise myself to have a light lunch if I have a snack now.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, yes, that which I have given up for Lent is both sweets*, in general, and snacking before lunch and after dinner.** \u00a0(*I let myself have dessert when I\u2019m out with the family, say, at the potluck get-together of two weeks ago, or at a restaurant.)<\/p>\n
(** The funny thing is, I also gave up \u201cchecking the blog inordinately often to see how many pageviews I have,\u201d but, as it turns out, switching to Patheos cured me cold-turkey as the metrics are done through a system that, so far as I can tell, refreshes only once daily, at midnight. \u00a0Does it count as a Lenten sacrifice if external factors prevent you from it anyway? \u00a0And if there is a way to refresh pageviews midday, don\u2019t tell me, not now, anyway!)<\/p>\n
But it fascinates me that, in a way, \u201cgiving up snacking\u201d is an arbitrary decision \u2014 especially what with everyone saying God doesn\u2019t particularly care if you sacrifice snacks, all the more so if your motivation is to some degree the worldly one of weight loss \u2014 but nonetheless, I am able to \u201cflip that switch\u201d and, well, not eat sweets for 6 weeks. \u00a0The no-post-dinner-snacking, too \u2014 it\u2019s clearly nonsensical, after all, to snack when you ought to just go to bed anyway \u2014 but I am able, during Lent, to tell myself, and really feel<\/em>, that it\u2019s just not an option, in a way that I wasn\u2019t able to, for all of the fall and even after New Year\u2019s, and for multiple prior years even when I\u2019d tell myself that this<\/em> is the year when I\u2019ll make a real effort so that I\u2019ll be able to fit into my regular clothes rather than picking up yet another pair of vanity-sized jeans at the thrift store.<\/p>\nMaybe it\u2019s just that Lent is time-limited, and it\u2019s easier to do something on a time-limited basis, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just that. \u00a0In a way, it feels like Lent, and the idea of giving something up, is a gift, by virtue of the fact that I am able to do so, when I wouldn\u2019t at some other time of year \u2014 whether for weight loss, or to free oneself, even if temporarily, from a habit or an activity that\u2019s perhaps not bad per se<\/em>, but still not healthy, either.<\/p>\nAnd when I give up something for Lent, even if I\u2019m told that it doesn\u2019t \u201ccount\u201d and I should be saying rosaries instead, it still feels like a real commitment in a way that \u201cI want to lose 5 pounds\u201d doesn\u2019t. \u00a0Commitment to God? \u00a0To myself? \u00a0I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
And giving something up is, let\u2019s face it, a lot more concrete and do-able than \u201cI\u2019ll pray more,\u201d or read the Bible, or the like \u2014 because, with the \u201cdoing\u201d sort of Lenten resolves, procrastination gets in the way pretty easily, when, of course, you can\u2019t procrastinate a \u201cnot-doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your experience?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Look, I know, it\u2019s bad form to kill two birds with one stone by combining Lenten sacrifice with weight loss, and I already griped about the joy that some Catholics take in telling everyone else that they should be doing positive things like prayer rather than giving things up. But at the same time, here\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lent"],"yoast_head":"\n
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