Diets, workouts, weighing in. Raw veggies ad-nauseum. In January of 2001, I just couldn’t face it again, mainly because it wasn’t working, but also because it felt like prison. I couldn’t live in grim, determined deprivation again. I liked me too much.

So I gave up. I told God I couldn’t do it anymore. No more forced food plans. That was the day I stopped trying to control my weight.

Giving up was such a relief, I felt like taking a walk, so I did. And when I didn’t feel like it, I didn’t. I didn’t know it then, but I’d stumbled onto a well-kept secret—the secret of letting go of perfection and embracing yourself right where you are. 

Fast forward 18 months to the morning I woke up and realized 75 pounds were gone.  Poof. Glorious.

It’s still gone, 24 years later.  I’ve been asked how I did it, but it’s hard to explain. 

“By giving up.  By trusting God where I’m weak.”  

How do you package those things and call it a plan?  

You don’t.  

You do this. You go to God with the struggle.  You repent for wanting thin more than him. You learn to pay attention to when your body is hungry and when it’s satisfied, not stuffed. You restart over and over until you get the hang of it. 

That’s it. God will show you what to do next.

Along the way, I’ve learned much more than how to lose weight. I’ve learned I’m a sinner who never gets over needing Jesus. My weakest place is where God’s strength displays itself. All he needs from me is to keep cooperating by giving up and trusting him.

God wants so much more for us than improved selves. He wants to give us himself, so that we can find real life with him, so “…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God,” Ephesians 3:19.

P.S. This plan doesn’t take great faith. It takes great desperation and a great Savior.

For the-rest-of-the-story about my weight-loss 24 years ago, click here.