The above fact has been increasingly obvious to me over the 2 years. For the past 3 years I've sat at a desk and worked on a computer anywhere from 7 to 14 hrs every weekday. Don't get me wrong, it's nice. It's air-conditioned, I don't have to stand around on my feet, I get paid well, and I basically get to listen to as much music as I want while I work. It's really not a bad gig at. However, I'm heavier and in worse shape than I've ever been in my life... and I can't take it any more. I don't eat horrible foods all the time, but I don't really care what I eat as long as I'm not hungry afterwards. The combination of my complete lack of will power with regard to food and my sitting all day is just killing me. I've tried nutrisystem and it worked. I was only on it seriously for a month and I lost 15lbs. But I was spending every non-working hour keeping track of, planning for, and preparing the next meal. How do you not get burnt-out on that? And as far as excercising goes, I just feel like it's impossible to make up for 9 hrs of sitting every evening. I simply can't make the time to workout in the 4hrs after work every single day.
Basically, I come away from this thinking the only solution left is a change of life.
Jesse put a quote by Thoreau up on her blog yesterday and this really stood out to me...
"I went to the woods... to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms..."
I don't know about you, but that's damn intense to me. That moves me.
Which brings me to my point. In the last couple months I've been so caught up in and stressed out by packing and preparing for our 2 years in Jamaica that I've forgotten why I wanted to go in the first place. I've been so worried about having enough quick-drying clothes and camera stuff and computer stuff and concerned about our safety (the list goes on). But in the last few days I remembered that it wasn't about a job change or moving to a new city or going on a really long camping trip. It was about changing my (our) life for the better. It was about trusting God and taking a huge leap of faith to follow some calling in our hearts. But one of the biggest things for me personally was... it was about getting me the hell out of this downward spiral towards obesity, diabetes, or worse. I feel like I've been watching from the sideline as this sedintary lifestyle drug me down over the past few years and I'm done with it. And if getting my fat ass on a plane to Jamaica is the only way to get me out of it, well, you just tell me what time the plane leaves.
This is an interesting concept to me, changing your entire "place" because you can't find the power to make the small changes yourself. I'm usually not the first to be in favor of this. Seriously. Going to a bible college to keep yourself out of trouble seems silly to me; you can't stay in bible college for the rest of your life just as I can't stay in Jamaica the rest of mine. Eventually, you have to face the "real world." But recently I've started thinking that really it comes down to this: you do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to make/change your life to the life you want or think you should be living, that's what you do. Maybe that change won't last forever. I mean, we all adapt to our surroundings and eventually find ways around things that "challenge" us, but you've got to start somewhere, right? You have to find a way to break out of whatever spiral you find yourself in.
And that's where I find myself on the brink of now. I'm 4 1/2 weeks from that change. I'm 4 1/2 weeks from getting away from a desk, fast food, and walking NO where. I'm still having trouble focusing on why we started this whole process in the first place, but it's starting to become clear again. And that makes me happy.
