Reshaping It All (14 page)

Stay with it, Donna, repetition and perseverance is your friend!

—Candace

A Pinch of Practicality

Start to notice positive, inspiring, or empowering quotes around you and jot them down. You may hear them from people or read them in your favorite book. These quotes make great pick-me-ups when you place them around the house. Put one in your wallet that you'll see when you're paying for groceries. Put a few on the fridge that you'll read when you're busy cooking. Put one on the dashboard of your car to meditate on before you drive. Encouraging quotes can be packed with power to feed your mind and strengthen your resolve.

Thousands of quotes can be found online, or you can munch on a few from my "Candy Dish."

Set aside some time to pray, to read the Bible, and to listen to God speaking to you.

Food for Thought

A recap of Scripture to meditate on:

• For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman: but the woman for the man. (1 Cor. 11:8–9 KJV)

• The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jer. 17:19)

• How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (Ps. 119:103–105)

• Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags. (Prov. 23:20–21)

• If you find honey, eat just enough. (Prov. 25:16)

• Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith. (1 Pet. 5:7–9)

The Candy Dish

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." —Winston Churchill

From My Stove to Yours

Candace's Famous Chopped Salad:

This salad is so easy to make, and it's incredibly healthy and delicious! There's no right way to do it. Just get chopping. If you're making it for yourself, chop about ½ cup of each thing. If you're making it for a group, go up to 2 or 3 cups of each ingredient!

Ingredients

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Spinach leaves

Yellow bell pepper

Tomato

Corn (raw from the cob)

Avocado

Egg whites only (hard boiled)

Ham (deli sliced)

Turkey (deli sliced)

Salami (deli sliced)

Directions

Chop everything into bite-sized pieces and mix! Add pepper to taste. I drizzle a teaspoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil after it is plated. I suggest doing so in case you have leftovers. This way it won't get soggy in the fridge.

Here's the key: The Avocado adds it's own oil, keeping everything together and flavorful. You really don't need any dressing because of it.

I only added pepper to taste because the ham and salami have enough salt on their own. Remember, salt in excess isn't good for you.

If you're a vegetarian, skip the meats!

Hard-boiled egg whites are pure protein!! If you need more protein in your diet, this is a great way to get it.

Aside from the meats and eggs, everything should be chopped raw. No cooking required! How easy is that?

Hope you enjoy this incredibly easy and uber tasty salad! It's lunch or dinner!

TEN

Hey There, Delilah

The book of Judges tells us the story of Samson, a man of incomparable strength. He tore a lion apart with his bare hands, caught three hundred foxes, slew a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass, tore the gates from the city wall, pulled down the pillars that held up a vast house, thereby killing three thousand people, and had a weakness for women.

Chapter 14 tells us that his first wife deceived him, enticing him with tears for seven days, until he finally gave in. And again in chapter 16, we read about yet another woman, Delilah, who for the love of money sought out to discover the source of his strength. "It came to pass when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; that he told her all his heart" (Judg. 16:16–17 KJV).

The story of Samson, whose secret to strength was his uncut hair, may well typify the power we have when God is on our head; but it also illustrates the power that persistence holds to weaken our strength. Even the strongest resolve becomes weak when faced with negative thoughts time and again.

Remember the saying, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease"? It means the ones who complain get all the attention. Luke 18 tells us that after a certain widow repeatedly approached the judge for justice against her adversary, he finally threw down the gavel and said, "Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice." It's amazing what harassment can do.

I dealt with my fair share of repeated harassment in junior high. Seventh and eighth grades are difficult for most students, but for a girl on a TV show trying her best to fit into public school, it was even more so. I remember kneeling down at my locker looking for a math book I needed when suddenly my hair was yanked back and I fell to the floor. Another day I arrived at my PE locker to find it covered in shaving cream, gum, and the worst of written obscenities. Some kids would purposely bump into me as they walked down the hall and call me all kinds of names in hopes I would cry.

"Can't handle the heat, DJ?" they'd mock day after day as they ridiculed me. I understood their behavior was a reflection of jealousy, but that knowledge couldn't erase the insecurity that was building. Word by word they were wearing me down, until I finally I gave in to my tears.

Persistence has a way of wearing us down when day after day we're faced with the same set of circumstances. My parents explained their motives to me in hopes that would help, but it hurt just the same because they didn't let up.

Junior high was a struggle, but it served to remind me that the outside world can potentially affect the decisions I make. Bullies come in all shapes and sizes, their most common weapons being actions and words. If left unchecked, these weapons find a way of permeating our skin and piercing our heart.

As a mom who has learned from the past, I am equipped with knowledge to help my children by offering the following advice:

1. Avoid trouble when you know it's lurking around.

2. Pretend that you're brave even if you're not.

3. Find a buddy who will stand by your side.

Instead of conquering bullies, we need to focus on conquering thoughts since harassment travels through our brain before settling in. We can't change the world, but we can change the way we react to it. Neither words nor people can affect us without our thought pattern allowing them. Temptation acts much the same way. It's a smell, a sound, or a visual cue that travels through our thoughts before it becomes a desire.

Now let's consider the question, What's tempting you? Take one look in your refrigerator or pantry, and you might find the answer. Is it a pie? A chocolate bar? A bag of chips? French bread? Soda pop? Every time you walk into the kitchen and open the door, you see it. Sure you'll say "no." And the next time you walk into the kitchen, you'll say "no" again. And the next time, and the next . . . until you finally break down, pick up the pie and cut a thick slice.

James 1:14 tells us, "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed" (KJV). I could imagine that verse referring to a drunk sitting in a bar lusting for the next drink. His clothing is torn and well worn; his beard is unshaven. His hand trembles while he holds it down with the other. He looks nothing like me, but one look in the mirror tells me I'm wrong. Temptation lurks at our doorstep no matter how polished it is.

Webster's Dictionary
defines
enticed
this way: "To attract artfully or adroitly or by arousing hope or desire. Tempt."

It's no wonder we food lovers struggle to keep our hands off the munchies. The constant lure we present ourselves with wears us down. If we set out to make change in hopes of achieving success, we must also redesign our surroundings to ensure it.

Willpower gets us off to a great start, but temptations like "Betcha can't eat just one!" can eventually wear us down. "Out of sight, out of mind" is a proven fact when it comes to eating. The less temptation we face, the less we'll give in to it, so just as we handle our bullies—keep the junk out of sight and out of reach. Some people go as far as freezing their charge cards inside a block of ice so they are less likely to use them. Without the ease of availability, we don't give spending a second thought. By the time we thaw the block of ice, temptation has fled, and we can then ask, "Do I really need this or not?"

The same rings true for those things that are good for us. If you wash fruit and put it out where your family will see it, they're more likely to grab a piece here and there. You may even want to nudge the bowl in their direction every so often. Store some washed lettuce in the fridge, and you'll be more likely to make a salad. Place cold water in the fridge, and you're apt to drink some. Keep veggies washed and cut, and you'll likely grab a few. And let's not forget—keep the Bible close by, and you'll be reminded to read it. This is where availability becomes an asset.

Putting your healthy choices out front is a great way to design your life for success. It is the power of suggestion. We're faced with suggestions every day in one way or another—through commercials, billboards, aromas, magazine covers, the behavior of friends, and the like. If those stimulants are negative and we face them often enough, we're setting ourselves up for a fall. We can improve our chances by presenting our senses with good choices, and we are bound to succeed.

Design your life by avoiding the visual lure. Take weight-loss books for example. They are a pool of information, but weightloss magazines are a pool of temptation. Try picking one up for encouragement and inspiration, and you'll find page after page contains glossy photos of food. Sure they have low-cal recipes to go with them, but rather than taking our focus off the food, the magazine usually brings our attention back to it. That would be fine if we didn't have an issue with food, but I suspect that most women who pick them up do. We could choose a recipe, head to the store, buy the necessary ingredients, and whip up a nutritious, low-cal meal for our family. That would be using it wisely. But unfortunately many of us have a problem that we're literally working our butt off trying to overcome, which is the lust of the flesh—the desire to overindulge, and the tendency that we have to glorify food more than we should.

A little piece of Scripture known as "the eye covenant" is found in Job 31:1, "I have made a covenant with my eyes; why then should I look upon a young woman?" (NKJV). Using Job as a role model, many committed husbands, like mine, have decided to make the same covenant with their eyes. If a beautiful woman walks by, a man may take notice, but if he gazes at her for a while, his mind will travel to places it shouldn't. So rather than looking her way, he turns his eyes and his attention to something else.

If this covenant helped Job overcome lust of the flesh, it can also work for you. This covenant would usher in a few changes for you, such as avoiding the snack aisles you used to browse, passing by free samples without stopping to consider what they're serving today, and replying, "No, thank you," the next time someone passes a cookie or a caramel your way.

If you spend the morning fantasizing over your lunch and the afternoon meditating on how great your dinner will be, then something desperately needs to change.

Of course there are times when it's appropriate to savor the goodness of food and consider what our next meal will be. But reserve those moments for when the time is right, which is when you're ready to prepare a meal or sit down to eat. Everything in moderation, that's how you'll manage to enjoy the journey.

An interesting book on the market combines two topics—psychology and food—
Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
by Brian Wansink. Brian makes a point in his book that rings a familiar bell. He writes about variety, saying that when we have a variety of food, such as an all-you-can-eat buffet, we tend to eat more. That's true when you consider the fact that "I'll have one of these, and I'll try one of those, and I'll taste a little of that" adds up fast. That's when it's important to eye your food first to decide how much to eat and don't put too much on your plate.

The next step in facing our bullies is to act strong even when we're not. It's a good step to take when overcoming the temptation to binge. Resisting temptation is the first step to seeing it flee. I don't always feel strong when I say no to a second piece of carrot cake. I might say, "No thank you, I'm good." When the truth is that I'm not good at all. I desperately want to have more, but I choose my action, and soon my body agrees with my choice. Like I said before, no matter what you crave, the feeling eventually leaves. Wait for it.

Sit up straight, push your plate away, and smile when you feel that you've had enough. If you grumble and complain about wanting some more, you're giving in to the lure of the food. Same goes for your workout. If you go into your workout with a mediocre attitude, you won't perform at top speed. Attitude fuels energy, so grab a good one and use it.

Last but not least, find a friend you can count on. Thankfully I had good friends growing up so I was never alone, but the best friends I could ever have were my sisters, Melissa and Bridgette. Melissa was just a couple of grades higher than me and was always prepared to gather her friends and come to my rescue. I didn't mind that! They've always been protective of me, which came in handy when I was stuck to a locker with gum in my hair and shaving cream on my face.

Having a buddy who understands our struggles and wants only the best for us is an asset when the going gets tough. If I'm ever feeling down and need a word of encouragement, I know that I can still call my sisters to give me the love.