On Losing, Adding, and Resolutions

So, how are your resolutions coming?  It's been a couple weeks since New Years - do you even remember them?  I recently read an article that said weight loss was the number one New Year's resolution.  I know that having just had a baby, that was my big resolution for 2012.  And guess what?  I did it!  Well, ok, I didn't quite make my original goal, which was to lose 40 pounds, but I lost 30, and I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.  I'm thinking that last ten pounds would require more sacrifice than I'm willing to make, and I don't think I realized when I made the goal what a huge difference 30 pounds would make.  So I'm good.

In looking back at the year, however, I have found that keeping that resolution to lose weight didn't quite bring the sense of fulfillment I had hoped it might.  I'm sharing this just because I haven't heard anyone else say it yet. There are so many people out there who really want to lose weight, and since I was one of them, I know exactly how they feel.  But let me tell you what it's like on this side of the fence.  It's not that much different.  Yes, I'm smaller.  My pants are several sizes smaller, and my limbs seem to have shrunk?  I don't know how losing weight makes your arms and legs shorter, but it sure seems that way.  So, I'm smaller and.....  and that's about it.  I haven't noticed all that extra energy I'm supposed to have. I'm not happier or richer or even necessarily more attractive.  I still have the same crazy hair that drives me nuts.  I still have those weird spots on my face that arrived during my sixth pregnancy and never left.  I still have stretch marks covering what feels like a full third of my body.  I still have all those old shortcomings and weaknesses, and it definitely didn't make be a better parent.  As a person I really didn't move forward when I left the weight behind. 

Yes, it is fun and exciting to see the numbers on the scale slide downward.  Yes, it's fun to try on a pair of jeans in a smaller size and find that they do fit.  Yes, it does feel good when someone notices and tells me how good I look, but the boost in self-confidence is fairly temporary - sort of like a new haircut.  Once the new size becomes the new normal, it's just the same old me again. (While it is true that a more drastic weight-loss experience may produce more drastic results, neither of my two readers are obese, so it doesn't apply, and my own experiences are the only ones I can really share, anyway.)

I'm not saying that you should abandon your weight-loss goals.  I don't think you should, and I don't think you would even if I told you to, but what I am saying is that while you're losing weight, you should also be adding to yourself.  In making your goals for the year, be sure to include something that will make you a better person.  Improve your talents, learn to do something new, become more Christlike, create something, give more service, do something you've always wanted to do - so that when your body is as skinny as you hoped it would be, there's also a better person inside of it.  Because who wants to be a mean, ornery, skinny person? And when you reach New Year's Eve 2013, you can feel good both inside and out.