Saturday mornings are generally my “me” time. The wife likes to sleep in and have a lazy day in general, and I tend to be an early (or at least earlier) riser. Usually that means I hit the basement of our house, where I have my painting area (I do acrylic painting as Southpaw Works), the X-Box, my office area with both my computer and my music equipment, and my garage, where I dabble with woodworking. I easily spend 4…5…6 hours a Saturday down there, moving from hobby to hobby, if we have nothing pressing going on.
This morning as I sat in front of the X-Box and sipped my protein shake, I looked over and saw this stack of napkins I keep down there on an old TV tray. That stack of napkins was part of my not-to-distant past. Not too distant, as in, just 3 or 4 weeks ago.
Part of my morning on Saturdays almost always consisted of me running to the nearby Hardee’s, Burger King or McDonalds for a calorie and carb packed breakfast. I would bring it back and sit either in front of the computer or the X-Box, watch some mindless show, and inhale what was easily enough calories for an entire day. A biscuit or two, maybe some French toast sticks, and always a large sweet tea. Then a few hours later, it was highly likely that I would run to some other fast food place for an equally calorie packed lunch. Whatever napkins I had left over I would stack them there. That stack is HUGE.
Then I thought about the fact that it wasn’t just Saturday mornings…but I ate like that pretty much 7 days a week. Each morning on the way to work I would almost always stop at some drive through and get breakfast. Then a few hours later I’d go again at lunch. Every day I was eating 2 to 4 times the calories, and probably 7 or 8 times carbs, that I should have been consuming.
I looked at it this morning with a mix of feelings. I’ve been on all liquids for six days now and I would LOVE to have even a small part of one of those unhealthy breakfasts.
Part of me looks at this whole process I’m in now as paying for my past sins. I have lived 50 years eating unhealthy. Unreal amounts of pizza, Mountain Dew, Sweet Tea, candy bars, chips, burgers…the list goes on and on. And it’s not just part that I’m now trying to “repent” for, but the habits that go along with it. Overeating…stress and boredom eating…poor choices…the list goes on.
But part of me also looks at that stack and hopes. Part of me looks at it in hopes of what my future could look like as far as my weight. As far as my health. As far as my relationship with food.
I am hoping for a future where my life doesn’t revolve around food but rather revolves around LIFE itself. A future where food become a necessity and not a decadency.
I use those napkins for other things from time to time. To clean up a stray spill or to clean my reading glasses. I’m going to leave that stack there in hopes that over time, I can watch that stack dwindle down to nothing, instead of always growing from the leftovers of recent unhealthy meal.
Who knows? Maybe six months or a year from now, I wont even be in my basement on a Saturday morning. Maybe I will be at the gym, out for a neighborhood walk, out for a hike in the outdoors I used to love so much. Maybe a year from now that stack of napkins and what it represents, will be a distant memory.
I am leaving them there as a reminder of the past, and as a hope for the future.