I had a very upsetting thing happen to me on a vacation a few years back. I went to the hotel spa, weighed on their state-of-the-art balance scales, and noticed that the cheesy electronic scales at my home were wrong. I weighed five pounds more than I had previously thought. I was wearing a swimsuit and immediately sought out a mirror and was aghast as I noticed the disgusting paunch that had formed in my abdomen area. Where did that come from???
I also noticed what some people refer to as “love handles” on my sides directly above my waist. I do not know who coined that expression, but I for one do not “love” them. I think they are disgusting slabs of fat and I “hate” them. I call them “hate handles”.
I would rather sew my lips shut than be fat and I decided right then and there that vacation or no vacation I was going to do something about it. I started feverishly working out each morning to address the problem and “nip it in the bud”. I began weighing myself each day and much to my chagrin, instead of losing weight, I gained approximately one pound a day for the first three days of my exercise program – Egad!
I logically deduced that if I was exercising hard but still losing ground, I just might have to alter my eating habits too. (Do you think?) So, I quit eating buttered pecan ice cream and key lime pie after every meal including breakfast, and started eating healthier meals in addition to my exercise program. I am happy to report that I finally began to turn it around and dropped some pounds and slowly but surely began beating myself back into shape.
I was feeling pretty good about my accomplishments. When I began my program, I was only doing one mile on the treadmill and struggling with my tongue hanging out to obtain that. I had progressed to three miles fairly easily, and this in addition to all of the walking around I do every day seemed to be working quite well.
I always do my exercises of lifting weights first, and then I switch to the treadmill and sometimes stair climber or bike. So, one morning while still working out with weights, I happened to notice a young lady in her twenties running as fast as the wind on the treadmill.
When I finished up with weights and went to the treadmill for my three-mile fast walk, she was still running with reckless abandon. I didn’t pay much attention to her as I got on and adjusted the speed on my machine to a fast walk. After about two miles I was in my zone and was feeling good about myself. Just then I happened to glance over at the girl, and she was now running “backward” on the treadmill.
Good grief! She was on the treadmill facing the opposite way and running backward faster than I was going frontwards and this after running forward all out for at least an hour!
I deflated like a balloon being pricked by a needle. Somehow my accomplishments seemed insignificant now. I would dejectedly glance at her going faster and faster and my legs began to feel like lead as I plodded along. I stuck it out somehow for the entire three miles and finally decided that I had endured enough of this punishment about the same time she finished up. I remarked to her, “That was pretty amazing, running backward like that”.
She just smiled and said, “It is very good for you to walk or run backward. It’s actually very easy. All you need to do is adjust the speed of the treadmill to a very low setting, somewhere around three, and just take it slow and easy”.
I thought, “Something EASY like a setting of three?” I set the darned thing just one setting higher on four for my MAXIMUM.
“Thanks”, I weakly smiled back at her.
I remember a verse in Proverbs Chapter 14:30 that states, “A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones”. What I have found in life is that there is always someone out there who can run a little faster, has more money, is better looking, has a nicer house, can outshoot you in pool, has a nicer tan, scores higher on the SAT, catches a bigger fish, can snap your arm in two pieces arm wrestling and harvests a trophy buck that makes yours look like a fawn.
Being envious is sheer folly and like the Bible states, just makes you “rotten to the bone”. The important thing is the soundness of “your” heart. After some reflection, I came away from this quasi-traumatic experience with the attitude that I should just keep right on walking as fast as I can walk on that treadmill, and don’t be jealous, don’t ever quit, and then watch as my heart gets sound and provides a better life. I simply must realize that I cannot run like the wind, nor can I grasp it. But I can get healthier which enables me to enjoy whatever life that I may have left with energy and vigor.
Eccl. 4:4
Again I saw that for all toil and every skillful work a man is envied by his neighbor. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.
Have a great weekend and go to church this Sunday!