Sojourn: Day Eleven

  Today, I weighed in at 198.5, down 15 pounds in 10 days, proving once again that this amount of food for a human is not sustainable.  Look, the reality is I sit around a lot.  I am not running, working out or even walking very much.  The most work I do is talk (or type, which is still talking) most days, so losing weight at this rapid of a pace shows just how ridiculous the amount of food I am eating is.

  Tonight, I sat down and chatted with my wife about my learnings through this journey and we discussed her learnings as well.

  The one learning that smacked me in the face just today was how much of a baby I have been when it comes to eating left-overs.  Hilary would ask me if we should eat left-overs many times over and I remember most of the time saying no.  The result? The left-overs get pitched in the end because they continue to get passed over.  My fridge has been full to capacity and I would't eat anything in it, so I would pitch the food.

  Early on in the learning I noticed how much "grazing" I would do and the waste in the actual extra eating I would do.  Here I realize how much I throw away due to basically being stupid.  My western mindset of always needing new, fresh cooked food has caused me to waste food and in turn money.  Again, as I've been saying this whole journey: I can't believe it took me going through this to actually realize this.

  I came to this realization today because I had to throw away a good amount of food out of my fridge, most of which was ignored a week or so before I took this journey.  It broke my heart realizing how childish I've been, demanding a new, fresh meal when there were perfectly good ones in the fridge.  Even taking these things to eat for lunch became to laborious for me...which is embarrassing to admit but very very true.

  In my conversation with Hilary tonight she reminded me of something I had recently done.  For Christmas she wanted to buy a gift card for a family who we dearly love and have been blessed by.  She asked for $50 and I was (with my budget hat on) thinking more like $25.  The very night of this disagreement we went to the movies where we spent $20 on the tickets and I bought close to $20 on food there as well.  I was willing to spend $20 on food I didn't need on myself but wasn't willing to spend $50 on a family I love?  How stinking selfish!

  I'm not saying that going to the movies and getting a ton of food to celebrate is bad, not at all.  My learning personally here is perspective.  Why would I be willing to spend that on junk and neglect to bless others?  I know I've done this over and over again just with food (not to mention the selfish money I've spent on NOT food).

  Each day I think: how can I possibly learn anything new about this journey?  Then I get smacked over the head.  I think God is really trying to tell me something about many things in this journey and today it was how immature I've been about my food and irresponsible I've been by simply allowing it to rot in my fridge simply because "I didn't feel like eating it"...

  Let me just finish today's learnings by saying thank you to all of you who have encountered this journey and engaged with me in person, on Facebook, on the blog itself or over the phone.  I knew it sounded crazy on the onset but many of you have encouraged me in this and I am blessed by your support...especially my wife who has helped me through this journey more than I could say!

  Keep following and listening, who knows what God will reveal to me next about this stuff.  I keep thinking there is no more to learn and he keeps laughing at me and showing me much much more!