The Hopeful Exiled Misfit

Resolution -vs- Renewal 

All of us love fresh starts and the idea that a new year can be markedly better than the previous ones. I think the hope that a new year can bring is a very positive thing. However I am not looking forward to the crowded gym that I will have to endure for the next few weeks until those who made new year’s resolutions to lose weight eventually give up and go back to their usual routines.

Ask yourself how many new year’s resolutions have you ever kept? I personally can’t remember too many of mine that lasted much beyond February. In fact a 2012 Forbes article citing research from the university of Scranton concluded that only 8% of people actually keep their resolutions. This approach of trying to “white knuckle” your way to a better life is something the apostle Paul decried in Colossians 2: 20-23

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

Will Power Alone Won’t Lead to Sustainable Change

What I believe Paul is telling us is that we need stop listening to decrees and mandates that men create (including ourselves) as a means to combat fleshly indulgence because they are “of no value”.  There is an approach however that will work but it requires a much greater commitment. In Romans 12:2 Paul tells us:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

If we are to succeed in making transformational positive change in our lives we have to start by rejecting the demands that the world makes on our mindset and renew our minds. Instead of trying to fight our assumptions and desires with will power we need instead to change our assumptions and desires leading to permanent lifestyle changes. OK great but what does this look like in practical terms?

Let’s take everyone’s favorite new year’s resolution –weight loss.  The world has its’ solutions which include pills, diets, exercise programs, and even weight loss surgery. Most of these have one thing in common. They are a quick fix to a long term problem. The other thing they have in common is that they cost you hundreds if not thousands of dollars and the benefits in the vast majority of cases are also short lived.

Any credible person will tell you that will power or some short term fix will not produce lasting change. In order to achieve lasting tangible results you must make permanent lifestyle changes and those are only possible when you first “renew your mind” to reject the societal narratives and do the things that are necessary to achieve the results.

I myself have had to learn this the hard way. I have lost more than 60 lbs. and kept it off since the previously mentioned Forbes article was written back in 2013. I achieved this result without the benefit of any diet, pill, exercise video or surgery but it was certainly not easy. For me the change required that I reject several assumptions regarding food that I had held my entire life. There are so many cultural pressures that we all face regarding food.  In churches for example there are continual pot lucks and luncheons and dinners. It’s almost as if Christians can’t come together unless food is somehow involved.

Extra Pounds Equates to Extra Profits

While writing this article I happened upon a 2016 Time article that cited a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that found that restaurant food is just as unhealthy as fast food. In the study they found that the average caloric content of a restaurant meal was 1205 calories! The study assumed a baseline of 540 calories per meal as providing the average energy that an adult would need from a meal which for me is still way too many calories for an average meal.

Why would restaurants want to provide such large portions do you ask? The answer is simple. They can charge you more money. Same thing for fast food chains that encourage you to super-size a meal because they make more and we have accepted this as being normal and even something that is required of us especially if you are dating or married.  You are required to go out on Valentines, birthdays, Christmas, New Years, Groundhog day, Presidents day….. You get the idea.

Clearly this is benefiting those who are selling the food and we are willing to fork over thousands of dollars a year to support a system that is causing us real harm. Recently while I was watching broadcast television I literally saw a commercial for a restaurant, followed by a commercial for weight loss surgery, followed by a commercial for a law firm that was helping people sue for damages caused by weight loss surgery. At every link in that chain someone was profiting from people while causing them real harm at the same time.

Always Question Everything   

Renewing your mind for me begins with questioning every assumption on which these things stand.  One of my favorite examples of this were the Bereans who are described in Acts 17:11 as follows:

Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
Even though the Bereans were listening to the apostle Paul preaching to them, they refused to blindly accept even him at his words but verified his teaching against scripture which they knew to be true.

When you start questioning everything,  you begin to see that in many cases we have been duped into supporting something that is harming us. Then after rejecting the harmful assumptions, we need to move towards affirming more positive ones.

In my case after I was able to see through these lies, I remembered something I learned in 12^th grade Physics regarding the laws of the conservation of energy. The laws of Physics are undefeated and the conservation of energy states that all energy within a system can’t be created or destroyed. If extra calories are consumed they are stored as potential energy (fat). Then when the body is called upon to burn energy in the form of exercise (kinetic energy) it uses the available stored energy to supply what the body needs.

So for the human body if you consume more calories than you burn you WILL gain weight and if you burn more calories than you consume you WILL lose weight. That part is very straightforward simple and true. The difficulty comes in consuming fewer calories than you burn which is an entirely different and much longer story.

Renew Your Life by Renewing Your Mind

Regardless of the type of change you are seeking the journey begins by:

1.  Refusing to blindly conform to the world's assumptions and requirements
2.  Question the validity of everything you are told
3. Seek the truth and hold fast to it
4. Align your life to implement the things you know to be true.

In 2018 I hope many of you instead of making yet another resolution will choose instead to make this the year where you will transform your life by renewing your mind.