the balanced life and discipline

You know I think that there are 2 keys to weightloss and it is not diet and exercise. The first is a balanced life. I had a sunday school teacher in college, Sam Cargo, who over and over would draw a picture of three cups. They represented ones spiritual, physical, and mental lives. He would always say that to have a full life these had to be balanced. You couldn't have one overflowing and the others lacking to make it. He would also point out that the most important one was your spiritual life. If it was empty or even half full, then physical and mental would never be where you needed them to be.
For a long time, I did not understand it. I actually thought he was crazy. When he went to draw 3 cups on the easel, I thought, "here we go again with the cups." However, a few years back when I actually did lose a significant amount of weight(before gaining it back), I started to focus on my spiritual life. I had kind of been standing still in all areas of my life, but especially when it came to my relationship with Christ. I had forgotten what a true quiet time was and at that point in time was not active in church. So, I began to experience a full spiritual life. As I began to get right with the Lord, I became motivated to exercise and eat right. All of these things affected me mentally and physically. The light went on!! Sam Cargo was not crazy.
The second key to weightloss is discipline. This has always been a hard one for me. I always think of discipline as "training to act in accordance with rules" or even some result of punishment. I think that sometimes I look at the word discipline and cringe.
However, I recently found this definition of discipline that I like: "to bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control." Order and obedience--when you look at weightloss from a spiritual standpoint we have to learn to eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full. Therefore, we are being obedient to never over indulge and not partake in gluttony. The way that we achieve this order and control or discipline is through training and control. My training will come in developing new eating habits as well as exercise habits.
So as you can see exercise and eating right is really involved in my two keys to weight loss, but without a balanced life or discipline the weightloss will not remain for very long. When I first neglect my spiritual life, I am living proof that things begin to fall apart--the weight slowly begins to creep on until you are miserable!
So all you who struggle with this issue too--keep on keeping on because it takes time to develop a balanced life and discipline!!

2 pounds

2 pounds--yep thats right. In the past month I have only lost 2 months. Yes, I'm a little frustrated because I did put in a little bit of hard work. ONLY a little bit of hard work. I would say that only 50% of the time did I really put into practice my goals that I had set for myself. That being said, I know that 2 pounds could turn into 4 pounds and so forth. I know that this next month I will improve more and more!!