Can Old Dogs Learn New Things?

           I grew up in the mountains of Townsend TN. I would say I grew up on a farm but that would be a little exaggeration. I grew up beside a farm. Papaw had a farm and we worked some and visited a lot. Growing up in the mountains and in the South there are certain staples that are associated with that. Biscuits are important but more important with gravy. Now for you transplants from the North, gravy is pure bacon/sausage grease mixed with flour and milk or cream (absolute heaven). We eat a lot of cow, pig and chicken. And my mom always had vegetables on the table and made me and my brother and sister eat them. So what I am about to tell you is no fault of hers. I just had a strong will (close your mouth, I know you’re surprised). I ate the colored stuff on my plate when threatened but the taste never took with me.

            That may be why, when I ventured out on my own with the woman I would spend the rest of my life with, I stopped eating colored things. And Tammy (that woman mentioned in previous sentence) agreed. My vegetables of choice are corn and potatoes. Both smothered in butter! REAL butter, none of anything “you can’t believe”! So imagine my dismay when I learned that some idiot had declared that corn and potatoes are starches and not “real” vegetables. Nothing else was good to me unless breaded and fried.

            So, fast forwarding 10 years I weighed in at 185lbs. I tore my ACL and had surgery at 30 and 185 was the most I had ever weighed. In May of 2013 I beat that record by tipping the scales at 206lbs. I lost about 10lbs between May and July. Then while on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic in July I had my first episode with kidney stones which resulted in surgery and a lot of soul searching. Tammy had been also struggling and then in a very emotional conversation she said this with tears streaming down her face, “I want to be healthy and eat healthy but I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO! I know what “everybody” (yes, she used air quotes) says but I need someone to coach me! I am sick of feeling bad!” And so the conversation went for almost an hour of just emptying out years and years of frustration and pain!

            I am the man of my house and I fix things. PERIOD. If there is an issue, I take care of it somehow someway. But right here right now I had nothing because I felt the same way. This isn’t a “feel sorry for us” thing; this is just where we were at the time. Our poor eating habits and hectic lifestyle that we created simply caught up with us and we were sick and tired of being sick and tired.

            So we made a change. A drastic change. Someone that I respected came to my office the next day and used these words. “I want to help coach people on how to eat healthy and be healthy”. Yes, he was selling something but not to me, he was just a friend talking about something he was passionate about but what I heard was that he used the exact word that my wife had cried the night before. Coach! What he was selling was Advocare but what he said was different because he was speaking of genuine necessary service after the sell. Yes we bought in and started drinking the Kool-aide (SPARK) but here is what I really wanted to let you know.

            We, with a friend to help, have completely transformed our lives physically and emotionally. We spend more time together because we prepare all our meals together. We are eating things that I never thought would be prepared in our kitchen for us. There are phrases said in my home that were before unspoken evils like “vegetable medley” and “I really wish I had more green beans”. We haven’t eaten out in 16 days and are committed not to unless unavoidable for 24 days total which means we have actually saved money. And we have both lost weight that neither of us believed possible until it happened to us. A total together of 24lbs. We haven’t been hungry because we eat constantly, but it’s good for us food! When people ask us what “diet” we’re on we try to explain that we don’t look at it as a diet but a change of lifestyle and habits because we never want to relive how we felt the beginning of August 2013.

            Both of our kids are Type 1 diabetics and while they are young and pretty healthy (other than that disease they have) we haven’t led them properly in health and nutrition. But because of the change they have seen in their mother and I, mostly their mom, they want to change also. So they’re enjoying their “farewell to food” tour that Tammy and I went on and then they are starting after Labor Day changing their future also.

            We don’t ever want to go back to feeling crappy all the time. The funny thing is that for the first few days of our change we would talk about where and what we were going eat after our 24 day commitment. As time has passed and Tammy’s headaches disappeared, and she was able to sleep through the night without medication, and our clothes started not fitting so well, and attitudes completely changed, that discussion is less and less. We will still have a piece of cheesecake from the Factory and maybe a very greasy, cheesy, unhealthy cheeseburger. But one conversation has been a line in the sand moment for us. At 5:45am on day 4 while she was packing our lunches and I was fixing our breakfast I told her how much I enjoyed spending so much unrushed time with her in the mornings. She smiled and softly said, “me too!” At that moment nothing else was said but we knew this is how we wanted our life. Our mornings are truly the calm before the storm because we don’t slow down once we walk out the door but those moments are ours. Not every morning is peace and tranquility because sometimes we stay up too late the night before but those are few.

            For those of you who have been healthy for a long time, I hope you will accept Tammy and me as rookies. We are still experimenting but we are determined. We still have questions like, “What are the best/healthy way(s) to cook zucchini, and squash, and asparagus?” We still haven’t gotten into the exercise phase of healthiness but we are wading into the water slow.

            For those of you who have been unhealthy for a long time, say goodbye and make a change. You can teach an old dog new tricks! I am living proof (well, Tammy is also but she might get mad if I say that and put a snicker bar in my lunch box to sabotage me, hmmm, on second thought) Tammy is living proof of that!

            Pray for us. More importantly you might want to pray for our kids. Years from now they will appreciate what they did but 2 weeks from now they may not still have the vision.

            Have an awesome week!

            Pastor Dad