Jesus Walks
Dear Friends,
Today is an interesting one, when I thought how I was going to go about this post originally, it was going to be me talking about fitness. However, as time went on it has slowly changed into something I have to split into the two topics, but you’ll see how they blend into each other. Let’s get started.
RELIGION
For those of you who don’t know, as why would many of you know, I am meant to be a Roman Catholic. It was the way I was brought up, I have had a baptism, and I had my first communion, but I didn’t have the confirmation. As my mum said it was up to me and my brother to decided if we were going to be a part of the church. Of course, at the age of ten/eleven, getting up early to travel to the church, isnt going to be something all young boys are going to want to do. However, it doesn’t mean that the teaching didn’t stick though.
As we all should know we just had the season of lent, you know the season after Shrove Tuesday (I know Pancake Day has better marketing) we are meant to give up one of our vices for the duration. Naturally as I still know it’s meaning, every once and while I still try and got the full season of lent to do something to self-improve myself. This year like a couple years ago I decided to give up sugar.
On Pancake Day you are meant to use up all your rich products and get rid of them. Then fast for the period of lent. Which is what I did this year, as I had every type of pancake you could imagine. And since I’ve had no sugar product since. The benefits of which I will talk about later. It hasn’t been a walk in the park, it has been quite hard at times, but I have stuck to it.
I bet you are wondering what this all has got to do with religion, well it has to do with the temptation. When I out and about, having coffee or walking the supermarkets I have been thinking about I could just have something with sugar. I mean no would know, only I would. So long as I have before I got home, no one on the street knows what I’m doing. As much as I think I could, it would be easy to just have a doughnut, and no one would know. The problem is, it would be bad of me, and it would be a sin and He would know.
Even though I have left the church quite some time ago, the guilt and feeling of sin still stays with me. Jesus still walks with me, even when I am not even thinking about it. When I think I don’t care about stuff like the church and how I’m against the intuition, not the practice, but its just weird how much it is, ‘programmed’ (for a lack for a better word) into me. How much I have thought about how it would be bad of me, and it would be a sin for me for me to cheat while I am doing this. Which is so strange for me to realise after all this time.
A part of me knew while I did this, there would be something that would stop me from cheating and make me stick to it. It just never really occurred to me the thing would be the feelings I never thought I had. Which is something I guess that will never leave me. Which is interesting to find out.
FITNESS
As to the fitness part, I took away sugar for lent, which I did to help me get into better shape. Now I am not a person who has a sweet tooth, but I hear your say, ‘FabEs I thought you liked to bake.’ I do, but most of that stuff I give away, (I’m a Pusherman!) What I have noticed over time is the amount of sugar I have, just from the stuff I eat. Of course, a lot of things it’s down to diet and personal choices, but it’s incredible how much some of the stuff you think is healthy for you and packs a ridiculous amount of sugar. I mean my favourite cereal just has so much sugar, and not to mention the sugars in milks. With that in mind I thought I would give it up.
The plan was simple, and it did it, so way to go me! I would give up all added sugar products, I would check products information and it needed to have a sugar weight of less than a gram otherwise I couldn’t eat it. Which pretty took away anything sweet, or switch to no added sugar variants, if there was any. Then I would exercise every other day, for the duration of lent. Which didn’t mean one day I would just out for a walk, no I mean doing high intensity work outs. I would do one of the following four activities: gym workout, HITT, swimming or weights. I can proudly say out of the twenty-three workouts, I only missed one, as I hadn’t figured out what to do at home for a workout. Overall, I am damm proud of myself.
It has opened my eyes to the fact, if I stick to a workout plan, I will see results. I kind wish I remembered to take a picture before just to see how I looked them compared how I look now. I can see a difference in myself, but I just want to make sure I’m not just wishful thinking. I do know my weight from before which was 115KG and now I am down to a 111.5KG, which isnt too bad. Which in the end wasn’t this the goal of this?
Let’s tie it together. I feel like this lent I did the main purpose of what I wanted to do with any experience like this, learn something about yourself. I feel like I learned something and confirmed something about myself at the same time. I learned I still have the church in me, and I confirmed if I really want to commit to something, lent is the time for me to do it. It does surprise that I did something religious for my own personal reasons, but still ended up having a finding a deeper meaning within myself, that had to do with religion.
As lent is in at an official close, I can’t wait to have a some of the things I have been craving. I’ve got myself two easter eggs and baked a couple of things. After that it’s time for me to be sensible again with my sugar intake, as I have only finished phase one, time to move on to phase two. I also did try to find an alternative to milk, but sadly nothing worked out, sorry! Have a Happy Easter!
Xo FabEs
