This is the last in a series of eight posts detailing concepts and attitudes for sustainable personal change. As one would expect of someone maintaining a 155-pound loss for more than 20 years, my examples have to do with food and weight, but their point is to illustrate how anyone can achieve and maintain healthy change. Today’s concept:  “Change is a choice.”

This is the seventh in a series of eight posts detailing concepts and attitudes for sustainable personal change. As one would expect of someone maintaining a 155-pound loss for more than 20 years, my examples have to do with food and weight, but their point is to illustrate how anyone can achieve and maintain healthy change. Today’s concept: “If you’ve had enough, have you done enough?”

This is the sixth in a series of eight posts detailing concepts and attitudes for sustainable personal change. As one would expect of someone maintaining a 155-pound loss for more than 20 years, my examples have to do with food and weight, but their point is to illustrate how anyone can achieve and maintain healthy change. Today’s concept:  “Not everything has to make sense.”

This is the fifth in a series of eight posts detailing concepts and attitudes for sustainable personal change. As one would expect of someone maintaining a 155-pound loss for more than 20 years, my examples have to do with food and weight, but their point is to illustrate how anyone can achieve and maintain healthy change. Today’s concept:  “Working together isn’t enough.”

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has fantasized about how I would react in a moment of crisis — rush into the burning building, shove the unsuspecting child away from the onrushing car, change the channel before the cliffhanger is spoiled.

I suspect I’m in a smaller cohort who wonders how I’d really react — split-second action or soiled drawers.

I reflect on those this morning because I’ve been wanting to write about dying, and no matter what opinions I espouse, I have no idea how I will react when my time comes. OK, so I’ve acknowledged that.

I gave a speech recently at my Toastmasters club in which I discuss my spirituality. It runs about 10 minutes, but please don't let that stop you.

I keep a list of potential blog topics that arise from my experience, and this morning, I’ve been trying to write about the difference between “rigid” and “rigorous,” which are two interpretations of the disciplines I try to follow to maintain my recovery from food addiction.

But I’ve stumbled out of the block three or four times, for the reason that it’s hard to talk about rigor when I’ve gained weight. [Update: After a couple of inquiries, I realized that I should have sketched the magnitude. I've gained about five pounds.]

So what does God have to do with obesity? Obviously, what God has to do with anything is a huge, confusing, inflammatory topic — and above all hopelessly inconclusive — and yet I proceed:

A lot, I say. 

As many readers know (and perhaps are tired of hearing), I was overweight for 30 years-plus, topping out at 365 in 1991. I've now been in a normal-size body for almost 20 years, and one of the most significant changes underlying that transformation is that I let go of my arrogance around the question of God's existence.