It is a very eerie feeling that some of the things I was hoping for when I began this back in November are starting to come to fruition. Some are little, some are big; all are important to me.
1. Somewhere along the way, "I'm-just-happy-to-be-here" turned into "I-want-to-win-this-thing". It is amazing what a little taste of accomplishment will do to fuel the desire to succeed. Success, as they say, breeds success. When it became apparent to me that I had a real shot at winning the competition, one of the thoughts that I tucked away in the back of my mind was that I wanted to not only win, but to win by reaching the highest percentage of weight loss for any ABL participant ever. Officially, with this past Monday's weigh-in, I achieved that goal (barring a total collapse between now and the final weigh-in!) My inquiries and research came up with the factoid that Pam Segers, last year's female winner, had a 39.05% weight loss. As of Monday, May 3, my percentage was 39.26%. If I hit my goal by losing 8.3 more pounds by next Friday night, my percentage will be 41.69%. Winners will not be announced until next Sunday's finale, but I know how my scales compare with the Omni scale, and I will know if I made it.
2. I've mentioned the whole clothes-buying thing in various posts throughout the competition; today I bought my first-ever off-the-rack suit from the regular men's section in a regular store - no "Big and Tall" (the grown-up equivalent of the infamous "husky boys" section). You cannot possibly know how it feels unless you've experienced it.
3. I was given a unique opportunity on Thursday - our church hosted the May meeting of the Georgia Baptist Bible Fellowship, and due to an unforeseen circumstance, I was given an opportunity to be on "standby" in case the pastor who was scheduled to speak first was not able to do so because of illness. He did speak, but he preached a short message; time flew by, and there was plenty of time left for me to speak. However, instead of being the first speaker, as originally planned for, I was the last speaker before our snack break. I questioned aloud the wisdom of allowing a preacher who had just lost 135 pounds to preach right before we went back to eat! I shared a very simple message - "Run Well" - from I Corinthians 9. In that passage I saw desire, discipline, direction, and determination. Probably an outline they had heard preached 20 times before, but probably not by someone who was in my position. For the rest of my life, I will be able to talk about the fact that God has brought me out of an addiction to the most widely-abused substance in the United States. After I finished my message, we went to the fellowship hall where the fruit was devoured quickly, and a HUGE pile of cookies went nearly untouched.
We're REALLY in the home stretch... and there's no time to let up. My goal is ambitious, still... trying to push that scale down under 200 by May 14th, 7:00 PM.
Stay tuned...
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