From Lumpy, Dumpy, and Grumpy to Stronger at Sixty

Last week I took two of my granddaughters to the library, and while we were there, I struck up a conversation with a young mama. She asked me about my daughters.

Looking at my precious three-year old granddaughters, who were pretending to be Elsa and Anna from Frozen, I smiled.

Turning to the young woman, I told her, “I’m almost sixty; I’m their grandma.”

She said, “Wow, I would have never guessed.”

Two days later, it happened again, this time at Exploration Place. I was mistaken as the mother of two of my other grandkids.

Those experiences felt like a gift, and they made me deeply happy. See, seventeen years ago, I used to be mistaken for my son’s grandma. 

The first time it happened, I walked into our eye doctor with baby David on my hip.

The receptionist greeted me warmly, handing me forms to fill out. As I shifted my son to the other hip, she asked, “How old is your grandson?”
When we got home, I told my husband that we needed to find a new eye doctor.  

The real problem, and what stung the most, was that I felt like David’s grandmother. A 43-year old mom who was easily twenty-five pounds overweight, I was Lumpy, Dumpy, and Grumpy. 

Even though I was a distributor for a health food supplement, I had not gotten my own eating dialed in. 

If I had to pinpoint one area of concern, it would be this: I was in a passionate love affair with sugar. I loved it, and I loved how it made me feel.

When I had my morning coffee, I wanted something sweet to balance the acidity in my cup. Cue the coffee cake or granola bar. 

Throughout the day, even though I had made some changes, I still ate the standard American diet: mostly processed foods, with a couple of fruits and veggies thrown in every so often. 

When fall came around, I looked forward to the sweet and salty combo of candy corn and roasted peanuts. 

Halloween meant all of my favorites would be available: Snickers, Milky Way, Reeses Peanut Butters and Almond Joys. 

What opened my eyes? 

Well, my son Eric and I were working on The Parenting Dare 1.0, a course that explored the addictive brain. We were helping parents understand that when a child gets sucked into pornography, there is a lot going on in the brain that makes it difficult to stop.

As we studied that, I told Eric that I felt the same things happening in my own brain in regards to sugar.

This was a revelation to me. Instead of viewing myself as bad or weak, I could see that my brain was helping me survive. It was telling me to eat that sweet thing. 

The problem was that a “sweet thing” was no longer just some berries I found in the wild. Sugar, in one million different forms, was laced into so many of the food products on grocery store shelves.

Oh.

Wow.

I began to see how readily available sugar had become, and how easily I kept reaching for more.

Once I saw that this was the problem, I worked on ways to extract myself from the clutches of sugar, but it wasn’t exactly a simple problem to solve. 

It took years. 

The biggest turning point came from a surprising place: my faith. 

Let me try and explain this with an analogy. 

Every morning I get up earlier than everyone else. Walking around my darkened home with a cup of coffee in my hand feels warm and cozy, almost muted.

Each morning, I go to my sliding glass door and walk out into a glorious new reality of sights and sounds. The sky is usually lit up with amazing hues, the leaves and grass are brilliant green. My flowers are a kaleidoscope of fall colors. I hear dogs barking and the sound of the nearby highway. 

My old faith walk was like my darkened early-morning home. 

My new faith walk brought me into a totally different experience. It was as if this glorious reality of light, color, sights, and sounds had always been there, but I had never opened the door to it. I hadn't understood that it was available to me.

Walking into this new reality changed me. It changed how I felt, how I viewed the people around me, how I operated, and, interestingly, how I ate.

It’s sort of like I went from a beggar sitting underneath a table, eating scraps, to realizing I was a princess. Taking my rightful place at the table of the King, I approached food differently.

I no longer wanted to live in a constant battle with myself. I wanted to make choices that supported the life I was discovering.

I wanted to eat whole foods. 

I wanted to have an integrated life, where holiness and health met. 

I wanted to operate with peace and tranquility within my own soul.

And it wasn’t a fight but a gorgeous “coming home.” 

So last week, when I was mistaken for my grandchildren’s mother, I was thrilled. But the experience also reminded me how much has changed, and frankly, I don't want to keep these things I've learned to myself.

I've spent years figuring out things I wish I'd understood sooner. I want to share them with other women because I've experienced how much can change when you begin to see things (and yourself!) differently.

And that's why I'm writing about sugar.

I know what it's like to love it, to reach for it throughout the day, and to struggle to change a habit that has become part of your life. I also know that change is possible. You don't have to figure everything out at once. Sometimes, it starts with understanding what's happening and making one itty bitty different choice.

Next week, we're doing a sugar detox through The FASTer Way. If you've been wanting to change your own relationship with sugar, this could be a good opportunity to give it a try, with a plan and support along the way.

You can find the details here: The FASTer Way.

And because I know that our relationship with food isn't just about food, I want to share two other resources I've created:

The Journey to Real Freedom is a free six-lesson journey for Christian women who are tired of starting over—with eating, with self-control, with feeling “good enough.”

Inside Out is a course for women ready to stop earning their worth and start living from it. Use code FREEDOM to get $50 off.

These are things I've poured my heart into because I want women to experience the freedom I've come to know.

I'm almost sixty. I have a lot more to learn, and I have a lot more I want to share. I don't want to keep the good things I've discovered to myself.

You are worth the work. Coming home to yourself is a wondrous place to be.