High-Stakes Gambling

Are you a gambler?  Some people gamble by purchasing lottery tickets, some play slot machines, and others put money on horses.  Those are amateur gamblers - I've gambled for much, much bigger stakes than that!

I've never purchased a lottery ticket or gambled in any of the ways people think of when they think about gambling, but I was a high stakes gambler because I gambled on my health and my life. 

I knew I had a strong family history of diabetes, yet I played the odds for over twenty years, eating what I wanted, as much as I wanted, when I wanted, gambling that I could do so indefinitely and beat the odds of my family genetics.  I also knew all the statistics about all of the other health risks of obesity (working in health care for twenty years, I was NOT lacking in knowledge about the link between obesity and disease), but I continued to play the odds.  When I'd go in for a physical and lab work and all of my lab work came back fine, I'd let out a sigh of relief that I'd beat the odds once again.  Sure, I was overweight (OK, obese), but I was HEALTHY, and I had the lab work to prove it. 

Like almost all gamblers, the odds finally caught up with me in September of 2005 when a routine wellness blood draw at the hospital where I worked came back.  All of my numbers were bad - cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL/LDL, and glucose.  My luck had finally run out and it was time to pay up.  I was a diabetic, and I knew I was in trouble.

I can't even express how mad I was at myself that day, because I knew I had been gambling with my health for years.  As I looked at a printout of my lab work, it was an indictment of two decades of denial and bad choices.  That day began my journey to wellness, although it would be almost two more years before I found Take Shape for Life/Medifast and finally had the tools to reverse my diabetes and high cholesterol and reach a healthy weight.

I call myself a recovering gambler because I know those old habits will come roaring back if I stop being diligent.  My family genetics haven't changed, and the fact that I was diabetic means that this disease will return if I return to my old, gambling ways.  I hear some people talk about how they've completely lost their taste for certain foods since losing weight, but I don't identify with that at all.  I still have "fat girl" taste buds - everything tastes as good as it ever did, and it would be all-too-easy to go back to my old eating habits.  I wish I HAD lost my taste for some of my old favorites, because it would be a lot easier now.

But it's not easy.  Some days are easier than others, and I have structured my life to keep those old favorites at a distance (I keep them out of my house, for instance).  But there are other days when I am honestly tempted to throw caution to the wind and fill my shopping cart with stuff that is devoid of nutrition and full of calories, sugar, fat and carbs.  Of course, I don't :-).  Having gambled and lost once, I am thankful that God gave me another chance to have a healthy life, and I'm committed to maintaining my health.

How about you?  Are you finished playing your own high-stakes game?  If you've been able to avoid obesity-related health issues thus far, that's wonderful.  Are you willing to gamble that you'll avoid health issues indefinitely?  If you're ready to stop gambling, it can end today.  All you have to do is decide to stay on plan - just for today.  Then if you do the same thing tomorrow, and then again the day after that, you'll soon find that your gambling days are over.

One meal, one day, one choice at a time . . . choose wisely :-)