Toxic Influence

I'll start off this post with another fun discovery.  I have made my love of yogurt very clear on this blog.  The love of yogurt is probably only approached by my love of peanut butter.  These two items have helped me to make it through the last nearly four months.  And, their glorious marriage in my peanut butter yogurt dip and chocolate peanut butter yogurt dip only served to highlight the awesomeness of both ingredients.  Well, never one to leave well enough alone, today I tried another permutation of the yogurt and peanut butter combination.  I had just had some peanut butter on a banana and was opening a contained of Chobani Strawberry Greek Yogurt.  It hit me, you know, I love peanut butter and jelly.  Why wouldn't this work?  You know what's coming next.  I heated up a big spoonful of peanut butter and poured it into my strawberry yogurt and mixed it all up.  It was like PB&J in a cup.  Sooooo good.  It seems like a no brainer - but have you ever done it?  Didn't think so.  My next step is do that and then freeze it.  And then I'm going to combine the peanut butter with honey flavored greek yogurt.  There is no end to this madness.

Now, wasn't that a helpful tip?  I'm a helpful person.  I have always wanted to be helpful.  The other day I was thinking about how helpful I have been over the years.  When it came to issues of food and weight, I have been so very helpful.  I have helped tons of people to put on weight and eat horrible foods.  I have helped the fast food industry gain recruits.  I have helped the cardiologists of the world feel secure in their ability to have a future of loyal patients.  I am very helpful.

Seriously, I was thinking about how many people I have affected in my food and weight battles over the years.  I think there was always a part of me that thought that my food and weight were private issues.  They didn't affect anyone else.  If I wanted to eat garbage, that was my choice.  You are more than welcome to eat a salad.  But I am going to grab this enormous burger.  So what if I decided I'm okay getting fat?  It doesn't bother you.  However, I now realize that is not true.

I went back through my life and thought about the people I hung out with.  There is real validity in the fact that just about every person I have ever spent a large amount of time with has gained weight.  I'm serious.  Back in high school, I used to hang out with two guys from church - Mike and Dave.  I would drive out to Dave's house and we would watch basketball.  On the way, I would stop at McDonald's and get triple cheeseburgers.  Eventually, those guys started eating them too.  Once I went to college, my roommate Matt was at my mercy, since he had no car.  We ate where I wanted to eat - which was usually Burger King, Miami Subs, and McDonald's - along with the Wild Pizza on campus.  He gained weight.  My sophomore year, my roomie Justin was a little guy.  So he never gained weight.  But his friends did - as we all would eat second breakfast together almost every day.  Then my roommates that summer and third year - Eric and Tim - both gained weight.  The BCM guys and I started hanging out third year.  We hit buffets and Denny's and Chili's all the time.  All of them gained weight.

After college, I moved to Tampa and hung out with a bunch of college students.  Greg, Toney, Melvin.  All of them gained weight.  My bosses and co-workers and I hit all the buffets around town - and they all gained weight.  I'm not talking a few pounds - I'm talking twenty and thirty pounds.  When I was in charge of ordering food for an event, it was pizza or wings or tenders.  Our group ate horribly.  Then Heather came into the picture.  Even though she had worked hard to get into a healthy eating habit, she then adapted to my eating style.  And, sure enough, she gained weight.  The people I worked with at Rhodes gained weight - after eating at Firehouse, Rally's, and Buffalo Wild Wings.

We moved back to Orlando and I hung out with JP and Charles and Rick and the college ministry.  All of them gained weight.  It seems like wherever I go, poor food choices and weight gain follow.  I have thought through this and counted like two dozen people who had this happen.  Sure, they were making their own choices - ones they may have made with or without me there.  But I know that I was very vocal about my food desires.  And, face it, when you see someone else eating something that looks delicious and attractive, it is only a matter of time until you give in.

For a person who is trying hard, how long can they hold out if you have another person there eating a double cheeseburger and mozzarella sticks?  I know that I never have been able to hold out when I was the one watching the other person enjoying their tasty pasta.  I don't think I enjoyed wrecking people's diets - but there weren't a whole lot of tears shed either.  I always felt guilty when someone around me starting eating well.  It convicted me.  But I didn't want to give that any validity.  So I would poke fun and joke.  My friend, Tiffany, was a vegetarian.  I razzed her so bad about that all the time.  When she quit that (not due to me, I hope) I had this thrilled feeling.  It was like I didn't have to feel condemned any more - even though she never condemned me in the first place.  I still do this.  My brother in law and his wife both are very into organic and natural foods.  (So are several of my wife's friends.)  I poke fun at that all the time - to their face as much as not.  I guess it is that I can't come up with a good reason to NOT eat that way - so I poke fun at it.  I'm trying to minimize the logic of it, I guess.

I, on the other hand, would introduce people to things like the Wheelhouse burger at Bennigans (a hamburger with marinara sauce and a big circle of fried mozzarella on it).  Or I would take people to Stone Turtle - an old buffet in Tampa that I believe would kill you dead if you ate there every day.  I found delicious food all over the place - but it was always unhealthy.  And so when I took people there, they got that unhealthy connection too.  I remember when I moved up to Tallahassee, I managed to find a whole bunch of great restaurants and make a bunch of tasty casseroles.  All of it was horrible for you.  And I pulled my wife, kids, and my friend Greg right into those places with me.

I could take all of that as a demonstration of how much people respect my opinion - that they would put so much weight on what I said (some pun intended).  It also is a warning of how much we influence people, even with our personal struggles.  I guess that is why in AA and those things they make you make things right with other people.  I have wronged a LOT of people.  I gave them bad advice and set a poor example for them.  And that was unhealthy for them on several fronts.  That is why this new lifestyle is so weird.  I actually am doing things right for once.  And people are still listening to me.  Hardly a week goes by without having someone ask me about what I'm doing.  They want to know about the foods I'm making.  They ask about the approach I'm taking.  It is weird - dispensing health advice.  This is the same guy that always gave people directions based on where restaurants were located.  ("Go down to the Long Horn and take a right.  At the Sonic, turn left.  And it is the apartment complex just past the Gumby's Pizza.")  Now I'm telling people how to come up with low-carb dinner options.

It doesn't make sense.  I guess it is like how I'm working with Defender Ministries helping people avoid the traps I fell into.  Now I get to do the same thing with food and weight.  I am actually meeting with a professor at Heather's Med School about collaborating on a book about male obesity!  And it isn't "How to Get Fat . . . FAST!"  Very weird.  God indeed does use the foolish things to shame the wise and is strong in our weakness.  I have prayed through all of this that God would use it to free other people.  I've always loved the Demotivator that says "Your life may exist as a warning sign to others."  I really think, in my case, it is true.  I'm willing to be that.  I've led enough of my friends into the rocks.  I hope at some point I can get some of them out.