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True Confessions and Other Shallow and Weighty Matters

By Anita Mathias

Irene, I and the Sphinx, Vatican Museums. O Sphinx, reveal your secrets!

My father, though shy, was a highly original character. He loved anything sweet. When we went out to a buffet, or at a wedding for instance, he first ate dessert, filling his plate with cheesecake, black forest cake, trifle, Indian sweets, ice-cream. Then, if he was still hungry, but had his taste buds satiated by sugar, he would have some meat. Vegetables, he had a fine disdain for.


If he wasn’t married, and we did not have a full-time live-in cook, he would probably have lived on sweets. Somehow, he was never plump as he walked to work, walked back home for a cooked lunch and nap, walked back to work, and home again.

All this changed when he was 58. In a funny old irony, an Australian yogi came to Jamshedpur, the small Indian town in which we lived (I, however, spent most of the year at Nainital, in the Himalayas at boarding school). This Australian taught inspirational yoga to the officers of my father’s company, and they let him get away with astonishing things. For instance, at the requisite position in Surya Namaskar, they lay on their stomach, lifted their bottoms and farted in unison!!

And so my father began to eat salads, practiced colonic cleansing, became vegetarian, and took up yoga. For the rest of his life, and he lived for 31 years after that!!, he was basically vegetarian, did an hour of yoga every day, and walked for an hour a day.

So–don’t laugh–I had a cunning life plan. I would eat what I wanted when I wanted, never exercise unless I wanted to, take up exercise at 58, and then be fit and strong for the next 30 odd years, like my father was.

Well, when I had my first child in Williamsburg, Virgina, at 32, I had a thorough physical. It had included a strength test. “Grip harder,” she said, Oh believe me, I did. We re-tried it again, and again. My strength, she said, was that of a 80 year old woman.

In my twenties, all that interested me was reading. I got an undergraduate degree in English, a Masters in Creative Writing and English, and progressed some in a Ph.D in Creative Writing and English. Dropped out to get married. And then never really entered the work world, stayed home and read books, and thought and dreamed. And scribbled. 

I was sent to the gym to lift weights, my strength was confirmed by the trainer, and though it gradually improved, it’s never been age-appropriate.

And of course, I’ve suffered from the other peril of a sedentary life. I started gaining weight when I was 13, never a whole lot at a time, 2-3 pounds a year, but it has been an inexorable increase over the decades. 

And, as you can calculate, enough to affect my energy levels and quality of life.

Losing weight has never been easy for me. I am awed by my friends who can shed it by will-power and minor dietary tweaks. Not me!

I broke down and worked with a personal trainer and dietician last term. I had an extensive metabolic review based on “The Metabolic Typing Diet.”  It turned out that I was a protein type, the type who can metabolize protein, in particular dark meat, red meat, fatty meats, and fatty fish well, but gains weight easily with starches and sugars. Duh!

All of years of trying to lose weight with vegetarianism, and counting fat grams. Turns out, I had no problem with metabolizing fat or protein, just with starches. And sugar!

Okay, so I have lost 9 pounds, painlessly, on a rather luxurious Atkins type diet of duck, goose, lamb, beef, veggies, and no starch or sugar.

Now I’ve plateaued. 

I might try the South Beach Diet, like Atkins, but less restrictive. Has anyone tried it?

And I simply have to change my metabolism by building up significant muscle mass.  How? Well, I am lifting weights three times a week. Doing some tennis, yoga, swimming and running.

But more sporadically than I should. Though I do enjoy exercise once I get going, I am somewhat addicted to reading, writing, and just plain old thinking, and to my laptop, and find it hard to close it. So I guess I have to have a schedule to make sure exercise doesn’t get done last–which might mean not at all.

Fortunately, exercise is addictive for me, and after a few days of exercising daily, I feel physically restless and uncomfortable until I have exercised.

Why is all this on my blog? Actually, for accountability of sorts.. I got the idea from Adrian Warnock’s blog–The Start of a New Era of Fitness and Well-Being. Feel free to ask me how I am doing. It might remind me and keep me on track.


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Comments

  1. Anita Mathias says

    March 13, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    It's really hard for me to incorporate the serious exercise habit into my life. It's frustrating, because I am no longer particularly busy with the girls now 16 and 11, but I just get absorbed in my work, and then…
    15 pounds is great. I like the protein based diets like Atkins, initially at any rate!!

  2. Penelopepiscopal says

    March 13, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    We have similar stories! I'd rather just sit around reading or writing. I do like to lift weights, but don't enjoy cardio and have to make myself do it. I go to the gym and watch tv while I am on the stairclimber or eliptical machine. But it is working, I have shed some pounds (I did the South Beach diet for about 8 months last year and lost about 15) and try to be faithful about gym workouts. Keep at it!

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Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

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The Story of Dirk Willems

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Recent Posts

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  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
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By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
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