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I was talking to a friend at the gym the other day and he said something that hit me hard. He is a physical trainer, and a good one. He asked me how my workouts were going, and I said I was in the best shape of my adult life (at least since high school).
But I also said, “I wish I could lose this stomach. I’m working out 90 minutes a day, doing strength training and cardio, and I still have about 25 extra pounds, all in my gut.”
And he said, “Well, you cannot outwork a bad diet.”
I asked him what that meant, and he ran through some very basic facts that caught me off guard a little. He said that if I run 1.5 miles every day and then eat three Oreos, that’s about the same amount of calories. I will drop three Oreos in 10 seconds, so I had a “Whoa” moment thinking about all that huffing and puffing and sweating for 15 minutes, all to eat three Oreos and neutralize it. Basically, even if you work out for four hours a day, you can’t outwork a bunch of terrible food.
The final point he made was that if fitness isn’t a lifestyle, where you lift weights, do some cardio, eat well, sleep well, hydrate well, do minimal drugs and alcohol and don’t smoke… you’re not going to see the results you think you will. If you go to the gym and then drink soda and eat donuts all day, that’s not a lifestyle and your body won’t look or feel great.
I’m writing about this on a sobriety newsletter because it made me think about my spiritual diet. This fall, I have been getting to meetings almost every day, talking to my sponsor once or twice a week, sponsoring some guys and making a call or two every day. That’s a lot, right?
Yes and no. In this metaphor, going to the gym is the equivalent of basic recovery program stuff, and diet is everything else I do.
My diet isn’t always great. I have days where I only get to a meeting, and then I spend the other 23 hours driving kids around, watching football, complaining, watching more football, gossiping, watching playoff baseball, eating bad, scrolling social media for four hours a day… it’s all doing nothing positive for me. Is it fun to watch four NFL games on a Sunday and eat snacks all night and stay up till midnight because the Sunday night game went into overtime? Yes. It is. A lot of fun some days, actually.
But it’s also pretty hollow. I’m not sure how I expect to live the values I aspire to—humble, serene, patient, understanding, forgiving—if I do 10 hours of activities that are none of those things. To keep the gym/diet comparison going, it’s a little like eating junk food all day and then expecting to be healthy. In this case, I’m talking about my spirit, not my body, though.
You might wonder, what should I be doing instead? Well, my plan is to do all the things I mentioned earlier every day instead of some days—get to a meeting, connect with my sponsor and my sponsees, call 1-3 recovering alcoholics and addicts every day. And then I need to find pockets where I meditate as much as possible, pray as much as possible, maybe read instead of watch TV, talk less, take on another service commitment or three, make sure I check out some of the daily recovery readings that are available. Basically, I need my spiritual diet to be something that boosts my recovery activities.
Maybe then, as my gym friend says, will I be able to match my spiritual diet with my spiritual workouts.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
After the husband’s fifth trip to the host's bar for refills, the wife asked, "Aren't you embarrassed to go back so many times?"
Hubby: "Nope. I keep telling them it's for you."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 1971)
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