I’m thinking it’s a pretty bad sign when you find yourself seriously wondering just how much weight you can possibly gain in one night after some heavy eating… 
This I know: I’ll be visiting the Y for the foreseeable future.
Merry Christmas, everybody! Watch out for those Christmas cookies. 
(Continued…)
Really, losing 50 pounds in eight years isn’t hard at all. In fact, let me do some quick math. 50 pounds in eight years would come out to 6.25 pounds a year. That’s about a half-pound a month. Since 3,500 calories equals a pound, that means to lose a half-pound a month, you’re only looking at a differential of 60 calories a day!
So over that eight-year span, all I had to do was eat, on average, 60 fewer calories in a day than what I would eat to maintain my weight. That’s a very small number. I mean, you can’t hardly eat anything for 60 calories! A slice of bread, maybe?
But, it adds up: 60 x 365 = 21900 / 3500 = 6.25
Any given day, it’s so easy for me to just say, “Aw, today won’t matter. This cookie won’t matter. This pizza won’t matter.” But I am realizing that it all matters!
It is such a gradual thing, to gain or lose weight, and the differences between gaining and losing over time can literally be as simple as a can of soda or an extra Twinkie.
It is true that any given day doesn’t really matter. I can cut loose and eat 4,000 calories in a day, and over time that will be absorbed into the other days, and I will kind of have gotten away with it. And with my diet, I am definitely not extremely strict. In fact, because of my laxity, that’s why I find myself still trying to fight some pounds away.
So what’s my general approach? Well, lately, I’ve been pretty much treading water. I’ve been working out very hard, trying to burn a lot of calories, but then I’ll just make bad decisions and eat a cup of cereal at midnight, or just grab a cookie when I’m passing through the kitchen. Any given time, I can think that it won’t matter, but I’m starting to realize that everything matters, good or bad.
I’m going to try to be a little bit more disciplined — and just smart — about what I eat so I will actually be making progress. It’s a shame to spend time running a couple of miles on the treadmill, only to set myself back a few hours later by eating a bowl of ice cream.
I know I talk about exercising and dieting a lot. In reality, I’m no Cliff Craig. But I do love to eat food, and I also like to be in shape, so something has to give. Also, I am always seeing very clear parallels with what I do in regards to my diet and the decisions I make it other areas of life. While working out is not necessarily a moral issue, it does seem to go hand-in-hand for me with my integrity and my discipline and my obedience to God.
If I’m kind of lazy on my diet, chances are I’ll be lazy in other areas. It shouldn’t be surprising, though, because we are constantly having this ongoing battle between what we WANT to do — or what our flesh WANTS to do — and what we SHOULD do. It’s convenient when those two things happen to agree with one another, but the majority of the time they don’t seem to do that, so we need to pick sides. We need to decide who’s going to win out when there’s a conflict.
It’s kind of discouraging to realize that I’ll probably always have to fight this battle. Chances are I’m going to continue to like food, and chances are I’m going to continue to not often feel like pushing heavy discs into the air, as Cliff Craig put it. Makes me kind of sad to think, “You mean I will ALWAYS have to fight this? But that’s not fair!”
Well… it doesn’t really matter what I think. Even if it truly isn’t fair, the facts remain. And I now know what they are. If I ever put on a lot of weight in the future, I’ll really have no excuse. The truth is, I do know how to lose weight, and I know how to keep it off. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. The hard part is saying “No” to yourself.
I realize that, most likely, the flesh is still going to have its same tendencies to want to do what it wants to do when it wants to do it. So it’s up to me to either let the flesh run wild, or to reign it in, and make it obey me.
It’s hard. Dieting is hard. I do know it won’t be EASY to stay in shape or to avoid gaining weight, but I do know it’s doable. I know how to do it, and at the end of the day, it’s my choice. And seeing so many of my siblings, and even my parents, committed to dying to themselves and to working hard, it really is inspiring. It raises the standard.
When it comes to this, Mom, yet again, is a hero of mine. Even after all of her countless chores around the house, her work with the businesses, her home-schooling, her being full-time mom to 14 — after ALL of that — she is still fighting to stay in shape. And you know what? She is joyful about it! She is just nothing short of incredible. Her self-discipline, her joy, her wisdom — she just floors me. The fact that she hasn’t given up and said, “Hey, look, I’ve had 14 kids. I think I deserve a little leeway here.” She never does that. She never compares herself to anybody else and says, “I’m doing awfully good, considering.”
I see so many incredible examples of what can be done if you’re willing to die to yourself. In Mom, Dad — everybody. It’s not a theory. I see it every single day in this incredible family.
This evening, somebody had pulled out a DVD containing some old family videos. This particular one had clips from Christmas of 1999.
Obviously, there has been a tremendous amount that has changed in the last nine years. One thing that is so striking from watching video from that era is that today, everybody is so much thinner.
Dad, Mom, Paul, Mark, Jude, James, and I — pretty much all of us are in much better shape today than we were back then. John, who has always been thin, has pretty well stayed the course in that time.
I’m just so proud of all of the guys! Instead of losing 20, 30, or 40 pounds, what if we all gained that much over the last nine years? That wouldn’t be hard at all. Five pounds a year would do it. It’s so easy to put on five pounds year. In fact, from 2007 to 2008, I put on about 10 pounds. Granted, some of that was probably muscle, but still. That was with me fighting hard and working out.
I know from experience that it is not easy to lose weight, or even to keep from gaining weight. As I get older, I have more freedom, so I have even more opportunities to eat whenever I want, wherever I am.
So I’m just really proud of what all of these guys, including Mom and Dad, have done. Their discipline and their self-control has been really inspiring. What’s awesome is that the standard keeps getting raised higher and higher, so there’s a very good kind of peer pressure here, where you can’t help but think, “Hey, if HE can do it, then I can do it!”
There’s this one photo that I have that I look back on. It’s a photo of Paul, me, and Grandma Arndt, taken on my 16th birthday, February 8th of 2001. In that photo, Paul and I kind of dwarfed Grandma. That was probably around my peak or my high watermark, and his too. The highest scale reading I can ever remember was 248.5.
The thing is, I’m tall, and I think I carried the weight pretty well. So I was never just really soft-looking or anything like that. I still was very much into sports, so I kept active.
Since then, I have, albeit very gradually, lost a good 50 or 60 pounds. That sounds like such a big number to me, that I almost don’t believe that it could be true. I never would have even thought that I could have lost that much back then, or that I needed to.
Since I was a baby, I’ve always been a very thick, very solid guy. As a kid, I was never truly chubby per se, but I was just solid, kind of like a fire hydrant. As I grew up, I just kind of accepted that I was just built with a heavier frame, that I was just had big bones.
I do think part of that is true, but I think I grossly overestimated how much of a difference that makes. I never realized that I could ever become any form of a thin person. I didn’t really mind, though; I just accepted that I was made of heavier material than you average guy.
But as the pounds have melted away, it’s amazing to see that my skeletal structure is still pretty similar to most other people’s! Sure, I have my unique characteristics, but by and large, my x-ray would look pretty similar to anybody else’s x-ray, I’m sure.
So in watching this video and seeing how far everybody has come, it’s so inspiring. And it’s amazing to me, because there never was one defining moment that I can think of. We just… started exercising more, started being wiser about how we ate, and… over time, the pounds melted away.
(To be continued…)
For the longest time (probably the past eight or 10 years, at least), we’ve had the family tradition of watching a movie over the span of a few days during our nightly prayer/family times.
We just started watching “The Nativity Story” last night. I’ve seen it once before, and I’m really glad we’re watching it again. What I really like about the movie is it reminds me that Mary, Joseph, and all of these other historic Biblical characters were just real people, living real lives.
Since we all know the story, and we are well aware of the outcome, it’s so easy to forget just how these were people, just like you and I. They didn’t receive an advance copy of the script. They were probably just as scared, just as unsure as I have ever been.
But for some reason — I guess since I know how the story goes — I can forget just how much uncertainty there must have been, how messy things must have seemed when they were in the thick of things. Looking at it from an aerial view, we’re able to how beautifully God had orchestrated things. From the inside, though, I’m sure that Mary and Joseph were very scared at times.
I love being reminded how real everything was. It just helps me relate. It helps me realize that my tendencies towards fear or uncertainty aren’t totally unheard of. What’s important is, despite the temptation to worry, to still trust God. Just because I can’t figure something out doesn’t mean God can’t.
It’s not uncommon for me to kind of plea with God, “Can’t You give me a clearer picture of the future? Can’t You give me some sort of hint? Some preview?”
But I know that if that were the case, two things would happen. One: I’d start to think that I have pretty good control on my own, and I wouldn’t lean on God as much. I wouldn’t need Him, because I could take the plans and run with them. So that would be a bad thing, because He wants me to love Him, to have a relationship with Him.
Secondly, I think it is so merciful of God to not let us always know what is coming up. What if something bad was going to happen in a year? What good would it be to have a preview of that, and then get to worry about it in advance for 12 months? Why not instead live a full life for that year, and deal with whatever it is when it comes. It would only suck life from me if I could worry about it in advance.
Also, even for great events, I think it would spoil things if God would let me know what’s coming up. If I had inside information that some big, exciting event was going to happen, then I wouldn’t be surprised. It would kind of ruin the excitement if I knew well in advance that God was planning this for me.
So although there is a part of me that wants to know — and at times, very, very strongly wants to know — what tomorrow, next week, 2009, and the next decade hold, I think I need to just thank God for His wisdom in not telling me.
I have the advantage of knowing that, no matter where this road leads, there is going to be a happy ending. Think about it — eternity in Heaven! How much more awesome an ending can you ask for?
So with knowing that, what is there to fear? I mean, seriously… what is there? Why should I worry? Does God not still have a plan? Is He not still crazy about me? Did He not create me for a purpose? Does He not know me so well, better than I know myself?
Here’s a unique analogy. Several years ago, the St. Louis Blues were playing the Toronto Maple Leafs in a hockey game. The Blues were down 5-0 in the third period, and the game was nearly over. Well, they ended up scoring five straight goals in the third, which is pretty much unheard of, and then the won the game with an overtime goal!
The next day, there was a replay of the game on TV. Me, knowing the outcome, got super excited when I saw that the Blues were down 5-0 in the third, because I knew that this wasn’t the end. But if another Blues fan were to step into the room then, they would have been upset, and understandably so. But as I knew what the outcome was, the huge 5-0 deficit made it all the more exciting for me. While the other person might start to flip out, I would just grin, sit back, and enjoy the show.
God is just infinitely wise. I’ve been on this earth a little over two decades, and sometimes I think I know so much, and I had the audacity to think that I could possibly give some pointers on how to run things. It’s crazy, I know!
So I’m going to stop letting myself ask God to give me more information. Instead, I’m just going to love Him, draw closer to Him, because I know that He does have the full map, and HE is going to reveal things at the absolute perfect time. He knows what I need to know now, and what I don’t need to know. If there’s something I do not know right now, God probably has a very, very good reason for holding that card back.
God… thank You, that in spite of myself and my tendencies to ache to know the full plan, that You are wise enough to reveal things at the perfect time, and not just when I get restless or worried. You are so good. Thank You so much!
Just a quick note. Isn’t it awesome to catch somebody in the very act of… doing the right thing? There is something that is so admirable about watching somebody have integrity when they think nobody is watching.
It can be the simplest act, but sometimes it’s those things that are just so telling of a person’s character. How are they going to act when nobody (at least to their belief) is watching? If they still do the right thing, simply because it’s the right thing, then that’s something that is rare, and something that I have a tremendous amount of respect for.
And this is something we can’t fake. The only way to be caught doing the right thing is to practice doing the right thing, not to please any person, but to please God, because we know that even if nobody sees us, God does, and He cares. He knows our hearts. Even if we can fool everybody else, we can’t fool Him.
There’s something about catching somebody intentionally living with integrity that just makes you want to reward them. I just love it. When I see it in my family, my friends — even in strangers — it’s just so cool to see somebody, who thinks they are totally alone, still honoring God. You know it’s not an act, but that they are authentic. It’s awesome. Makes me want to live a life where I’m proud to get caught!
Far too often, I take for granted just how blessed I am.
I’ve always known this, but the past little while I have been just so struck at what amazing parents I have. Mom and Dad are just so wise, so loving, so dedicated, so selfless.
It’s almost unbelievable. To find two people so dedicated to God, to their family, to other people — incredible. Then to be able to call them Mom and Dad, what a privilege.
One thing that I have always admired about them is their commitment to the truth, to integrity, to objectivity. In the past, I would not always be thrilled with this fact, because that meant that we couldn’t just go by the feeling of the moment, but instead we had to go with the truth wherever that led.
I’m getting more accustomed to that concept now, although even today it’s hard — to seek out the truth first, then let everything else come a distance second. So often, I’ll have this super-strong feeling, and I’ll want to act on it, but they have taught me to not to take feelings too seriously. Don’t get me wrong — they have been as compassionate and understanding as I can imagine anyone ever being, but they are always sure to still seek out the truth.
Whenever they would tell me no or be against one of my notions, I never truly thought they were against me. At worst, maybe they just didn’t quite get me. But recently, I’m just realizing more and more how crazy they are about me.
They love me so much, so much that they aren’t going to idly sit by if they see me making foolish decisions. All they ever want is for me to get the most out of life, to not shortchange myself in any way. Why? It’s not for their benefit. They’re not trying to get anything out of me. What do they gain by wasting time with me, by listening to me or giving me advice?
It’s all making sense, how they just love me like crazy. What’s awesome is I know that their goal for my life is for me to be who God has created me to be. They don’t want anything from me. They just love me so much that they want to help in any way they can.
They really have tried to be a living, breathing example of God to me. Of His love, His faithfulness, His stability, His unchanging truths. They succeeded.
What is even more remarkable to me is when I remember that they are human, just like me. They have desires. They have needs. They get tired, they get hungry.
It would be a little more explainable in my mind if I found out that they were just super-human. For some reason, they don’t GET tired, or they don’t GET jealous. They don’t GET bitter. They’re never hungry. They never have a headache. They never have to wonder about anything.
Nope… they are real people. And that’s what makes it more amazing to me. Despite all these feelings, they are constantly choosing these different things. Just constantly! And they are so good at it that it can almost look automatic.
What’s so encouraging, is knowing that they are real people, I’m confident that I have the potential to be as great a parent or spouse as they have become. Really, it all comes down to dying to yourself, and it’s just obvious that they are doing that all the time, always putting other people before them.
It’s so inspiring. I am seeing the fruit of their lives of integrity and humility. I love them so much, and I just can’t get over why me — me, Luke Arndt, from Illinois — should be blessed with such an amazing set of parents, such and amazing family. I’m not sure why, but I am not going to argue. I’m just going to continue to say, “God, thank You. Thank You so much. I don’t deserve this, and I could never have earned it. So thank You.”
What a wonderful life.
How embarrassing!
I was getting ready to search through my entries here to find out the date of something, but… I realize my search bar is gone! Then I realized that’s because I removed it… accidentally!
I was just cleaning up some of the PHP code in my script, dreaming of the day where I could tidy this blog up, improve it. And in the process of deleting some superfluous lines, I deleted the line that included the handy search bar!
Well, it’s back now. So now I’m able to search through my entries with the greatest of ease. And now I’ve found what I was looking for.
Winter hasn’t even begun, and I’m already itching to play some softball. Trouble is, we are a little over four months from the start of the season, which is typically in mid-April.
I don’t know just why I miss it so badly already, but I do! I can’t wait to get back out there, to play with the guys, to see how we fare in 2009. But… I’ve gotta wait.
It’s just such a cool experience to be able to play with these guys! I know I think it’s special whenever I see a couple of brothers or cousins playing together. To think, though, we have a father and nine sons on the very same team! Sometimes I just have to step back and think, “Whoa. This is amazing.”
To have 10 Arndts on the field at once, it’s just crazy. Who could have imagined this?! I stand in the outfield, and to my right is John. To my left is Philip, Seth, and/or Jacob (depending on the defensive alignment for that game). In the infield, there’s James at first base, Mark at second, Dad at shortstop, Paul at third base. Jude will pitch, and one of the youngest three (Philip, Seth, or Jacob) will catch.
Then we bat. Leading off… Arndt! Batting second, Arndt, followed by… Arndt! Batting cleanup — you guessed it — Arndt!
It’s just crazy, but it’s so much fun. How clever of God to have engineered our family to be this way. To have so many boys, to have such an interest in sports (especially softball), to have a dad who is ready and willing to work out and stay in shape so he can keep playing — and even hit home runs!
So it’s awesome. It’s been nearly two months since our last softball game, and I’m just ready to get back out there! It’s such a special time, such a unique opportunity, that I want to just make the most of it. Who else gets this chance? I can’t ever take it for granted!
You never know how many more chances you’ll have where everybody is healthy and available enough to do this, so I’m just going to make an extra effort to enjoy it while it lasts. I’m thinking 2009 is going to be a lot of fun!
Late this afternoon, I was driving in to Belleville in order to run a few errands. I had been busy working on different things all day, so this was one of my first opportunities in the day to really do some thinking.
Just minutes into the drive, I kind of felt a blog entry writing itself in my head. It’s basically a continuation of the previous entry. What’s even more interesting is that a few hours later, during our church service, Dad shared some thoughts that were pretty much exactly what I was thinking. It’s funny how God will have some very clear themes at times!
Perhaps the easiest way to express this is to just be straightforward. I feel like telling myself, once and for all, “Luke — do not depend on anything else to make you happy. Depend on nothing else to bring you peace, to bring you joy. Your happiness is not dependent on anyone, any thing, any situation, and job, any girl, any amount of money. For the last time, stop looking in those places! You’ll never find it!”
I can easily get tempted to start buying into the notion that somebody else is responsible for my happiness in life, for my contentment. If I’m not happy, then something sure had better change so I will then be happy.
Our joy, our thankfulness, our faithfulness, our trust should never, ever be conditional. The problem is we have so many voices telling us that if we aren’t happy, then somebody else needs to pay. If I’m not happy, then I probably need: A new job, a new car, a girlfriend — some new situation.
That’s simply not true, though. As great as some things in life may be, they will not, have not, and will not ever be a substitute for the joy and peace that can only be found through Jesus.
I fight this all the time. I fight thinking, “Well, gosh, if only this happens, then life will be amazing. If I just get married, then I’ll be set. If I reach this milestone.”
I have a theory there, and I’m pretty sure it’s dead-on. I’ll just bet you that if I’m restless right now, then I’m probably going to be restless even if my desires are met. If I’m not joyful now, I’m probably not going to just all of a sudden do a 180 once I, say, meet the girl of my dreams.
Think about it. If I can find a reason to complain now, then why wouldn’t I complain under a better set of circumstances? If I can be bitter now, how in the world would I just suddenly lose that if I finally got what I wanted?
The truth is: I don’t require much. Oh, I think I do sometimes, but I don’t. My needs are really pretty simple. And since I have it so good now, if I can find a way to be grouchy or dissatisfied now, I just don’t think it would be possible for ANY thing or ANY person to snap me out of it.
We all know and would agree that money doesn’t buy happiness. But in addition to that, I’m just convinced that NO situation will bring happiness, either. No job will. No person will.
At the end of Romans 8, Paul so strongly states that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God. And I think if you can reverse what he was saying, it would be just as true, that nothing BUT the love of God will bring us joy, peace, fulfillment. Not an easy life, not abundance, not people.
It’s not easy to adjust to thinking this way, because that’s just not the way the world goes ’round. We’re taught, from all over the place, that somebody else is responsible for making me happy. You don’t usually hear, “Hey, look, you have the power to do it today. Nobody is stopping you from living the most joy-filled life ever!”
So this kind of wrote itself in my head as I was driving around downtown Belleville, and I was concluding it as I was walking across the YMCA parking lot. The main point is that I do not need anything else. I am so incredibly blessed as it is. If life remained like this forever, I would have so much to thank God about. And even though I hope to be around for a good 80 more years, even if that’s not the case, I know that I won’t have missed out on anything. I’m not going to wait for somebody to tell me, “Okay, Luke. Go. Your life is finally perfect, and you are now authorized to be happy.”
Sure, I have tons of ambitions and desires, things that I would love to achieve, love to do while I’m here. I would LOVE to get married, treasure and protect my wife, be a great husband and dad. I would LOVE to succeed in business. I would LOVE to continue to stay in shape and play softball for a long, long time.
I’d love to do all of this, but none of it is a must. All of it ends with an “…if it’s Your will, God.” I’m no longer going to let myself start to bargain with God, and think, “Okay, fine, I’ll be happy, if…”
Nope. Instead, I’m just going to take a page from Mom and Dad’s playbook, learning from all of those people who have discovered, “Hey! I can be joyful right now! It’s totally up to me, and nobody can take that away! I’m unstoppable!”
Obviously, there are many, many blessings and circumstances in life that can bring joy, but I really think it’s all icing on the cake; it’s all extra. I should have enough right now to be thankful for to last me the rest of my life.
No question is this easier said than done, especially in the face of very real concerns, fears, or problems. But still, if Paul said to rejoice in the Lord always, then it’s got to be possible. If He said to give thanks always, then that means that I can do it.
So here goes. So much of what I write in this blog is like a “note to self”; it just happens to be public. It’s not that I have mastered life, and I’m finally revealing my secrets. I’m learning as I go, and hopefully maturing as I go. I’m just sharing what I have learned, or what I am learning. It serves as a great reminder to me, to have something to go back to and read, to have some truth to cling to in those times where it’s not the easiest thing to do to make the right decisions. I’m very much a work-in-progress, but I’m just kind of pointing out different things I notice along the journey.