Tightening Our Belts

Over the last six months, I've been trying to get back into shape. Pastoring is a sedentary vocation, and by the end of last year I had managed to amass some pretty considerable mass. At five nine point five and one-seventy, I wasn't technically obese. I was only on the very cusp of being overweight.

But the weight I had was all nearly entirely fat. I still had the stick-like legs I've always had, but muscle tone was barely discernable. I'd fallen out of the habit of regular and intense exercise, through a combination of my own inertia and the stressors of life and church. I wasn't doing or feeling well.

To my dismay, I found I couldn't even really run if I wanted to, which would not have served me well in the event of a zombie outbreak. Sure, I could have out-lumbered the old-school George Romero zombies, but anything faster than that would have been problematic.

My body was still a temple, sure, but that temple now involved several sprawling additions shoddily built by incompetent contractors.

I remembered my pastor friend Bruce, who let weight lead to depression which brought on more weight in a spiral that eventually killed him.

So for half a year, I've been slowly but surely whittling away at myself. I started at two workouts weekly, and then ramped that up to one day on, one day off. I've been ratcheting back on the carbs, meaning the pretzels and the chips and the beer, and replacing them with water, fruit, or protein shakes. It hasn't always been easy, particularly the beer. Sigh. It's hard kicking yourself out of a pattern of life.

But I feel better. Not only am I thirteen pounds lighter and now only two pounds from my goal weight, I'm also considerably stronger. Measured in what I can curl or press, I'm nearly twice as strong as I was at the perigee of my flaccidity. It has required effort. If I am going to continue to be leaner and stronger, that effort will need to be sustained. Permanently changing your pattern of life is the only way out of obesity and weakness and decline.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why America can't get this through our collective heads. Yeah, we're the Fattest Nation In the World (tm), but I'm here not thinking about our individual corpulence. Instead, it's our collective overconsumption of material goods, coupled with our willingness to go deep into debt to sustain that pattern of consumption.

As our current stimulus driven "recovery" sputters, and our jobless rate stays high, there is talk in DC of yet another temporary stimulus. Let's borrow more, say the pols, because it's all about jobs and getting back into our previous pattern of growth. "We can't cut back now," say they. "Americans need jobs! Now is not the time for financial austerity!" This is politically expedient, sure. If you're pouring borrowed money into your district, you're much more likely to get elected.

But it is also, in the long run, going to destroy us. There will never be a right time. Never. Not ever. In order to create the consumption pattern that existed before the market meltdown in 2008 and 2009, we financially overextended. It was false prosperity. It was fat. Relying on temporary stimulus after temporary stimulus to "jump-start" the economy reminds me of the person struggling with their weight who bounces from fad diet to fad diet, making no headway. We're popping pills and drinking Super Big Gulps full of diet Coke while snarfing down whole bags of Doritos.

Unless we change your whole pattern of life, eating right and exercising more, things ain't never gonna change in our Body Politic. At least, right up until that last massive coronary.

Living Lean

Over the past few years, as my household has reached the point where we're living comfortably below our means, we've begun doing two things with our extra financial resources.

First, we've saved. It's something we've always done, but we're still going about it diligently. For all of the hundreds of financial snake oil salesmen who are out there pitching get-rich-quick schemes on late night cable, there is only one sure-fire way to become economically secure. That way is to spend less than you make, and use the excess to build for your future. Savings and prudent investment are the path to financial well being. Period. Yeah, I know, it's hard to do that when you don't make anything, or you make nowhere near enough to meet costs for food/shelter/health. First things first. But once you make it past that point, you're in the seven fat years. It's time to stock up.

Second, when our rainy day fund fills up and spills over, we make improvements and upgrades. But those upgrades aren't about getting bigger. Even though our humble little 1960s rambler is less than half the size of the average new home in the area, we don't need more space. The upgrades are about making what we have 1) nicer and 2) more efficient.

Two years ago, we replaced our aging, ailing HVAC system. Our house is now more comfortable, and uses around 25% less energy to heat and cool. Last Spring, we upgraded our attic insulation, again reducing heating and cooling costs. Last Fall, we redid two of our bathrooms...mostly because they were falling apart. Showering on one floor shouldn't involve a shower occurring on the floor below. Net effect of our new high-efficiency showerheads and new, low flow toilets? The house looks nicer, but we're also using around 8,000 gallons less water every year.

This year, we may replace our trusty but battered little car. When we do, its replacement will have more power, more gimcrackery, and as many electronic doohickeys as our budget permits. But as a baseline, it will also be more fuel efficient.

That approach does two things. We have that American sense of living better, of enjoying the rewards of our labors. But because that enjoyment is leavened with prudence and directed towards being more efficient, we're also spending less to support our lives. Which means we're saving more. Which means we have more to enjoy. And so on, and so on. It's a self-perpetuating upward spiral of well-being.

One of the things that frustrates me most about our national jabbering about energy use is the lack of emphasis on this rather simple virtue. Listening to folks on the right snipe at efforts to economize and encourage efficiency as somehow bad for America is endlessly frustrating. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding about the greatness of our nation. At our best, we Americans are practical people. We also like to see progress. It makes us feel that tingle of Manifest Destiny in our toes. As we try to figure out a way out of our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels, encouraging this approach to life would seem the rather obvious way out.

It isn't about living large. It's about living lean. And being lean feels good.