A Tale of Two Shawn’s

I’ve been getting requests from people lately that I update my profile picture. I aim to please here and so have happily complied. The left picture is my original profile pic from 2003 and the right picture is me last night after Confirmation. So, as you can tell, the rumors are true, I have started parting my hair on the opposite side. OK, so I lost a little weight too…about 60 pounds to be exact. The folk at Mundelein are all aware of this, but maybe others would be interested in the program that I’ve been doing.

At the beginning of November I went to see our school nurse at the seminary to ask about a weight loss program. I had done the whole Atkins and South Beach thing and lost some weight before, but gained it back when I got sick of those diet fads. She told me that the local hospital had an information night coming up to discuss the various programs that they offer. I decided to go. It turns out that they offered a number of different programs. As I looked through the brochure, I decided that I wanted to do the most severe and strict program they had. It was a complete liquid diet fast, but it said I could lose between 4 and 6 pounds per week. I knew I only had until February when I returned home for internship, so losing the most weight the fastest sounded good.

The other thing that really attracted me to this fast program was that I thought it addressed the deeper spiritual issues that were giving rise to weight problems in the first place. I knew that I was very attached to food. I liked to eat and even when I was “dieting” there were always “special occasions” that seemed to come up that provided excuses. I thought that this full fast diet would be just what I needed as it would force me to break all the unhealthy attachments I had to food. Not only would I lose the weight, but when I was done there would be nothing that I felt like I just had to eat and even if there was, I would have developed the discipline to say no.

So, for about three months I ate nothing but powder and water four times a day. I made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas and never deviated from the program. This was very important because it helped me to accomplish what was a more important goal than losing the weight. I know now in my head that there is absolutely now situation so special that I can’t say no. I had powder and water for Thanksgiving dinner. I had powder and water in my Christmas stocking. I can certainly say no to a cookie for dessert. The good thing though is that I don’t have to always say know. I can have that stuff every now and then if I want. But, it’s a great feeling knowing that I have the discipline to not always have to have that stuff.

I transitioned back to normal solid food by the time I came home for internship. The key to maintaining the weight loss is actually pretty simple…burn as many calories as you eat. This is about 2000 for most. I’m currently sticking to 1600 because I want to continue to lose about 20 or 30 more pounds. I should lose about a pound and a half each week at this rate. I also exercise each day which is a lot easier without 60 extra pounds.

I’ll just close by saying that I actually got the idea for this program as a result of a new smoking ban they were looking at implementing at Mundelein. When asked my opinion, I said on my survey that I thought seminarians who smoke should really be in some kind of a program to stop while they are at seminary; what could be a better time I thought. Well, then I got to thinking…what am I addicted to? Maybe I was addicted to Oreo’s I thought. One of the students pointed out that all addictions lessen our freedom and so I decided that if I was going to ask brother seminarians to try to break their harmful addiction to smoking, I needed to set a good example as well. I feel so much more free and am very happy with the less of me that there is now. Although there is technically less of me to love I don’t think too many people will mind, especially not my future parishioners who deserve a healthy pastor. Many thanks go to Fr. Canary, the now former Rector at Mundelein, for supporting me financially in this program. I wouldn’t have done it had he not offered his help when he did.

Until next time…I think this picture is a pretty good (aka embarrassingly bad) “before” shot of “the old Shawn”. Ironically, from the time this picture was taken, I lost 60 pounds and Matty gained about 30!

Peace and all good,

Shawn