It wasn't an accident this time. So don't worry.
And I haven't been gambling, so get up off your knees, my soul is safe.
It's the best fifty pounds I ever lost - not that I'm in the habit of losing fifty pounds regularly, I'm a vicar, and can't afford to do that!
And I seriously hope it isn't simply mislaid, and that when I say "lost", I mean "lost", never to be re-found.
For, of course, I don't mean £50 at all. I mean 50lb. Just over three and a half stone for the UK readership. Back in September I weighed in at 14 stone 10lb - 206 pounds for our colonial friends. 89 kilos. Today I hit 11 stone 2 lb - 156 pounds. 71 kilos. That's a reduction of just under a quarter of my body weight in just over seven months.
How and why?
Let's start with why. So I got old in November. 40. I'm short, losing my hair, fat and ageing. One of these four factors is in my control!
How? Discipline. I took most sugar out of my diet - I drink a lot of Coke but switched to Coke Zero. Dessert is my favourite meal of the day - and it went. For a while completely, for a while just reduced severely.
And as my friend Ricky points out, the drugs do work. As an ongoing migraine preventative I swapped from Pizotifen (side effect: weight gain) to Topiramate (side effect: weight loss) in September. The information sheet that comes with the tablets includes this helpful line: "If you are losing too much weight...the amount of food being eaten should be increased." Well, that's clear!
The thing is, these tablets have given me a metabolism I haven't had since my early twenties. I can eat almost anything and not gain weight. If I just eat normally, I lose weight. So I eat well, and stay put. If I want to shed a pound or two, I eat normally - not frugally. This can't last, but for now, it's like finding the goose that lays the golden egg!
And I haven't been down to this weight since leaving Aberystwyth in '99 - and that summer it was due to hard work, involving a strict diet and lots of exercise.
Let's get this in perspective. St Paul talks about those people whose "god is their stomach", and when I see all the diet stuff around, I wonder if he means that as well rather than just people who simply gorge themselves. Contentment is about being happy however life finds you, because circumstance doesn't rule you.
But at 40, and having given up and felt that I was now always going to be the chubby kid in the class, to get back to being my old shape again does feel good. And it makes me wonder what else have I settled for that need not be the case?
Because contentment is not about settling for less. Yet sometimes as I grow older I find that settling for less becomes acceptable. These last months have shown me there is a difference, and I need to spot that difference, be content in all things, yet continue to strive for a life that settles for nothing less than all I can achieve.
My church is growing a bit. Lord, grow it more. In faith and number, please.
I am enjoying doing musical things again - Lord I pray for more opportunities, and more time to develop these skills again, to make the most of them, not to think that I've gone as far as I can.
Suddenly there are kids here who want to grow in worship leading skills - Lord give me a passion to pass on all I have learned and imbibed over the years, that they might thrive.
Losing weight - losing complacency - gaining new vigour and new contentment. And the old dog is learning new tricks.
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