I’ve been trying to lose weight lately.

Not because I’m overweight or anything (I am technically in the top end of the healthy weight range, according to my BMI), but because it would be nice to return to my pre-marriage weight and wear my old clothes without feeling them pinch around my waist.

Sadly though, I think lately it has become a little bit of an obsession, as I’ve taken to furiously scanning nutrition panels before I buy things at the supermarket and feeling bad if I don’t have time for exercise during the week.  I’m sure the stack of Grazia magazines I read during my lunchtimes doesn’t help. This week, convinced that reducing my carb intake would help me in my weight loss mission, I’ve started eating minimal amounts of pasta, bread and wheat cereal (is it just me or when you were little, wasn’t carbs at the bottom of the food pyramid, along with fruit and vegetables? Why are they suddenly so evil?). The result? I was absolutely starving. I was literally ready to put anything in my mouth the second I got home from work.

And it occurred to me, while walking to the station this morning, how ridiculous it all was. I am healthy. I am happy. And if my body needs to be a certain weight in order to be healthy and happy (and not ravenously hungry), then so be it.

But more importantly, I am precious and loved by God! I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realise that I spent more time worrying about the state of my body than the state of my heart, about what I looked like on the outside rather than how I was on the inside. It shamed me to think that this week I’ve spent more time worrying about what I eat as opposed to how my prayer life is going, or how I can serve God more faithfully.

So in response to the Holy Spirit’s niggling, while on the train I wrote down a list of qualities God wants me to have, over and above being the “ideal” weight. Here they are below. Any ladies (and men) got any more to add?

Faithful, gentle, prayerful, bold and unafraid, rich towards God, being a woman who fears the Lord, persevering, submissive to my husband, kind, compassionate, hospitable, having genuine love for everyone, prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks me the reason for my hope, watchful for sin, repentant, humble, responsible, “hot”, not lukewarm about Jesus, holy, treating people with respect, joyful, full of praises, self sacrificial, gracious, quick to forgive, slow to anger, renewing my mind everyday, wise, a lover of justice, merciful.