Its not often I write during the week, but this week has been excessively crazy, so I needed some serenity… I came across a great little story that I wanted to share that helps put some things into perspective, straight from Sarah Stanley Inspired, this truly inspired me:

The brief message that was hanging on the milkman’s door bewildered him. He was an honest man who always behaved appropriately. He never cheated, lied or stole anything. He never drank alcoholic beverages early in the day – a custom outlawed in the village. He had no idea why he was invited to court but the baker knew.

The baker used to buy butter and cheese from the milkman for his baking. One day he suspected that the lumps of butter that the milkman sold him were under a kilo – even though the milkman insisted that each was exactly one kilo. The baker decided to check out the matter and for a period he consistently weighed every lump of butter that he bought from the milkman. He discovered that they were in fact less than a kilo. Sometimes they were 900 grams, sometimes they were 950 grams and once one was even 850 grams.

The baker was angry “Cheating me,” he told his wife angrily, “I am not going to be quiet about it”. He went to the local court and complained about the milkman. “We have to prosecute him” said the baker. “We can’t let him cheat all the villagers, people trust him!”

That same day the court messenger hung a notice on the milkman’s house inviting him to court. The milkman arrived at the court shaking with fear. He had never been to a court house and had never spoken to the Judge. The Judge evoked a sense of fear amongst the villagers.

“I assume you have a very accurate scale in your dairy.” said the Judge

“No your honor, I do not have a scale “said the milkman

“So how do you weigh the butter? Do you just guess that it is one kilo?” said the Judge

“No G-d forbid, your honor – I am an honest man; it never occurred to me to do something like that. Very simply I built myself a scale – the kind that needs a weight on one side to balance the butter on the other”. The Judge nodded his head, and the milkman continued. “Every morning when I come to weigh the butter for the baker I place a kilo loaf of bread on one side of the scale and this way I know that the butter that I will give to the baker will be exactly one kilo.

So the Judge said…you are telling us that the amount of butter that you give the baker is exactly the weight of the loaf of bread he supplies to you?”

“That is it exactly it!” said the milkman and the baker’s face fell.

This is as it is in life…. we receive exactly as much as we give….and one more thing. …before we set out to judge others; let’s first check that our own house is in order.

Don’t we have sometimes the same failings that we accuse others of?

Let us remember the saying: – “Judge yourself first before judging others;”.

Anyway, in addition I wanted to share an interesting picture of my weight loss over the last 7 weeks. This is the way that weight loss really works… another reality check here for those interested. When you decide to embark on a weight loss program, you will always lose lots of weight in the beginning as the water that goes along with the excessive carbohydrates you’ve been probably been eating starts to leave your body. True fat loss is a slow process, as you’ll see in this picture .. this is done by eliminating processed foods, sugar, dairy and eating a diet consisting of up to 75% fruits and vegetables. I’ve also reduced my animal fat intake (making me ALMOST a vegetarian)…

Impressive picture, eh? Take note that this is the weight of someone who people continue to say “doesn’t need to lose anymore weight”, so it shows that anybody can do it. I’m also not done yet.

So anyway, I missed one of my swim workouts on Wednesday that I’ll have to make up on Saturday sometime but did have a good 60 minute swim session today. Lots of drills and short laps to build endurance as I did some longer sets later in the session. It was strange that I ended up with some cramps in my feet about halfway through … yes, in my feet. Not sure how that happens, but I was able to swim through it with only stopping once.

Oh well, just wanted to share those items, I’ll probably talk more about my recent blood test (before my weight loss) and what it said about my cholesterol …