Sorry it hurts, but it's for your own good, honest...

There was quite a bit in the Times on Friday about the latest figures for teenage abortions in Britain. One item was about a gynaecologist in London who clearly believes he is providing an important public service in providing abortions for young girls. "The girls I worry about," he says, "are the ones who don't come to us, and go on to have the baby. It is not in the interests of any child to have a 16-year-old mother."

Sorry it hurts, baby, but don't you see it makes sense?
You wouldn't want that sort of life
You're much better off if I get them to kill you now

You see, once you're out of my womb
it becomes illegal to kill you.

Just eat less calories - now why didn't I think of that!

Got into a debate elsewhere on the web and the subject of prejudice against "the obese" came up - and what prejudice there is out there! It seems that in a society that won't allow anything that might seem like you're possibly a teensy bit discriminating against people who sleep with those of their own gender (for example), anyone whose bmi is above a certain line is still considered fair game. And why? Because, as a guy called Andy on that thread pleasantly explained to me, the arithmetic is simple - eat less calories and you lose weight; eat more calories and you gain weight. Simple. So there's no reason why people should be overweight, and therefore - following Andy's logic - if I'm overweight it's my choice.

I'll just pause here to clarify some terminology. If you don't know what a BMI is when it's at home - lucky you... You probably don't have a weight problem. Those of us who have struggled with weight issues are more likely to have come across this term: Body Mass Index. I don't remember off the top of my head how it's calculated, but it represents a certain ratio between your weight and your height, and is supposed to measure you against the supposedly healthy standard. If you're on one area of the graph you're considered to weigh a healthy weight; a certain level above that you're considered overweight; go over that level and you're officially obese. Which is where I've been for a while now. And oh, how I hate this word! It just sounds horrible, doesn't it? And when people talk about "the obese" it just sounds yuk, you can feel the disapproval coming at you through that word. Somehow saying I'm fat doesn't feel so bad, don't know why.

But back to that brilliant piece of logic I was presented with, that showed that obviously being way overweight is my choice...

I have made many stupid choices in my life. The thing is that when you're presented with temptation, the price tag is usually hidden. When I chose to start smoking (aged 14ish, eager to become "grown-up") yes, I knew it wasn't healthy, but I had no idea how strong the addiction would be. I had no idea how difficult it would be to stop. About twenty years later I finally managed to kick that habit, but it certainly wasn't simple. Would I have made the same choice at 14 had I known what it was going to be like? Who knows. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about smoking, it was just an example of a bad choice I made.

Was there a particular moment along the way, a decisive point at which I made a choice that would affect my weight? You know, I don't think there was one. There was a gradual sliding that started when I was about 23 and the person I started going out with at the time decided that I needed feeding up. At the time I was thin - not horribly thin, not like current-day models, just nicely slim. I weighed 50 kilos (about 8 stone) which for my height (or should I say my shortness) is a good weight. I had always been slim, and had always been able to eat whatever I liked without putting any weight on. And I had always had a sweet tooth. I remember when I started working (my first job when I was 15) I had this Friday afternoon ritual, coming home from work (in Israel we finished early on a Friday) via the Elite chocolate shop. They sold chocolate by the weight, and I would get 250 grammes of this kind, 250 of that kind, etc (don't remember them all, but my favourite was definitely the chocolate-coated orange peel) and then I'd head home with the chocolates and the similarly heavy Saturday newspaper (yes, in Israel the Saturday paper comes out on Friday, we just don't have a newspaper on the Sabbath) and after lunch I'd lie on my bed, reading the paper and munching through chocolate.

And I didn't gain one kilo as a result.

And no, I was not using up tons of energy through exercise. I wasn't even doing housework! I was sitting on a bus all the way to work, sitting at my desk at work, then sitting on the bus all the way home. A completely sedentary lifestyle, with absolutely zero physical exercise. Eating whatever I felt like, and staying thin.

Until age 23, when suddenly the magic spell was broken and the food I ate started actually making a difference to my size. I was extremely surprised to suddenly find that I had gained 5 kilos. I was totally new to the world of weight-gain, diets were a foreign subject to me, and in the years to come I was to learn a lot about this subject! I was to learn how absolutely climbing-up-the-wall depressed and/or ratty some diets can make you. I was to learn how infuriatingly-easily the weight creeps back up once you stop whatever diet you put so much effort into. I was to learn how hard it becomes to find nice clothes that actually fit you and flatter your figure once you've crossed a certain line. I was to learn how much harder physical exercise becomes once there's more of you to shift when you move. I was to learn how your body resents the extra weight you're putting on it and expresses its resentment through all sorts of creaks of the joints, all sorts of aches and pains that sometimes make you feel like you're your mum's age.

And I was to learn how infuriatingly smug some people can be who have never experienced any of this.

This is just a bit of my own story. Obviously there are people whose situation is even more difficult than mine. Obviously there are those who have medical conditions that affect their weight, or who take medication that affects it. (I was put on steroids once and blew up like a balloon!) There are those like my next-door neighbour who is in a wheelchair and simply can't do any exercise. But I reckon there are plenty of people out there with stories similar to mine, people who suddenly found at some stage that their metabolism changed and the eating habits they'd grown up with were not serving them well now, but suddenly changing your eating habits as an adult is not that easy - partly because generally changing habits isn't easy, partly because there are so many different theories coming at you from different directions that it can be very confusing.

I have tried counting calories, and yes, I did lose weight through that, but could I carry on doing that for life - weighing everything you eat, keeping a daily record of exactly how many calories you have consumed? No, I'm afraid that was only doable for a short time, for a few months of pushing myself really hard. And many other diets are just not healthy as a long-term plan.

My brother recently introduced me to the concept of the low-carb diet, which I do find much easier than others I've tried in the past. I like meat, so eating lots of meat is no hardship for me... The great difficulty is resisting my sweet tooth, and I have ups and downs on that front, which translate pretty directly into ups and downs weight-wise - so yes, it does work: focusing on eating lots of protein + fat, filling up on that so that you won't need the carbs - to my surprise I found it does work. But there is still that bit in a corner of my mind that equates sweets with a treat, which is a problem.

So here I am, I weigh 76.5 kilos, which makes my bmi 32.5, and apparently if it's over 30 you're officially obese. I never chose to become overweight. It happened, and fighting it once it's happened is actually very very difficult. If it was really as simple as people like Andy reckon, we wouldn't have such a huge diet industry. And seriously, Andy, putting aside the fact that I would love to once again just stroll into any shop and buy nice clothes, do you really think I enjoy the discomfort of having to lug so much weight around? Don't you think if it was so simple to lose weight, I'd have done it by now?

Sabbath rest - what does it really mean?

Okay, here's something that I've been wrestling with and as it's come up recently in a debate elsewhere, maybe it's time I attempted to put my confused thoughts together. Be warned though - I have many more questions than answers! In fact, I'd love to hear any thoughts or insights that you have on this issue.

I'm leaving aside for the moment the question of which day of the week it should be - I know some people will want to stone me for saying this, but I really don't think it's that crucial, I think there's a principle in the Bible of having a day of rest, of not rushing around like headless chickens all the time but trusting God that he will provide all we need even if we dare to stop for a day. I think God gave us this gift out of his love and care for us, knowing the human tendency to work too hard and to keep pushing ourselves until we get a heart attack.

So far, so good. We have a principle of stopping work for a day, and resting. Sounds good. But what does that actually mean in practical terms? What does work mean? And what does rest mean? My questions come from realising that these terms can mean very different things to different people, or even to the same person at different stages of their lives.

When I was doing an ordinary 9-5 office job, it was very clear to me what work was. Work was what I did in the office, obviously... Some of you may have already noticed what's missing here - what about stuff like housework, I hear you saying. But then in those days I didn't do much of that (not that I do now, come to think of it) so this wasn't an issue for me. Having said that, I do remember visiting a Christian friend who was also working 9-5 but had a young daughter to look after and very different standards to me as far as housework was concerned, and I was surprised to see her doing the ironing on Sunday afternoon after church. My understanding of the Sabbath principle is that you would somehow squeeze the ironing etc into the rest of the week, say in the evening after work, so that you could have a day that is completely restful. But I didn't ask my friend why she did it, and it just may be that she is one of those people who find ironing relaxing - who knows?

It could be very easy in a way to go with the list the rabbis put together of what you shouldn't do on the Sabbath - it would mean not having to think about it. But it would enslave me under a set of rules that I don't believe God intended. You see, he made me and he knows what I'm like, and he doesn't expect me to be like everybody else. He's made each of us different! And he knows that what is work for me is restful for you, and vice versa.

I remember when living with my friends up in Wales - I helped them run a retreat house and we had a "community day off" on Thursdays (Sunday was not an option for them as a day off as they were both church ministers). I was stunned to see one of them doing some gardening on a Thursday afternoon, but then discovered that for her, pottering in the garden was relaxing, it was a way to unwind and rest.

The rabbis would frown on gardening on the Sabbath. But then I expect they would also frown on, say, embroidery or knitting, which for me are fantastic ways into stillness. Or what about drawing or painting? At least they do allow going for a walk, but they tell you how far it's ok to walk - again laying down the same standard for all of us, no matter how fit we are! And they won't let you go for a nice drive, take the family somewhere nice for a stroll in the countryside, have a nice picnic, enjoy the beauty of creation.

I have seen how silly it can get, following the rabbis' rules and regulations. For instance, my mum keeps the rule about not writing on the Sabbath. So one Saturday afternoon - this was a few years ago when I was living with her - I was having a rest and she was going out for a walk with a friend. She needed to leave me a message, but couldn't write me a note. So what did she do? (My mum has always been very imaginative!) She got her Scrabble set out, chose the right letters from the bag and left me a message on the dining table made out of Scrabble letters, saying: Gone for a walk with Erika. Now, I take my hat off to my mum for the ingenuity, but I have to ask: which would have been the greater effort? To make this message out of Scrabble letters, or to write a quick note?

But having said that, if I try to define work in terms of effort, I run into problems too, because there are some things that we do for fun and relaxation that involve effort, like playing sports for instance. (You'll notice I said "we do" not "I do"...)

You see why I said I had many questions and not so many answers?

The question of "what is work" has been a big question for me in recent years as I am not in a job and when people ask me "do you work?" or "what do you do?" I don't have a straightforward answer. No, I don't go out to work, I try to explain, and all sorts of well-intentioned people say, ah, so you're a housewife (or homemaker). Well, no, I'm not really. I'm at home and I do the household shopping and I cook a meal for us every night, I do some washing up once a day and once in a while I throw some clothes into the washing machine, but that's as far as my housekeeping goes. My husband does a fair bit - he's actually much more fussy than I am about cleanliness, so if he waited for me to notice it needed doing he'd wait a long time...

So, what is work for me right now? Well, cooking and washing up and supermarket shopping - definitely. Which is why I make a point of doing the shopping before the weekend so that I can have time off from that; and I've negotiated with my husband a couple of nights off from cooking over the weekend - either he cooks or we get a takeaway. Then there's coursework - it's quite obvious to me that that is work. And the course involves residential weekends, so obviously when I have one of those, I have to take a day off in the week instead.

Oops, I said "obviously" but that's just obvious to me, not to everyone. Many people on the course work full time and so they come on Friday straight from work and on Monday they're back at work. I don't know how they do it! And here's a question: is it right?

But another non-obvious bit about this is that for some people on the course, those weekends feel like a break, like being away on holiday. I've spoken to some women on the course who so enjoy being cooked for and not having to do the washing up! For me these weekends are something to be endured and survived - as a night owl having to be up before 7am, and as an introvert having to be with people all day, I get through these weekends with the help of coffee and chocolate and then I come home and crash. But for extroverts, who thrive on being in company, I can see that it could be positive and recharging.

This issue comes up for me again and again when I go away on Messianic conferences. I love these get-togethers and wouldn't miss them for (pretty much) anything, but... I struggle with the Sabbath issue. We do the candles and wine on Friday evening, welcoming Shabbat. We do the Havdalah on Saturday evening, saying goodbye to Shabbat. But for me as an introvert and a night owl, this is not a Sabbath, it's a day in which I'm pushing myself to be up early, having to interact with people over breakfast, and there's no way I can see this as keeping the Sabbath. I come home from such a conference and have a day off on the Monday to rest and recharge.

And here's another question: surely there are some things that are work for you but you still simply have to do them on the Sabbath? If you're a farmer, no doubt you still have to feed the animals and milk the cows. And if you're the mother of a young baby, you won't leave the baby in dirty nappies for a day, will you? I suppose some things can be resolved by getting someone else to do them, but a breastfeeding mum wouldn't really be able to delegate... So how does she go about having a Sabbath rest? or doesn't she?

Just a few questions... Would love to hear what you think. Do you have a regular day of rest? What does rest mean for you? How do you interpret the Sabbath principle in your own life?