We're a few weeks into our new year's resolutions. How's that diet going?

According to The New York Times, Americans last year spent about $62 billion on diets, exercise, and gym memberships. But most us give up on these efforts by March.

It feels like an endless cycle. We're unhappy with our weight, we make grand commitments, and we stick to them rigidly . . . for a couple of weeks. Eventually, the drive-thru lanes, frappucinos, and buckets of ice cream get the best of us, and we fall off the proverbial wagon.

Our failures recall Paul's words in Romans 7:15: "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." I don't want to eat that giant burrito, and yet over and over again, I eat the giant burrito. What a wretched man I am!

Perhaps, as we start to feel the pangs of temptation against our new year's resolutions (or if we're simply struggling to stick to a diet) we would benefit from a shift in perspective. If dieting is like life under the law, then it's worth asking: Is there such a thing as grace-motivated dieting?

I think there is. There's a way forward for those of us who feel unhealthy and eager for change, a way that can be motivated by grace and love, rather than vanity, guilt, or shame. It takes three things:

• Shifting Perspective
• Seeking Wisdom
• Enduring Patiently

Shifting Perspective

I'll never forget this moment, about six years ago. My best friend had recently gotten married, and my wife and I were spending time with him and his new wife, looking through the photo album from their wedding. As we turned to the back cover, I was horrified. The last picture in the album was from the morning of his wedding day, when the groomsmen had gone to a park to play basketball. For some tragic and inexplicable reason I am standing in this picture with my shirt off. I hadn't been near a basketball court (or, apparently a scale) in a few years, and the sight was . . . unhealthy. Round. Big.

"I'm going on a diet," I blurted out, eyes wide open, thinking photos are forever, photos are forever. For the rest of my friend's life, this awful picture of me would grace the back page of his wedding album.

This is how many of us begin. Our bodies lose their youthful shape, and in a revelatory moment, we jump on the dieting carousel: gaining, losing, plateauing, gaining, losing, crashing, gaining again. We're driven by a moment like this, a moment (or a long season) of shame and guilt. Words like fat ring in our ears, and every trip past a mirror is torture. Sometimes we blame ourselves, sometimes we blame our genes, sometimes we blame stress and work.

There are two possible motivations for the desire to transform our bodies, one that has the power to motivate and one that has the power to kill.

The latter motivation is more common. It's the reason young faces and bodies grace the magazine covers in grocery stores aisles. These images help drive the market for plastic surgery and much of that $62 billion dieting economy. This motivation cannot be limited to a single emotion or sin. But some combination of vanity, obsession with youth, and fear of death results in anxious discontent, a deep feeling of inadequacy and desperation for acceptance. We foolishly believe that if we could get skinnier, bulkier, younger, prettier, or stronger, we'll be satisfied.

This motivation literally leads to death. For some, the short-term fixes lead to crash diets, eating disorders, and a variety of other methods that do our bodies more harm than good. Ultimately, all of us face the ticking clock of time, slowing metabolisms, disease, grey hair, wrinkles, cellulite, and expired bodies. The desire to avoid death and old age that drives us to the gym can't ultimately stave off our inevitable end.

We become enslaved to the "law" of fitness, obsessively fighting a losing battle against our wills and the march of time. Our victories are short-lived, our defeats are crushing.

But there's a better way. Whatever we feel about our bodies, they don't have to be the source of shame or guilt. Shame and guilt are not motivators; they are masters, filling our days with anxiety. The alternative starts with seeing our bodies as part of the great story of the gospel:

• Our bodies were created by God. God made you with a fantastic attention to detail (Matthew 10:29-31).
• Our bodies are subject to the plague of sin. Disease, obesity, dysfunction, and weakness are results of the fall (Psalm 38:3-4).
• The gospel tells us that in Christ, we're given a once-and-for-all seal of approval by the only One whose opinion matters (1 Corinthians 1:8).
• That acceptance isn't conditional or partial; it includes our bodies.We're whole beings, bodies and souls inexorably knit together. The brokenness of both is covered by the sanctifying blood of Jesus (Romans 8:11).
• One day, these failing bodies will be exchanged for gloriously restored and unbreakable bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42-45).

Our bodies are first and foremost a gift. God made them "fearfully and wonderfully" (Psalm 139:14) and intended them to be a part of the glorious harmony of creation, using them to serve him and others. Sin has disrupted that harmony, introducing sickness, weakness, and the vast host of problems that plague our bodies. We could despair of the brokenness, convinced that nothing will get better until the resurrection. But this despairing attitude neglects the fact that God has made us stewards of all of his gifts, including our bodies. As Paul says:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Rather than seeing our bodies in the light of the world's absurd standards, we see them as gifts meant to give God glory and to serve others.

There's no doubt that Americans have serious challenges related to fitness. Obesity is an epidemic, and health problems related to diets abound: cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes---the list goes on and on. Seeing our bodies as a gift should cause us to respond in much the same way we respond with our finances. As good stewards, we should examine all the ways we think about and care for our bodies.

• Rather than being motivated by youth culture and absurd (and shifting) standards of beauty, we should be motivated by stewardship: how ready is your body to serve others?
• When thinking about aging, rather than focusing on fighting the signs of age, or living in fear of the effects of aging, we should seek health for the sake of longevity. Should the Lord allow, we want to lovingly and enthusiastically serve God and others for the long haul.

Seeking Wisdom

Crash diets and exercise obsessions only make sense when they serve an idol in response to motivation like shame. We'll gladly risk long-term injuries and damages to our health, sacrificing them on the altar of youth or self-image, if we think the ends justify the means.

But if we're seeking health so we can be good stewards of the gift God has given us, the ends and the means are essentially the same. How we go about changing is just as important as the results that we're seeking.

This calls us for wisdom. We need to be patient and sober, wisely avoiding the recklessness that accompanies diet culture like "abs in two weeks" or "lose 20 lbs TODAY!" We should talk to doctors and trainers, adopting a long-range plan for a lifestyle that promotes health and embraces the realities of modern life.

We need to be realistic, both in the methods we adopt and the results we expect. Not everyone can go to the gym every day, and not everyone can adopt the same diets. Nor is it necessary. Food, like any good gift, should be enjoyed as a gift and avoided as a master. It can master us in excessive consumption, and it can master us in obsessive and fearful nitpicking. Food shouldn't consume all of our thoughts and conversations, and our decisions aren't grounds for judging others. A self-righteous dieter---whether low-carb, high-carb, low-fat, high-fat, Atkins, Weston Price, or Weight-Watchers---is just another Pharisee, destined to frustrate and annoy far more than convince those around him. Hold your convictions about food gently and loosely, recognizing (as Paul did with the Corinthian church) that it's an area open to a variety of convictions.

Enduring Patiently

Food is tempting. Exercise is not. And change is slow. Keep this in mind as you try to make real and lasting change.

My own efforts have resulted in mixed success. I lost a lot of weight after I saw the picture, dropping about 40 pounds in the year or so that followed. I focused on eating healthy and exercising, benefiting greatly from the counsel of a friend who worked as a personal trainer. In the years that followed, I've fluctuated a good bit, but I've enjoyed a base level of fitness that seems to help me bounce back quickly when I fall off the wagon. The first six months was by far the hardest.

In recent years, I find I'm far more motivated by how I feel than by how I look. When an injury required almost three months off from exercise last year, I once again stared at a bit of a discouraging "spare tire," but I was far more concerned with my general fatigue and weakness.

When we're healthy, we're better able to serve, love, and bless others. We don't wear out so quickly, and we're not daunted by requests to help, whether it's moving a table, leading a kids' Sunday school class, or traveling to Africa.

The dieting roller coaster isn't ending. So long as we have Big Macs and big screen TVs, there will be a host of people who wake up one day saying, "I need to lose weight." And in the world of diet books and exercise tapes, there is plenty of good science and helpful information. We don't necessarily need different goals for our weight and fitness. We need better motivations.

Mike Cosper is pastor of worship and arts at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He writes on the gospel and the arts for The Gospel Coalition.

by Melissa, after a very bad day in the gym

I was working a strength program this fall and winter, hitting some Olympic lifts and up to two additional strength movements a day, limiting met-cons to sprint-style bursts. Since coming off the road in late November and working hard in the gym, I’d put on at least five pounds of muscle, which was doing great things for my squat and bench and overall general happiness. It was not, however, doing good things for my pull-ups. I’d kind of abandoned pull-up work this summer, having fun with other stuff and neglecting my dead hangs. As a result, I set myself a goal of getting back to five dead hangs by the end of the year – not a personal best, but a decent goal based on where I was when I started in October (which was back down to… one). Aggressive, but I thought once our travel schedule let up and we were able to train on more regular basis, I could make faster progress. And for a while, it seemed as though I was.

Pull-Up Fail

One day in the middle of my cycle, I went into the gym for a normal training session and decided to re-test my pull-up strength. I hopped on the bar and cranked out… one. One dead hang pull-up was all I had in me. This was major backwards progress! I dropped off the bar, stomped my foot and immediately proceeded to ruin the rest of my session with negative thoughts. “This is total (bleep). Why am I bothering to work my (bleep) off in the gym if I’m not making any progress? I might as well just save my time and go back to that (bleeping) Thai aerobic class. At least then I’d be having fun.”

Dallas tried to reason with me, citing a whole host of factors that would have impacted that one day’s performance. He rationalized that one attempt of one movement cannot be extrapolated to the big picture. He told me to chalk it up to a tough day and let it go until tomorrow. But after five more minutes of watching me host my own little pull-up pity party, Dallas grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me in the eye, and spoke three little words that have stayed with me ever since. “It’s just exercise,” he said.

It’s. Just. Exercise.

Those three little words gave me pause, because for most of us, it is just exercise. Emphasize any word you like – it IS just exercise, or it’s JUST exercise, or my favorite… it’s just EXERCISE. Most of us aren’t professional athletes or Olympic contenders. (I’m leaving CrossFit Games competitors out of this one, because I’d tell 99.9% of them it’s just exercise too, although that’s not a very popular position to take.) And for those of us who aren’t professionals, for whom performance doesn’t actually make a difference to our fame or fortune, sometimes we just get a little too worked up about our workouts. And Dallas’ admonition helped me to remember why I exercise in the first place.

I train because I love it. I love picking up heavy things, swinging kettlebells, moving my body and feeling strong. I love having a goal and working towards it, checking off objectives along the way. I love meeting people who like the same things I do, who can teach me new tricks or show me a better way to move the same object the same distance. I love seeing my body change, watching muscles develop, seeing a few extra pounds on the scale. I love feeling strong when I do “real life” things like snowboard or hike. And finally, I train because it makes mehappy, plain and simple.

Train, not test.

But none of those factors add up to life or death. If I don’t make my pull-up goal, my Mom is still going to love me, my bank account is still going to look the same, the number of readers on our site aren’t going to dramatically fall off. And, as Dallas went on to remind me, we go to the gym most days to train, not to test. So maybe that day, my pull-ups weren’t so hot. It doesn’t mean I’m not getting stronger or better. It just means I had a bad day, due to lack of food or sleep or yesterday’s training or poor mental focus. So, really, extrapolating the results ofone attempt at one movement on one specific training day to the general success of my overall physical fitness is just plain dumb.

And even if my pull-up stats crumble, which they darn well might in the short-term if I keep adding muscle mass… it doesn’t really matter. Because it’s just exercise, and I’ve got far more important things in my life to be proud of, worried about, and focused on… and it’s stupid to let a few seconds on the clock, a missing rep or a lighter bar ruin your day, and the view of your big-picture training.

However, that’s not the end of the story, because despite the fact that it’s just exercise… in some ways, it’s NOT just exercise. We’ll be posting Part II of “It’s Just Exercise” next week, so stay tuned, and drop thoughts to comments.