Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: REDUCE (11/05/15)
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TITLE: Melting the Spread | Previous Challenge Entry
By GiGi Mezzio
11/10/15 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Many women and men, who have not been paying close attention to
the passage of time and the numbers on their unused bathroom scale,
are shocked when they are weighed in at their doctor’s office on a
routine visit.
“What?” they screech, clutching their throat. “This scale must
be wrong!”
When assured by the kind, understanding nurse, who, by the way, is
twenty years old and probably weighs ninety pounds after a heavy
dinner of crab legs dipped in salty butter followed by a chocolate
molten lava concoction laden with calories, that the scale is
correct, they go into a typical crisis. “How did this happen? How
could I have gained over ten pounds?” When you have to lie down on
the bed and use pliers to zip your jeans, it is past time to push it
way back from the table instead of heaping your plate with fried,
fatty, sugary, dripping -with- sauce cuisine. That spare tire, aka
belly fat, does seem to appear mysteriously over night. However, in
reality, this worrisome weight gain creeps up as a result of a
derelict lifestyle of over consumption and under exercising. Due to
this, one’s metabolism slows down and the additional pounds / fat
cells become your new worst enemy. It’s not a lost battle, though.
There is plenty you can do to shape up and reduce those pounds
before they multiply. It’s called a change of lifestyle. It may
take a little effort at first, but it is well worth it in terms of
your appearance and long term health benefits, not to mention the
fact that you will be able to get those jeans on in a standing
position again!
The Bible warns us not to become “lazy gluttons”.
(Proverbs23:20-21 NIV)
“Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the
drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will
clothe them with rags.”
I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to eat or drink
my way to poverty! I find it interesting that overeating and over
drinking are often linked together in scripture as desires of the
flesh.
(Daniel 1:8 NIV) “But Daniel resolved that he would not defile
himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank.
Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to
defile himself.”
Defile himself? Really? Unfortunately, most of our churches do not
encourage healthy eating and fitness. Quite the contrary. Many
promote frequent “pot luck luncheons/dinners”, during which the
congregation is encouraged to “pig out”! I well remember frequent
trips to these lavish feasts, hosted by church ladies, who proudly
presented their tantalizing dishes, as though they were entrants in
the county fair, hoping to win a blue ribbon for their buttermilk
fried chicken, savory beef stew, au gratin potatoes, and delectable
French silk pie.
Once, after a scrumptious cornucopia of chicken wings, three
inch buttery biscuits and gravy, followed by a boat load of key lime
pie, the praise and worship leader of a local church passed out
comatose and had to be taken to the nearest hospital by ambulance!
Seriously?!
Why don’t we encourage improving the overall quality of life
simply by deciding to please God and make our physical body a temple
of healthful moderation? A philosophy of diet that states, “If it
was grown on a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, leave it
alone”, promotes optimal health. One should only eat what grew from
the ground or had a mother! That means no processed, sugary or salty
snacks and boxed short cuts to a potentially healthy meal. Just make
a few basic changes in your eating habits and the pounds will start
to melt off.
To encourage this shrinking even more, try some light exercise
like walking on these lovely Fall evenings after dinner, instead of
plopping down in front of the television with a bowl of chips and a
sugary beverage. Drink water instead and that bad gunky will flow
fright out to reveal a slimmer, healthier you. Make the choice to
melt the spread once and for all!
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I noticed that you switched your voice several times. You started off using third person plural (they), then suddenly in the middle of the paragraph switched to second person. You went back to third person, and then to first person plural (we). I think this would have been good in any voice, but it should be consistent. If you did it in the first person, it would feel like telling a personal story. For example: Having ignored the passage of time and the numbers on my unused bathroom scale, my eyes bulged out as I gasped at the numbers on the scale at a routine doctor's visit. It took all my willpower to not grab the nurse's hand as she kept moving the weights to the right. “What?” I screeched, clutching my throat. “This scale must be wrong!”
That's just a quick example of how I might do it. I'd probably go on to include the nurse's body language and comments while turning the stuff about her weight and chocolate into thoughts (which should be in italics). While I'm thinking of italics, make sure you hit preview before submit. Often the format looks perfect on your word processor or submission page, but then the wretched machine switches it up. The preview will show how it looks to the reader and gives you a chance to tweak it manually.
Another thought, which isn't easy to do, but if done right can really work, is to use the second person (you) as a tongue-in-cheek type of a how-to article. Jan's Writing Basics on the forums has lessons on how to do the different voices. After reading her second-person lesson, I decided to do a challenge called "The Favorite." It's not perfect, but did rank in the top ten that week. I could easily see you do something similar because of your sense of humor and great word choices.
You do a fantastic job of selecting perfect verbs like clutching and screeching. You really paint a picture for the reader. I also liked how you put a bit of Scripture in too. They were a perfect fit for both your message and your style. (Try not to overuse exclamation points. Save them for dialog. Instead let your wonderful vocabulary do your exclaiming.) I think you nailed the topic too. With some tweaking and editing, I could see reading this article in a Christian modern woman's magazine or blog. This is an issue so many people struggle with. Find the right audience, and I can picture the Holy Spirit take your words and use them in ways you might not expect. You definitely have the raw talent.