Anyone who actually knows me will be laughing out loud before they get half way through this post.  I am prepared for the backlash.

I always wish that I was one of those people who have a form of exercise that they love.  I have friends who are passionate about baseball and softball.  I know someone who trained for months to do a cross country bicycle trip.  Some people love hiking, swimming, Zumba or even just walking.  I am not one of those people.  I don’t know if it is because I am too self conscious about my wiggles and jiggles to enjoy playing team sports or if it’s the restrictive times when things like Zumba and other aerobic classes are offered, but exercise has never been something that I have found to be fun or something to look forward to.  It’s always been a chore.

But there is ONE thing that I can actually see myself enjoying once I am physically capable of doing it.

Running.

OK.  I will pause to let you laugh for a few minutes.

Ready to continue?  OK.  Stay with me.  In my current state, running would rank somewhere between miserable and impossible.  Right now, getting these legs to move that fast might require some sort of motorized device.  But let’s just say that I could work my way up to it, I think I would really enjoy it.  It is less boring than walking and I feel like it could be a very cleansing exercise.  Not to mention it just sounds cool.  “I need to clear my head…I’m going for a run.”  

I’ve looked at several Couch to 5K programs online and have gotten the basic idea of how it works.  Intervals of running and walking where you gradually increase the amount of time you run while decreasing the amount of time you walk.  Seems simple enough but most of them say start by walking for 90 seconds and running for 60 seconds.  You may think it’s sad, but I am pretty sure I couldn’t run for 60 seconds right now.  Not without having a stroke or something first.  I may have to tweak my program and call it Bed to 5k.  My starting point is a little slower than most.

Obviously it will be hard work to get to the point where running a 5k would be possible, but at least that gives me a concrete goal to work towards.  People on The Biggest Loser are my size and are running full marathons.  I know the human body is capable of it, I just need to get the mind and the lungs on the same page.  And I’m also going to need a sports bra, some new shoes, and a few extra inhalers.


If you see me lying down in the middle of the street somewhere, pay no mind.  I'll get up eventually.

Right now I am pretty much living the life that I always wanted.   I have two healthy children, a wonderful husband who is my best friend and a fantastic father.  We live in rural southern Ohio (which wouldn’t have been my first choice but we wanted to help with planting a new church here), and I am surrounded by friends and family who I am deeply connected with.  I am able to stay home with the kids while Alfred is able to minister to men in prison every day - which brings us both a great sense of fulfillment and purpose.  Things are good.  Most times I don’t feel worthy.

Twenty years ago if you would have told me this was the life I would be living, I probably would have laughed and told you that you had consulted the wrong crystal ball.  I was working between 50-60 hours every week but still always somehow managed to be broke.  I had a thing for a guy who sold marijuana and crack for a living.  I had seen and heard about he and his brothers and some of the things they had done.  They were violent and dangerous.  But they were nice to me so as a young girl, I felt special.  I worked the night shift and I would get off of work at 9 am every morning and go to friend’s houses and we would drink and smoke weed before sleeping for the day - then I’d go back to work that night.  Days off were more of the same - just in greater quantities.  I was broke, tired, and broken.  I thought that having fun would fill that nameless void in my life, but turns out it just made it bigger.

One morning I left the guy’s house who I had a thing for with about 2 ounces of marijuana in my trunk.  I had been asked to take it to a local motel and drop it off to a man that I didn’t know but who was expecting me.  I had just been given his room number.  I was driving a car with expired tags.  I had no insurance and an expired driver’s license.  I was also high.  As I drove down the residential side streets, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw flashing police sirens.  I had to physically hold down my vomit.   At that moment, I knew I was looking at doing prison time.

The cop came to my window and to be honest, I was out of it enough for the whole memory to be pretty hazy.  But I do remember thinking to myself to just hold it together…don’t let him know that I was freaking out.  Just stay calm.  Thoughts of my parents disappointment and wrath went through my head.  Would I lose my job?  Would I lose my place to live?  Why was I such an idiot?

I don’t know if it was the grace of God or if it was someone doing their job poorly that day, but somehow I ended up driving away from that moment with a simple warning to not roll through stop signs.  He didn’t ask for my license or proof of insurance.  He didn’t notice the expired tags.  He didn’t sense that I was not sober.  And he definitely didn’t have reason to look for anything in my trunk.

I went back to my apartment that morning and I laid down on my bed.  I contemplated my own stupidity and all of the what-could-have-beens.  I could be in jail.  I could have killed someone by driving impaired. I could have been raped or killed by the strange man I was delivering drugs to.  In that moment I knew I was being faced with a choice.  I could continue along the same road I was on or I could change.

I remember being on my knees next to my bed praying for God to help me get out of the life I was in.  I was in tears and I was ashamed and scared that I was already in too far.  My prayer was heartfelt and deep.  I wanted to change but wasn’t sure how to do it.  Even though the solution was simple, at the time my brain was foggy and clouded with sin and deception to the point where what was possible seemed impossible.

Less than 24 hours later my phone rang.  It was an old boss from a state away who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in over a year.  She said that there was an opening in one of her locations and had just thought about me and wondered if I might be interested in coming back to work there again.  When I got off of the phone with her, I had my first experience with God where I felt humbled and slightly unnerved by His obvious presence.  He heard my prayer and answered.  He was providing me with a solution to my problem, a way of escape.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened to you:” Matthew 7:7

Why oh why can’t I be one of those people who get all worked up about things?  I would love to go on a tirade and just throw plates against a wall.  Or maybe be so excited about something that I fall to my knees and pump my arms in the air like a tennis player after they win one of the majors.  Just once I’d like to be so emotionally moved by something that I just weep openly without restraint of any sort.  I think it’d be pretty freeing.  I don’t feel like I purposely stuff my feelings down or anything - I just genuinely don’t get THAT emotionally charged about most things.

I know that being less emotional can be a good thing.  I tend to keep a pretty level head during times of crisis.  I am able to remain rational at times when others may be clouded by their anger or hurt feelings.  I can even make it through multiple episodes of The Little House on the Prairie and keep my mascara in tact.  Being a cyborg definitely has it’s advantages.

But one of the disadvantages of being a cold hearted and callous snake is that people, bless their hearts, try so hard to get me excited about this weight loss thing and try though I may, I can‘t get myself whipped up into a frenzy the way I‘d like to.  I WANT to be like Cheri Oteri on Saturday Night Live when she plays Ariana, the Spartan Cheerleader.  Just once I want to feel like Richard Simmons on the inside.  But more often than not when people get perky and try to get me in pep rally moe while I am huffing and puffing or straining to do one more sit-up, I just want to punch them.  Is that bad of me?  I’m sorry, but it’s true.  Not that I would ever do that mind you, but sometimes I really do want to.  And if I’m being completely honest, sometimes even a spoken, “Great job” can make me want to roll my eyes.  I know…I really am a terrible person.

And while I would love love love to feel charged up like Rocky Balboa did after climbing to the Russian mountaintop, what really matters is that despite my Grinchy attitude and my tendency towards mental violence, I keep going when I feel more like Ben Stein in Ferris Buellers Day Off than I do Rocky.  

Maybe some day, with continued effort, I will get to a place where I can be one of those elusive people who actually thrive on doing bizarre things like couch to 5k’s, mud runs, or warrior dashes.  But until then, I will keep doing my planks and trying to not clock people in the side of the head while doing so.

Hmm.  As I write this, I am seeing some inconsistencies.   Apparently I CAN get very emotional about some things.  Maybe that’s a good sign of things to come.

My youngest brother is seven years old.   He is the same age as my son and is about half of my son’s size.  When he was born he only weighed about a pound, so he had some serious catching up to do.  The first several years of his life were spent with oxygen tubes, long hospital stays, and lots of worry filled nights whenever he got the sniffles or a cough.  His lungs were severely underdeveloped due to being a few months premature so any sort of respiratory illness landed him in the pICU for several days.   As he got older his lungs matured and for the most part we have been incident free.  It’s been a few years now since he’s had anything major happen.

Two nights ago I got a text from my mom saying that they had to take him to the emergency room because he was having a hard time breathing and his at home aerosol treatments weren’t doing much.  They ended up admitting him after the hospital administered four  treatments without any change for the better.  He was put on a liter of oxygen (which was later increased to four liters) and has been there since.  From what I understand at this point, they plan on keeping him until he can go without any oxygen and keep his levels up.

Aside from the obvious problem facing him right now, the added difficulty comes in because of the fact that he is already a ridiculously hyper little boy (we’re talking Super Fudge by Judy Blume type hyper), but you add Albuterol (an medication that you inhale to relax the muscles in your lungs) to the mix and watch out…it increases your heart rate and makes even the most docile child a little jittery.  So now he is extra juiced, hooked up to all sorts of IV’s and hoses (which limits his mobility), AND he is overtired because of the nurses being in and out all night.  My poor parents probably will need a hospital stay themselves once this is over. 

Yikes.  My husband would tell me that was a lot of information that could have been summed up in a sentence or two.  I could have said, “This is my hyper little brother Zion who is currently sick and in the hospital and is having a hard time staying still.”  But I am a woman and women like details.  So there you go…those are the details.

What impressed me this morning was that in my mind, I envisioned him sitting in the hospital being miserable.  I thought surely mom and dad would be struggling to keep his spirits up.  But then I got this picture texted to me with an attached message that said, “To Q (my son) from Z (him).”

Even amidst all of the poking, coughing, medicine, and frustration that he is currently facing, he knew my son loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and he wanted to send him a message to make him happy.  In times of crisis, it is amazing to watch how the hearts of children respond.

Matthew 18:3 says “and he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  At what point do our hearts become hardened and jaded?  When does selfishness kick in and we become the center of our own worlds?   When did we stop trying to make other people happy even when we are sick?

Regardless of when it happened, today is the day that I am choosing to stop being cynical and guarded toward other people.  I am going to be like a kid again and offer myself openly and honestly.  I am going to try and cheer other people up - even if I am feeling down myself.

Thanks for the reminder Z!

I love looking at pictures of people before and after major changes.  It doesn’t matter if they are weight loss pictures, makeover pictures, or even post plastic surgery pictures, I love them all.  I am a sucker for pictures of celebrities or models without makeup, and I could probably sit for hours looking at pictures like the one above that show before and after shots of people who use crystal meth.  There is just something fascinating about watching someone’s physical appearance transform so dramatically.

Despite the fact that I have been mistaken on more than one occasion for my grown sister’s mother, I would say that for the most part I look my age.  I have some grey hair that could use a little attention and I have noticed the wrinkles on my forehead getting a little deeper over the last few years, but that doesn’t really bother me.  I’ve never been one to really be too concerned about the physical affects of aging.  But with that being said, I also don’t want to look worse than I have to.  I once befriended a woman who had a pretty extensive history of hard living and drug use and it wasn’t until several months into the friendship that it came to my knowledge that she was a year younger than me.  I could have easily guessed she was at least ten years my senior.

It’s not just the physical appearance that can be affected by our actions.  I know a woman who is in her late fifties who doesn’t look or act a day younger than seventy.  She is riddled with health problems, uses a walker, battles depression, and is often highly dramatic and difficult to be around.  She has allowed life’s troubles and worries to consume her mind, and it eventually began taking over her body.  It is frustrating and difficult to watch when you know that many of her problems were brought on by her own choices.

Sin, in it’s various forms, really will take it’s toll on you.  Proverbs 13:15 says that the way of the unfaithful is hard.  Not only do I think that applies to spiritual consequences, but it also is true when it comes to practical areas such as our relationships with other people, our finances and yes, even our health.  Read the following verses from the book of James:

You can see here that the writer is speaking to people who are sick.  He tells them to call for the elders to have them pray - if he has sins, they will be forgiven.  Then it goes on right after that to tell us to confess our sins to each other SO THAT YOU MAY BE HEALED.  He is still talking to the sick person here.  Sin can bring sickness.

In another book of the Bible, the apostle Paul is writing a letter to a church that is filled with all sorts of issues.  One of the things that they were doing was taking the Lord’s supper while there were divisions about the members.  There hearts were wrong while they were supposed to be doing something to honor Jesus.  Paul then says, in 1 Corinthians 11:29-30, “if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself.  THAT IS WHY MANY OF YOU ARE WEAK AND SICK AND SOME HAVE EVEN DIED.

Just so I don’t get any e-mails or comments saying “My dear grammy is sick and she‘s not a terrible person”, that is not what I am saying.  Is illness always caused by sin or negative thinking?  No, I don’t believe so.  But it is it possible?  If I believe in what the Bible says (which I do), then it can’t really be denied.  Your heart and your mind have a great deal to do with your body.  If you are constantly having physical or health issues, try purifying not just your physical body but your spiritual body as well.

Oh, and don’t do meth.  Because that’ll just make you look gross.

I keep having that song from Yo Gabba Gabba running through my head:

Keep trying.
Keep trying.
Don’t give up (Don’t Stop!)
Never give up (Don’t Stop!)

Profound, I know.  But what else do you expect from a TV show geared towards three year olds that feature some puppets and a robot living inside of some DJ’s boom box?  Hey, it’s better than the Teletubbies or those blasted WonderPets.

I digress.

Anyway, this week has been another re-energization (if that’s even a word) of the weight loss efforts.  Not that I ever completely stopped, but I did start allowing more and more opportunities for cheating - which is a surefire path for me to stop altogether.  It’s like saying, “I’m just going to have one cigarette”…that’s never really the case. Before you know it, you are back into the habit full swing.

Not giving up is definitely the hardest part of losing weight.  It’s a simple numbers game as long as you stick to it.  Calories in vs. calories out.  Follow a routine that gets rid of more calories than you take in and you lose weight.  Seems so simple, right?  It would be were it not for those pesky things like doubt, fear, self-control, and discipline.  Sometimes it feels like you are fighting against every fiber of your being to just stay on track.  And some days it doesn’t happen.

Yesterday I got a small Reese Cup Blizzard from Dairy Queen.  Before ordering I knew I was going to regret it but I ordered anyway.  Half way through I was no longer hungry and thought to myself that I should stop…but I didn’t.  I finished it.  No sooner was it gone and the cup was in the trash  and then the guilt set in.  I had blown it.  I was disappointed in myself.  For the rest of the night I was tempted to just eat what I wanted - I had blown it already, right?  But I didn’t.  I stayed on track for the rest of the day and woke up this morning feeling good about that.

I know it’s hard.  It’s not fun and no matter what they say, it is always going to be more enjoyable to eat pizza than it is to eat baked fish and Brussels sprouts.  But it’s also more enjoyable to be able to look at your efforts and see results.  Even if it is just a pound a week, those pounds will add up to better physical health, mental health, and spiritual health.

So here are some more profound lyrics:

I know - it makes absolutely no sense.  But hey, it says “don’t stop believing” and it’s a good song.  (It’s no Yo Gabba Gabba mind you - but Journey will have to suffice).

When I was a little girl I remember thinking that living forever would be one of the coolest things ever.  It was always one of my wishes in the ever-so-popular “If you had three wishes what would you wish for” question.  I always wondered how old people could say that they were ready to die.  But the older I get the more I understand.  This life is tough.  And while I am thankful for every new day, the eternal part of me can’t wait to be done with this stage of my life.

It’s not that I am a pessimist or depressed or anything, it’s actually quite the opposite.  If I longed to stay here forever and I thought that there was nothing else after this life, THAT would be depressing.   

I’d rather go to a place where there is no sickness and death rather than stay here and watch people die.  Our best friends lost their baby at the beginning of this year.  I have at least five or six close friends with relatives that are dying.  We have to deal with things like high blood pressure, bad backs, the stomach flu and migraines.  We are in a constant state of prevention with issues like heart disease, cancer, and even dementia.  If given presented with the choice to stay here on Earth forever and continue to deal with these worries or to go to a place where these things no longer exist, I choose Heaven every time.

There will be no family problems in Heaven either.  You won’t have to deal with the heartache of disobedient, rebellious kids.  You won’t have to deal with physically or mentally abusive husbands or cold and distant wives.  All insecurities surrounding your ability to be a good wife, mom, husband, father, son or daughter will not even be relevant in Heaven.  I would gladly give up these worries for the chance to be n Heaven with the perfect Father surrounded by fellow brothers and sisters.

Debt
Drug Addiction
Sexual temptation
Sexual Abuse
War
Injustice
Fear
Uncertainty
Boredom
Feelings of worthlessness
Anxiety
Depression
Betrayal
Physical pain
Emotional pain

All of these things I will gladly lay down at the feet of God some day.  He is preparing Heaven for us now.  I may not understand how we’ll get there or what all is involved, but the hope that I will someday be able to go and just bask in the goodness, love, and glory of God is sometimes overwhelming to me.

So if I say something like, “I can’t wait for this life to be over”, don’t think I am depressed and start worrying about me.  You can start worrying if I ever STOP wanting to go home.  This world is not my home.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” Revelation 21:4

Well that didn't last long.  The beloved Twinkie was discontinued for a whopping 6 months before the public outcry was loud enough to bring it back.  Which somewhat surprises me because prior to banning it, I didn't know anyone who actually enjoyed them.

I guess they are the stuff junk food legends are made of though.  I've seen wedding cakes formed from them, seen them in kid's lunches at school, ran across several Pinterest recipes for Twinkie tiramisu, Twinkie cupcakes, and Twinkie strawberry shortcake.  I have even heard that they never spoil. So when the big nuclear apocalypse comes, looks like it'll just bee the Twinkies and the cockroaches left.

I read the following quote from a newspaper article this morning: 

"Twinkies are here to stay, especially since the company is looking at different variations, like a "crunchy" Twinkie (a store-bought version of the deep-fried Twinkie, we imagine), plus other options like gluten-free, added fiber, low-sugar, and low-sodium versions."

Really?  There are so many things wrong with that quote.  First of all, Twinkies with added fiber and lower sugar?  Isn't that like the "near beer" that made a quick appearance in the 90's?  People don't want beer without the alcohol and people don't want their junk food to be healthy.  And on the opposite end of the spectrum, a deep fried Twinkie?  Yikes.  That reminds me of the restaurant that serves a fried egg on top of their 1/2 pound bacon cheeseburger.  Why not just go have a medically induced heart attack and be done with it?

So while some are celebrating the return of the golden, cream filled styrofoam cakes around the world today, dieters beware. Twinkies are a regular cornucopia of unhealthiness.  

Try this instead if you need something to fill your cake craving:

3 Ingredient Lemon Cake
Ingredients
1 box (18.25 oz.) Pillsbury Moist Supreme Lemon Cake Mix
1 can (20 oz.) crushed pineapple in 100% pineapple juice
6 oz. (approximately 3/4 cup) non-fat Greek yogurt – lemon or pineapple flavor

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, prepare a 13×9 baking pan with non-stick spray or line with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl combine all three ingredients making sure to mix thoroughly eliminating any pockets of dry cake mix. The batter will be thick.
When fully combined, pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 – 40 minutes until a tooth pick or cake probe can be inserted and removed cleanly.

Per serving: calories 154, fat 2.6, carbohydrates 32, fiber .3, protein 1.7, PP=4

This morning as I did my daily scan of various websites for today’s news, I stumbled across an article on Yahoo titled, “My Girlfriend Weighs More Than Me.”  Surprised that something so seemingly trivial made national news, I read the article to see if there was more to it than the headline revealed.  There wasn’t.  It was the story of an overweight woman who had met and fell in love with a thin and fit man.  The article highlighted the challenges that they faced when it came to other people’s perceptions of their relationship (mainly about how people always are shocked that he would choose her).

Just two articles down was another one about obesity.  This one was about how the Boy Scouts banned kids that didn’t meet the height and weight requirements from their annual Jamboree this year.  They felt that the activities in the Jamboree were too physically intense for obese children and by banning them, it would give them a reason to create healthy lifestyle changes for the future.

Yet one more article was discussing Governor Chris Christie’s weight loss surgery and whether or not a person of his size could be elected to the office of President of the United States.

Later, I got on the scale to weigh myself and made the apparent mistake of allowing my seven year old to see the number.  The following conversation ensued:

Q:  "Mom, there is no way you weigh more than Dad!  He is a LOT taller than you!"

Me:  "Well, he is taller but I weigh more."

Q:  "How?"

Me:  "Because I have more fat on my body than he does."

Q:  "So does that mean that you are fat?"

Me:  "The word fat can sometimes seem rude but yes, I am a bigger than the doctors say I should be."

Q:  "Am I fat?  Because _____ told me that I was fat.  They said I have boobs"

Me:  "What do you think?"

Q:  "I’d say I’m just kind of chubby.  But mostly just strong.  And boys don‘t have boobs, they have pecs."

Me:  "I’d say I’d agree with you.  It doesn’t matter what other people think of you, what matters is that you try your best to be healthy."

Q:  “Makes sense.  Which face do you think looks more like a fish, this one (makes face) or this one (makes another face)?”

Obviously he didn’t seem to be TOO affected, however, being overweight does cause issues.  If not with yourself, with other people.  Finding the right balance between teaching our kids (and ourselves) to be healthier while still maintaining a healthy self image is a very difficult task, and one that can sometimes be blurred by our own hurts and emotions.  So what do we do?

First, I think we have to keep things in perspective eternally.  Focus on the fact that God made our bodies and he wants us to take care of them.  But the way that we look doesn’t matter to God - what matters to him is our heart.
  
“The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” - 1 Samuel 16:7

Secondly, we should focus on our strengths.  Much like Q said, he looks at his strength as his defining characteristic, not his size.  If as adults we all did that (without self depreciating comments and thoughts), we would live in a much cheerier and efficient world.

"Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them." Romans 12:6

Lastly, we should have honest dialogue with ourselves and our children about the benefits of being healthy rather than nag and lecture about the downfalls of being fat.  It’s a matter of semantics but it affects the mental processes involved in self identity.  Focusing on the positive aspects of change rather than the negative aspects of staying the same have proven to be more effective motivators over  the long haul.  Goodness knows that our mental state has a great deal to do with our success or failure in weight loss efforts.

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Ephesians 4:29

If you are overweight, I can empathize with the issues that you face in today’s culture surrounding your appearance.  Fair or not, the judgments can sometimes be painful and hurtful.  Hang in there and remember that you are more than the number on the scale.  God has created you and is deeply passionate when it comes to His love for you - and ultimately that is all that matters.

I had a conversation with someone this morning that shed some light on the way that one's mind works.  I've been thinking about it all day and thought I'd share and see what your thoughts are.

We were talking about setting up some equipment (mats, resistance bands, free weights, exercise ball, etc...) in my basement so we could work out down there regularly.  We both don't mind strength or resistance training but we both hate cardio (treadmill, running, biking).  As a matter of fact, I hate cardio so much that I often dread it so much that I just don't do anything.


Is cardio beneficial? ABSOLUTELY.  Is it something that should be done for good overall health?  Of course.  Ideally, would I be better off if I combined cardio and strength training?  I think so.  BUT, if I am currently at a place in my journey where I feel like I've tried to stick by all of the "shoulds" and "should nots" and have repeatedly failed, maybe I need to make my own lists of things I should and shouldn't do.  Stop beating myself over what I haven't been able to do and start looking at what I CAN do and then build on it.


I'm not trying to convince you to not do cardio exercises, I promise.  But I am asking you to just pay attention to what areas repeatedly seem to thwart your efforts and then see if you can work around it.  Maybe, for where you currently are in your journey, you are asking too much of yourself.  Start small and then work your way up to where you want to be.


In my last post I mentioned that I was making some adjustments to my weightloss plan.  I'm adding something else.  I am going to temporarily suspend my daily cardio and replace it with some resistance exercises.  Because doing something is better than doing nothing.