Losing Weight At A Snail's Pace

   Lately, I have gotten pretty doggone lazy. I haven't quit exercising altogether. I still do water aerobics, but only on Mondays. And my walking? Well, I guess I've really wimped out on my walking/jogging lately (I call it wogging). I know..I know... I just talked about wanting to jog in my last post and I still believe that God showed me to keep trying if I wanted His help. Truth is...I have no excuse for why I have gotten lazy. I can blame it on lack of time, but I am sitting here typing (of course it is storming right now) instead of exercising.
   I could say it's because I have been working out in the heat for the last two weeks, but if I tried harder I could wake up early and go for a morning jog. I have a membership at the YMCA that is a 10 minute drive from my house, but once I sit down (especially after supper) I am down for the count. Don't get me wrong. I am still losing and have actually gotten down to 169.6 from my starting weight of 207.4. But if I don't get moving, I will stall out. It's funny how you know what to do sometimes but don't do it.
     I still track all my food, write my Scripture and write down my nightly prayer journal. Now I just need to get moving!!!!!!  Any advise or tips from my friends and supporters would be very helpful. (Oh, yeah, I did do a little dancing up in Virginia this past weekend. If I flatfooted like that every day I would surely get my metabolism going, but the joints won't allow such pounding before they would start to scream. )
  So this is where I am in this journey. Not where I was, but not quite there yet.

                                                                  
                                                        

My Message From God; "I Can't Help You If You Don't Try."

   After walking a 5k in May, I am determined to do it again and next time I will jog or run. The problem is, my calves are sooo tight before  the race. By the end, I was grimacing. I had shin splints (tightening of the shins) after going from the pavement to the dirt path. Over 45 minutes later at the finish line I was second to last, in front of a lady who was in her sixties and had knee surgery the year before. Most of the race, I was ahead of her and a pregnant lady (who was pushing a child in a stroller). Then of all things, the pregnant lady passed me right before the finish line.
      But I kept my chin up and accepted congratulations for finishing the race. I tried jogging around the neighborhood last week and it was like I just could not get my legs to lift up and step forward when I started trying to pick up speed. I even dreamed that I was trying to run and my legs would not go. I have really been stressing about it until this for a few weeks now. I have been planning on going out every morning for a jog or at least a walk to start up my metabolism. This past Monday morning, while still in bed, I told my husband I would put off my morning walk.
 I laid there for a few minutes and then I started feeling guilty. It was then that these words just popped in my head...... "I can't help you if you don't try."  I knew that this was a message straight from God. So I got my butt up, got ready and went out the door. When I came back in Monday, I told my 16 yr old son that I had hardly gotten going when that awful feeling had come back. He, being a runner (although in hiatus because of a recent hip surgery) showed me some calf stretches and helped me to hold them enough to do some good. I have taken his advise and went out the last two mornings for a short wog, walk/jog in my neighborhood. And I can tell that God is doing what I asked.
  My legs are loosening up and I know that I will be able to make record time (for me) the next time I try that 5k trail again. Praise be to God for the changes in my life both physically and spiritually. He is working on me and He can do the same for you too. Nothing is too small or too big for My God!!!

Tip # 1....Try the Blue Plate Special! You'll eat less!

Last week I read in a magazine that eating out of blue dinnerware can trick your mind into not wanting seconds. Well, being in the painting business, I know first hand that colors do affect your mood. So, I gave it a try and found two light blue plates in my cabinet and some matching bowls.The result....... I think it really works!!! The theory is that blue is such a calming color that it satisfies you more when you eat food in a blue plate. Never eat from red or in a room with lots of red. Red makes you hungry. Now you know why alot of restaurants paint their walls red. Especially Italian. Sooooo, start pulling out the blue or buy you a calming blue table setting. Maybe it's all in the mind, but if it works, I don't care how. Just that it does!!

How do looking at these plates make you feel????????? 





It's Fun To Stay At The YMCA!!!!!!

                       

 And go camping and fishing and swimming and.......... well you get my drift. I have been sooo busy. For Mother's day I got a YMCA membership (for the whole family) and I love it!!! Water aerobics are awesome and the Fitlinxx training system set up there helps me stay motivated and allows me to get personal advise from wellness coaches. And now the drumroll.......... I have lost 35.2 lbs!!!!  Adding activities is very motivating, but....... for the last few weeks I have had a little trouble with craving carbs afterwards. Solution??? Recommitt and ask God to renew my mind. This past week I had a 2.6 lb. weight loss after gaining .6 last week. God is soooo good.

                             

20 lbs Is A Charm

  I am excited because I am nearly at my 10% goal since starting Weight Watchers in February! I need 8 tenths of a pound to get a key ring and start collecting my charms. I wish I could count those 7 lbs I lost before starting the meetings, but I know that it is gone and that is enough reward. I plan on Walking/running a 5k (which is 3.1 miles) by May 22 for the W.W. 5k challenge. I will get my first charm for that. I am very excited and feel like a different person already! Thank you God for helping me to believe in myself!
  I am eating healthy meals and encouraging my family to do the same. I have looked up super foods and started eating spinach instead of regular lettuce. My portions have gotten smaller and my energy is increasing. I love it when I can set a goal and actually achieve it!!

Not Mine, But Thine Lord

   After trying to succeed on my own, I have realized that I can only control what is within my power to control. The question is..... Do I have power over my eating, my daily walk, my talk, my every move, my every temptation, my every thought? Nope. No one has! Not as long as they are in this body. Realization is... I sin. I take things for granted. I expect to solve things on my own and then go to God when I can't handle it myself. Sound familiar? If so, then you are admitting that you are human too.

   So what I did next has been a revelation to myself and others. I talked to God and said, "Lord, I turn this over to you. Free me from this cycle of eating too much". Then I got out a notebook and dated Wednesday, March 16 and I wrote everything I had eaten that day. EVERYTHING. I left nothing out and didn't fudge at all on the amounts of foods that I had consumed. My total was 48 points. That was 19 points over my daily points allowance. I wrote my weight down too. It was then down to 194.4.

    I wrote that exact prayer on the bottom of that page and It was like God said, "Go to My Word and I will guide you". I opened up my Bible to the 17th chapter of Matthew. At the top of the next page in my notebook, I wrote this verse...If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will be moved and nothing will be impossible for you.

   My mountain is being moved! This mountain of belly fat has made me have digestion problems, made my blood pressure extremely high, made my legs hurt, my energy low, my joints achy. I could go on and on. I know that to some people this doesn't seem like a case of severe obesity, but even 10 extra pounds can make a difference when it comes to your health. An extra 50  lbs has been taking a toll on my body and my self esteem for many years.

   God has helped me to start writing down scripture and recording my prayer journal along with my food journal. I haven't missed a day of being honest, being prayerful and thanking God for what he is doing within my body. This body is not mine. It is a vessel that I am borrowing while here on earth. But, God expects me to take care of it so it can be used for His glory. So I try to remember every day; "Not Mine, But Thine Lord. Not Mine, But Thine."

                                               

                                          Here I am today!!!!    April 7th at 184 lbs.!!!!!!

                                                                             

 

Little Debbie is NOT my friend!

                                                                            
  I have had a rough week and weighing in after a bad week is dreadful! Headaches and not journaling all week can cause someone to be tempted to skip a meeting. But I sucked it up and went on my merry way to WW. When I stepped on the scale, I closed my eyes and waited for the bad news.
   It is a very intense moment when you weigh in, because you cannot see your numbers anyway. The lady looks at her little screen and starts writing in your booklet. You have to kinda peer over at it or wait for her to hand it to you. Of course if you lose any, she says "congratulations", but I had went ahead and let her and those around me know that I was expecting a gain. She says "Not too bad, only a two tenths gain. Try stepping off the scale and blowing out all your air and let me weigh you again". I thought she was joking. Then she says "Go ahead, it works sometimes". I stepped back (feeling rather stupid), blew out all my air, stepped back on the scale and guess what??? It didn't work.
   Well I just thanked God for such a low gain. I made sure to tell the class to always count before eating when you are sick, because I had ate four Little Debbie Oatmeal Cakes the day before this meeting (not all at one time). I had been sick with a terrible headache and a gigantic appetite for carbs. When I counted the points I had eaten twenty points in Little Debbie cakes alone!!! My daily limit is twenty nine. We all concluded that day that Little Debbie is not our friend.

No More Monkeying Around

                                                        No More Monkeying Around!

     Wow! I had a good week on my 3rd. weigh in. I lost 3.8 lbs. for a total of 13lbs. down. Actually I need to say "shed" or "got rid of" those pounds, because when you lose something it sounds like you need to find it. So anyway, I had a good week. I decided to start attending the Saturday morning meetings because I was planning to attend a water exercise class on Monday nights. But, during this Saturday meeting they were talking about using the 48 bonus points each week. I had not been using mine, but I had not measured exactly and had guessed on some points values.
   I had not journaled but three days this week either. One lady said she used her bonus points after her weigh in as a reward. I had not had a "reward" in a month. I left that meeting thinking "What is my favorite thing to eat?" A reward should be heavenly, right?
   So my choice was a pecan log roll. A small one, of course. So I left the meeting and stopped at two convenience stores only to find that nobody had any. A peanut butter delight wouldn't do. It had to be a pecan log roll!!! So I thought about the CVS close by and guess what?  No luck there either. Well, wouldnt'you know that my 14 yr. old son was calling my cell, wondering where I was.
    I had to get home but I was like a shark on the hunt for blood. So I stopped at one more gas station and grabbed a Reeces cup. Before I got home I stopped at another store to throw away the wrapper. I felt really guilty and hid the evidence of my error from my family. I didn't write down my foods for the next week either. What a slump. Something had to give and I needed to stop this monkey business. But how????

  I can't believe I let myself get to the size I was in this picture. I had so much heartburn, so many aches and pains. But that was then and this is now. So lets get back to my weight loss journey.
    I was at my second WW meeting and I saw that I had lost only 2.2 lbs. I thought I would lose more than that in water weight. But slow and steady is suppose to be the way to go and I accepted that. I listened to the stories and was encouraged to do well the next week. I left the meeting and went to the local bowling alley where my husband is in a league. As soon as I walked in, the food smell hit my nose. They just had to put the snack bar right beside the front door. I could smell french fries and burgers.
   Temptation was setting in. As I turned the corner, lo was behold, there was a display of candy bars. I spotted the Reeces Cups but turned away real quick like. It was hard to endure. I went and got a cup of sweet tea just to get a bit of sugar and made it through the night.
 The next day I realized I didn't count that tea nor had I been counting any of the sweet tea I had drank all week. Honesty was yet to be acquired when it came to my food log and it would show eventually. Oh well, another week to do better!!!

Good Intentions

   My first Weight Watchers weigh in was on Valentines Day at a Monday night meeting. I had already lost 7 lbs.on my own. I was excited, but saddened by the fact that I could not count those pounds while others in the class were celebrating and getting stars for losing 5 lbs. As I looked around the nearly filled room, I saw a very good friend from my church there. I never would have thought she needed Weight Watchers. She waved for me to sit beside her and then whispered that she was a lifetime member who had lost over 40 lbs.
    This immediately gave me encouragement to do this thing. But, finding out that all my old WW books were obsolete (because it was now "Points Plus") was a dissapointment. I wasn't about to pay that much money again for the new calculater, recipe books, points guide etc. So I figured I would sign into WW online and get help.
  Online I found what I needed to "get by" until I could afford to at least get the calculator.  Oh, how I missed the the old slide scale used to calculate points. This was going to be difficult. At least the way I was going about it all was a good effort and the next weigh in would tell.

How The Struggle Began

    I was always a skinny thing who could eat you out of house and home for the first 23 years of my life. Even after having two children I was thin. (I had a preemie daughter at age 18 and then a stillborn baby girl at age 20.)  I was a lean, tanned size 7.  Then I met the man who would be my love, my life and my forever companion. He still is today. But the first year was financially hard and we lived on love, beans, taters, biscuits and gravy. After the first year of marraige I had went from the 120's to the 160's , but hey, he had gained about the same. No dancing on weekends can really make a difference. But we were married and in love and I finally had a butt. But when I got to the 170's and didn't lose it after 3 more years, I knew I needed to do something. So I started walking and cutting out fat.
      I walked and walked and dieted and really did good. My goal was the 130's. But when I got down to 140 I started getting sick. I thought I had overdone it but in actuality it was God blessing us with our own child. He was two weeks late and I was miserable. I walked in to have him weighing 207. That's a 67lb. weight gain. I stayed swollen after bringing him home and had terrible headaches. Found out it was high blood pressure. Then I found out that  my thyroid had completely stopped working. But I managed to lose down to 180. Two years later, I walked in the hospital at 211 to have my second baby boy.
       That was 14 years ago and I have been on yoyo diets, lost and gained, lost and gained the same 20 pounds over and over again. This past January I was  up to 207 pounds and I couldn't blame it on pregnancy this time. It was pure FAT.  I had indigestion and depression about my big ol' belly. Kowing that I am not getting any younger, I started eating better, lost 7 lbs. on my own before joining Weight Watchers on Valentine's Day, 2011 for the  THIRD time. But this time I committed my struggle with weight to God and I know that HE is my strength!!!!
       You see, I was leaving God at home when I joined the other times. This time I have created my own Food journal that includes Scripture, A Daily Food Diary and a Prayer Journal. I will continue to blog and share my journey until I reach my goal. I hope you will join me. As I write this, I am proud to say that I now weigh 186.6. Thank God!!! I will get there. 150 here I come!!!