Weigh In - 12/9/09

Okay, so I'm down 4 pounds since my last weigh in. I'm officially at 223.2. Still, a long ways to go, but I'll take 4 pounds any day!

Travel Tuesday

So it's about 8 days later and I'm sitting in the airport at Washington Dulles waiting for my flight home. I'm excited to be headed home and to see my husband and my boys. I miss them a lot when I travel. I'm nervous to see what I weigh in at. It's not that I overate while I was on the trip, but I'm sure not going to win any weight-loss awards after all the pad thai and coke I've had over the past week. So I'm nervous about that.

I feel like I get in these spurts where I try to overachive and go after several goals at once. I'm usually afraid to take them one at a time for fear that I won't get to the second goal and will flounder after the first one and in the end, achieve nothing. So right now, I'm trying to get heavily back into my Bible study, lose weight, and get everything done for the holidays. The last one will either happen or not happen, but the other two are long term paths I just need to work on.

You've heard my run down on weight loss, so I won't belabor that. For my Bible study, I'm trying to get back into discipleship and I'm getting back together with my mentor after the first of the year, which I'm SUPER excited about. I desperately need the accountability. I'm back on the discipleship track I got derailed on, and I'm working on book 7 of 10 right now (that's where I stopped before). It's about evangelism and I have to say that's probably.... well, I was going to say that that's probably one of my weakest areas right now, but I have to admit that as a Christian, I'm weak all around in Bible study, prayer, fellowship, worship, etc. Hence the renewed push to get back into God's Word and derive some power from that.

For now, I'm going to take it one step at a time. I'm headed home first to be with my family, and right now, that's my number one goal.

Sizing It Up

It's Sunday and I'm sitting in an airport, Chicago O'Hare to be exact. I'm on my way to Bangkok for a work trip. But this post isn't about my travels to Bangkok. Rather it's about my new journey to lose weight. Let me tell you a little bit about my physique right now. I'm 227.5 pounds (I weighed in on Friday). The only time I've weighed more is when I was pregnant with Isaac, and after he was born I shrunk down to 220, so I'm already weighing more than I did then. I'm bordering between being a size 18 and size 20, although I'm quickly learning that if I'm shopping in the plus ladies section, I'm more likely to be an 18 and if I'm in the regular clothes section, the 18s don't really fit. Funny, they make the bigger girls feel better by making the clothes a bit bigger. But that's one of the things I don't like right now. I'm officially shopping in the fat ladies store, the stores I swore I'd never go into when I was pregnant. The stores I swore I'd lose the weight I needed to so I'd never have to enter. But now I find myself in there for emergency outfits because the three outfits I have no longer fit and I have to find something to wear.

Shopping aside, there are other things I don't like about where I am physically right now. I can't climb the stairs at my house without getting winded. I have a gut that somewhat makes me look like I'm pregnant. I can't run around with Jacob and play with him like I want to. I have a bad double chin, and parts of my face just sort of fade into my neck so it appears there's no separation between face and neck. My legs, the ones I used to pride myself on, are starting to look too fat to put in a skirt, not that I can find skirts that fit. I have tubs of clothes in smaller sizes in cute styles I can't wear.

So needless to say, I need to lose weight. I need to do it to feel better about myself in lots of ways and I need to get healthier. So my goal is to lose weight. I don't know how much. I'm going to try to celebrate every few pounds. But I do need some goals. So here goes: If I lose 10 pounds, I can get a new pair of workout shoes. If I get down to 200 pounds, I can get a treadmill. Not sure how I'll pay for that (I'm also broke, which is a whole other write-up), but that's my goal. Hopefully I can get there in short order. I'm hoping for the 10 pounds by the end of December. That's close to 2 pounds a week, which is healthy weight loss.

So anyway, stay tuned. Doing this is going to require discipline, so any encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

It's been a while....

Okay, so it's been a LOT longer than I had originally thought since I lasted posted on here. But I'm alive and kickin' and still here. I did have a new Inspirational Mix so I wanted to post on that. Here it is. This one's very eclectic, from slow ballads to war cries to open worship to blues folksy.

- Garbage In - Tal & Acacia (Girl rock, but with an awesome message)
- Get Up - Mary Mary (Classic Mary Mary, get on your feet)
- God Speaking- Mandisa (A sweet ballad)
- I'm Letting Go - Francesca Battistelli (A bit like Sheryl Crow, but with God's power)
- I'm Not Who I Was - Brandon Heath (This one hits very close to home for me)
- I Will Not Be Moved - Natalie Grant (I call this one the war cry, take a listen and you'll know why)
- In the Hands of God - Newsboys (Classic Newsboys, slow beats)
- It's Your Life - Francesca Battistelli
- Just Wanna Say - Israel Houghton (Israel, but with a hip hop twist)
- Love Him Like I Do - Deitrick Haddon, Mary Mary & Ruben Studdard (definitely hip hop beats)
- Make Some Noise - Krystal Meyers (This one's a fun one from a Christian artist)
- The Motions - Matthew West (A slow ballad from a talented artist)
- Stand Out - Tye Tribbett & G.A. (Hip hop that makes you want to "wave your standard" for God)
- Washed By the Water - Needtobreathe (A personal favorite, slow and "southern")
- What Would It Be Like - Salvador (Upbeat and all-around awesome)
- When the Saints - Sara Groves (One that I hope Grant has someone perform in church one day)
- Yeah - Yolanda Adams (Got my hands in the air with this one - while I'm driving - oops!)
- You Gotta Move - Ashley Cleveland (Blues folksy, never heard a Christian song like it)

Love Dare Day 26 - Love is Responsible

It's day 26 - "love is responsible". Today's message really hit home with me. There were several parts that made me really think about my relationship with Dale. "Love is not nearly as concerned with its own performance as with others' needs. When love takes responsibility for its actions, it's not to prove how noble you've been but rather to admit how much further you have to go." The passage goes on to ask "how deliberate are you about making sure your spouse's needs are met?" I have to say that I've been very "me" focused lately, and making sure I take care of Dale hasn't been a huge priority. Even though I'm doing the Love Dare, I'm doing the challenges for each day, but not really much more than that. I really need to make a concerted effort to make Dale more of a priority. Today's challenge is to identify areas of wrongdoing, then admit them first to God, then to your spouse and ask for forgiveness. I'm really going to have to have a heart-to-heart with Dale when he gets home and tell him how much I realize I've been neglecting him.

Today's Bible verse is Romans 2:1: "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things." I have to wonder, how often am I guilty of thinking how Dale should do more for me, when in reality, I should be doing more for him and not worrying about what he's doing for me. It's definitely selfish thinking and something that needs to be prayed on.

Love Dare Day 25 - Love Forgives

On day 25, "love forgives". I actually find this to be a fairly easy day, although the chapter warns that it might be difficult. The challenge is to forgive your spouse for whatever wrong they may have caused. I don't really have anything in my life that I need to forgive Dale for. I don't really feel like, to this point in our lives, he's ever wronged me. So, today was actually an easy day.

Today's Bible verse is 2 Corinthians 2:10: "If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake," I do have one person in my life who wronged me that I still, to this day, have a hard time forgiving. I pray about it often and ask God to help me move past it. It's still painful to think about at times, but I know God can heal all things.

Love Dare Day 24 - Love vs. Lust

In day 24, we look at "love vs. lust". The message today is that we lust after things in this world, both sexually and materially and that lust is really "a misguided thirst for satisfaction that only God can fulfill." So the challenge today is to "identify every object of lust in your life and remove it." I think this one is easier said than done because lust is an emotion that comes from thoughts in your head. And once a thought enters your head, it's not easy to erase, if that's even possible. But I do find that the more I'm in God's word studying and spending time in prayer, the less "lustful" I am and the more focused on God and Dale that I am.

Today's Bible verse is 1 John 2:17: "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." I want to be grounded in the knowledge of my eternal salvation and I know that part of that is living for God and doing his will, rather than focusing on the will of the world. I just hope that I'm doing that somewhat successfully (i.e., living for God) and showing a good example to my children.