Halfway There!

Yes-I'm (over by 3lbs) halfway to my goal weight!

 

I couldn't find a good before picture, I had one, but I put it in some obscure folder and now I can't find it-ha!
Since February 2012 I have now lost a total of 38 pounds!
That may be slow to some, but for me, its pretty darn good. I haven't lost this much at one time ever, unless you count that baby weight that hangs on for 6 weeks postpartum before you start to be able to button your pants again.
I think what I'm most proud of is that I'm still doing it, still working on it, and weight keeps coming off. Despite having 4 kids, school activities, summer, work, and all those other things in life that are easy excuses to put off exercising or taking time to make a healthy meal. I'm still not perfect at this new lifestyle, but every day I have a choice to make. If I fail, I pick back up and start again the next meal, if I succeed, I anxiously await those numbers to fall on the scale.
I can't tell you how many times I've tried on old jeans, you know, the one that fit me 8 years ago? The ones that I could totally button up today-YES! Victory!! Well almost, until I realized they were flared and not just tiny flare, I mean, they almost could have been bell bottoms.
sigh.
So long Silvertab jeans,I really thought we were going to be friends again, but you've gone out of style and I have to move on-or be made fun of.
I have that anxious energy to go buy new things-go shopping period is something I hated to do before and now I am loving it, have so many more options and yet I'm such a jeans and t-shirt kinda girl, I get sort of dazed when I approach the clothing section. I'll give myself time to acclimate back into the world of shopping-when I get even closer to my goal weight ;)
Josh has been training me a few nights a week at QC Barbell and still doing the Take Shape for Life program with the Medifast foods.
More updates to follow :)

Weightloss Journey

It's now July and I have been working intentionally on losing weight for 5 months now.
In the beginning it was a struggle to make the changes, but I got it going and saw fast results. I'm just about halfway(1 pound away!) from my goal weight and while I feel I have done well, I can still get down when I think about how much further I need to go. I can easily focus on all my problem areas, feel self-conscious about myself and how I look-and I need to constantly remind myself-that's not ALL its about.

My goal isn't to be skinny, my goal is to be healthy.

I am human though and I will admit that my horrible self-esteem has kept me from public pools. I'm not saying I don't have a slight panic attack before we head out to a pool, but I do have to get my mind in check and realize I didn't go to the pool for any other reason than to have fun with my family, my kids don't care what I look like-just that I'm there-playing with them.
I was out jogging (yes-still attempting the jogging-ha!) and was really about ready to quit, I mean so ready to be done I about called Josh to come pick me up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a car slow and window roll down and thought..great, this person must think I'm dying and need assistance...when I heard her shout-"Yeah! Looking good! Keep going!"I recognized her as a parent from our kids school, I smiled, shouted a thanks and pressed on. The Lord knew I needed a push that morning and I was so surprised she would cheer me on, and I am SO thankful  for her encouragement, I finished well that day and she probably doesn't even know how much she helped me that day.
When you change your heart, you get a complete, long lasting change, when you only work on the surface, its temporal. I know I need to constantly keep myself in check, the way I do that is through prayer. I used to think that God wasn't interested in my weight. I don't think he cares about a size, but I do believe He cares about what I'm putting into and doing to my body. I've ruined mine with food and laziness, and with His mercy and strength,  I'm on the road to long lasting, healthy changes. Daily I have to ask for His strength regarding my food choices, to keep my mind in check, remembering this is a process and its not going to happen over night. Knowing that He will be with me every step of the way.

Divine Intervention

I've been working through a study by Priscilla Shirer on Jonah: Navigating a Life Interrupted. I didn't think about the title too much until the first week of study where we watched the video and I started to think about all the ways I'm interrupted: phone calls, work, kids, flat tires, etc. Nothing major, right? I got that uneasy feeling by the end of the night, I'm in this study for a reason, does that mean a bigger interruption is heading my way? I prayed that would not be the case and yet dug in to see what God wanted to teach me-whether interruption was coming or not.

I keep referring to it as interruptions, but what I'm currently focusing on is taking..whatever the circumstance is.. and attributing it to a Divine Intervention. Whether big or small, if I look at whatever the task at hand is, as from the Lord, my attitude will *hopefully* navigate towards the positive. Life needs balance and when a tiny kink, a medium sized wrench, or a giant boulder is thrown into my day, I get thrown off kilter. There is no balance or peace that can be compared to that which comes from the Lord.

The week our Divine Intervention came into our family she started the lesson with John 16:33

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world"

I love that my Bible has the red lettering for words that Jesus spoke, because especially that night, in that moment, reading those words was complete joy for my soul. Jesus spoke these words.. not that we might have tribulation.. that we WILL... and that He already had it covered. He has our back. He will give us peace.
She then took oranges, limes and a lemon and squeezed the juice out into a glass while speaking about Jonah getting a second chance, that God spoke to him a second time and she said..." only after we've been squeezed, can we be poured out and be a blessing to others"
Now I don't know what the blessing to others looks like in my life, but I do know.. I'm being squeezed, I hope and pray that somewhere in my life I will do as God asks and that my obedience will bless another and glorify Him.
I sat there that night just in awe of our God. How great and awesome He is, to speak to me. The Creator of the world would reach down, in my unworthiness, and speak..to me? He did, and He does-to all of us. He loves us so much and that love is amazing and I felt it that night and have tried to just seek Him out daily to get filled with the love that can only come from Him.  I don't enjoy being squeezed right now, being pushed to my limits emotionally, having my faith tested and tried, but another thing Priscilla said that gave me hope is that "the enemy will never push you into a place where you need God more" Oh how true that is-the enemy only wants to make my life turn from the Lord and into myself. This Divine Intervention has turned Josh and I to Him more and even though we could be in turmoil and fear-we have peace. Actually we even have joy. We are having fun, laughing, all the while being realistic about our situation, we know God has moved us to this place for a reason. 

The test is to be patient, be willing, and trust. 

While I know I've been vague on our Divine Intervention, I cannot share yet what that is. Soon I will be able to, and in the meantime, prayers are appreciated, mostly that Josh and I will be steadfast, listening to the Lord and have discernment over all of this.
Our journey of 2012 started with our health and we are still fervently working on this area, excited about the changes that are happening within this area of our lives and continuing on daily. I am almost to my halfway point to my goal weight, and the journey will continue for the rest of our lives as this isn't a one time deal, this is forever change. The rest of 2012 is a mystery, but we are leaving it in the capable hands of our Creator and will end with this, specifically for this situation,
2 Samuel 22:50 "For this I will praise you, o Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to your name"

WIC Peer Counseling

As many of you know I work for Women, Infants, Children(WIC) as a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor. I got hired in December of 2009 and have been working to support women in their breastfeeding(BF) goals ever since.
My job doesn't seem like much, making phone calls, teaching some classes, hosting support groups, etc, but I feel it actually is a very important job.  If you've never had any trouble BF, or never even had the inclination to breastfeed, you may wonder why its such a big deal, but if you are a mom, or know a mom that struggled with BF or never knew anything about it but wanted to know how to do it, maybe even had help from a peer counselor-you may know what I'm speaking about.
This isn't about making someone BF, or making them feel bad about not BF, or how long they did, this is about every mom that wanted to, struggled to and didn't know where to turn to.
When I start hearing in the news that our government wants to completely cut the funding of the WIC Peer Counseling program I don't feel upset about that for my own job, but for all those moms, who possibly won't have the opportunity to FREE help from their local WIC offices. Sure, there are Lactation Consultants(IBCLC) at local hospital's, private practice IBCLC's, La Leche League leaders, etc. who are MORE than capable, to help a mom with BF, I refer my clients to them often and believe they are SO important to moms as well. You know the difference though? As a peer counselor, my job is to seek YOU out. As a peer counselor I have my clients in a binder, a call list and my job is to consistently check in with prenatal and postpartum mom's. I have my phone with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, no really.. I do. A mom that is on WIC can reach me at anytime if she has a question or a BF issue, sometimes mom's want help, sometimes they don't-the most important thing? I and hundreds of other peer counselor's in the United States are ready, willing and available to help a mom through one of the most crucial start's of a baby's life.
What am I asking of you?
If you feel that BF support is important, whether for yourself or you can understand what other mom's in our community, our state, our country need this type of support, please click this link and fill out the form to let your representative know that you want this put back into the funding.

Legislative Action
Tell your representative

Camping(picture heavy)

We went camping this weekend, just one night, but for me-it was enough. I'm just not an outdoorsy person., I haven't ever really cared for it, but I go and do my best not to complain and really, Josh loves to camp and I want the kids to have the opportunity to love-or hate it-for themselves!
We went after church on Sunday to Wildcat Den(after watching the movie, The Grey, I wasn't thrilled with our camping spot).
The kids help set up the tent:

 and then we basically let the kids play and we relaxed until it was time to start the fire which the girls were fascinated by the flint:

Josh thought those huge campfire marshmallows would be good for smores but we found they were a pain to cook,the kids didn't care!

It took Kaylyn 10 minutes to get through this!
Here are my 4(..well 5 though he didn't want his picture taken) reasons for going camping!

Made to Crave

I mentioned this book in my last post and I wanted to talk about it a bit more.
I'm not yet at my goal weight, but my heart is there and in time I'm going to get there. I've half-heartedly  tried to lose weight after every child. I pushed it from the front of my "must fix now" list because I didn't feel convicted it was a big problem. So what if I had extra pounds or more than just extra, I "just" had a baby, or I had 4 kids, aren't I allowed to have an imperfect body? Imperfect? Yup. Eating what I wanted, being lazy, not exercising? Nope. I knew better than that, but I excused it away, made it acceptable. The only problem was I didn't feel good about the way I looked, the way I felt in my clothes. I heard about Lysa Terkhurst and her book Made to Crave. I got excited about it the way I got excited about every other New, Exciting, Amazing weight loss program. I of course got online and checked out the book, the resources, the freebies and thought, cool! I'll like that on facebook and be good! Add that to my growing list of emails, you know, Weight Watchers, Jillian (from Biggest Loser), Biggest Loser, Spark People...you know how all those emails you sit and read motivate you to eat right and workout! Yea. No.
So I ignored it like I did everything else but I kept hearing more about it through radio, facebook, and got the guilt trip.

AKA-

conviction 

 Black Friday. Yup. That's when I picked it up. The Family Christian Bookstore had it for the Doorbuster sale of $5! So I picked it up and stacked it and there it sat for the next month. I had told a friend and my mom that I had bought it, so they would ask me every so often-"Hey! Did you start that book yet?" ummm. no, I didn't. Tomorrow. I totally will start it tomorrow. 

I'm not even sure what day I actually did pick it up on, but once I did. I was done. I didn't even make it to chapter one.

 Lysa had me at Introduction

The introduction is titled: Finding your "Want to".  I mean really, how did she know? God knew. I had heard her speak the little blurbs on KLOVE from her Proverbs 31 ministries and knew she was enjoyable and fun to listen to and her book was no different. So right there on the intro page is this:

 "It's not the "how to" that's missing. It's the "want to"... really wanting to make changes and deciding that the results of those changes are worth the sacrifice"

Worth the sacrifice-yea that was something I rarely did when it came to food and exercise. I always made it fit into my life. If I was too busy, had something to celebrate or really if I just didn't want to-I didn't sacrifice anything.  The further I got in the book the more I realized this was what God wanted for me. I had put this off for way too long, it couldn't be ignored and I wasn't going this alone. God cares about me too much to let me sit in this state. He wants my best, wants me at my best, so now is the time to do it.

I haven't done the study guide, just the book, I want to dig deeper as I'm still continuing on this journey of weight loss, but I'm so excited that as I go along this journey-my relationship with the Lord is what I am craving more and more. When I am weak, He is strong....more to come!

Getting Personal about weight loss

   It's no secret that I've struggled with my weight for quite a few years now. I've never been a dieter, I never worked out hardcore, I always thought if I put a little bit of effort in, the weight would just come off. 

Unfortunately that is not the case. 

    I never thought I was someone that had food issues. I ate what I wanted, I worked out when I wanted and let every day things of life come first. I've always been uncomfortable about where I fit in in general, but when I started to feel uncomfortable in my own skin,  putting on my clothes, going out in public, having people see what I'd done to myself-I knew I had to make big changes.

I had seen great results from Stroller Strides classes, and it was probably the best exercise class I've gone to-physically demanding and challenging, and fun at the same time! Unfortunately my work schedule had gotten busier and the times didn't work for me to keep that up and I had to let it go. One of the major things I loved about the class is that you don't have to walk into a gym, clueless, surrounded by athletes and feel inferior. I could go to class, surrounded by mom's, women, and an amazing instructor who for an hour, would tell me exactly what to do and workout with others who were feeling the burn right there with you.  

    So I reluctantly signed up for the gym, knowing I had to do this, on my own, and that was daunting. 

Little did I know, that was the best thing for me. I had too long relied on others to tell me what I should be doing for working out, when, how, where... I needed to realize my responsibility in this journey and go for it. I'm sure I looked lost in the gym-and probably still do at times-but I made it a point to get there. Sometimes at weird hours, occasionally I found stuff to do at home when getting to the gym that day was impossible, the point is, I made a choice-and each day I continue to make a choice. 

    A major part of this journey is God. I "knew" that God was in every part of my life, wanted Him to be in every part of my life-though I completely neglected giving my weight over to Him. This may sound odd, but other then feeling uncomfortable in my skin-the conviction I got from the food I would eat, the lazy habits I chose was not to be denied. I couldn't deny that God wanted much more from me than to let food and laziness have any control in my life. I picked up the book Made to Crave and was floored by the truth hidden inside. It's not a lengthy book, but I couldn't put it down and had to reread chapters as I didn't want to miss a thing. I have learned that the Lord wants so much more for me, that  surrendering every single part of my life is vital to my relationship with Him. My weight could no longer be ignored, He wanted me to deal with it and I still am-daily. My weakness gave way to His strength-and He gets all the glory for any changes I've made.

During this time Josh also started a new gym and that's where a lot of our big changes started happening. I hadn't been consistent enough nor made enough food changes to really see a difference, though when Josh met Grant with QC Barbell and started his program we both started changing. We completely changed our food habits, watched everything we ate and worked out hard. Having Josh so fired up about the gym and our eating habits helped fuel me to keep going and working together on this has brought us closer. We now are both on a food program, Medifast, with Take Shape for Life. We buy their food, and it pretty much has made it easy. We started eating 5 of their meals 1 lean and green of our own,then it goes down to 4 and 2, 3 and 3, etc. until you have reached your weight loss goal and are eating healthy on your own. You can check it out Take Shape for Life

The bottom line for me is, I feel better. I'm not yet at the goal weight I set, but I'm working towards it and I'm excited about getting there.  I'm not doing this half-hearted anymore, I'm not waiting for all the kids to be in school to focus on me, I'm choosing to fit it in whenever I can, each day. Some days are more of a struggle than others, and that's why God is so vital and important-He is in everything, He made me, He is my everything, so my help comes from Him. 

So that's it, laid it all out there-stay tuned-more updates to follow!