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!