What I Learned from David

Our small group is studying King David.  I have, what I believe to be, a learning disability in that I cannot retain the information that I read for more than...oh, a half second.  I get frustrated reading any book, because I lose track of who's who and what happened 20 seconds ago.  This is also true when I read the bible.  I can read a book in the bible and forget what happened or who did what, when.  So in my frustration, I quit.  Well, I've really been trying to learn more about David....and so many other fascinating characters in 1 Samuel. 

A week ago a friend and I had coffee and were discussing King David, our small group, and the Bible.  I told her my frustrations and that I just wasn't getting it.  I went so far as to tell her I just don't get why we need to study the Old Testament at all, it just confuses me and is just a bunch of stories of people who follow God for a while, fall away, follow God, fall away, etc.  Which is true of people then, and people now.  So why study it.  (this is all coming from the fact that I have a hard time with remembering what I read)

So, this morning, determined to dig in so that I might participate (or at least understand a LITTLE of what was being said at small group tonight) I opened up to 1 Samuel 17 and began to read the wonderful "Sunday school story" of David and Goliath.  I took notes....LOTS of notes.  Reread when I didn't comprehend the first time.  Made diagrams.  Looked up some things.  Reread.  Looked back over my notes.  And then something happened.  I was learning so much more about this story!  God, through David, taught me several lessons in all of this that I have missed so many times before by just hearing this "Sunday school" story.  Encouraging lessons!

This past week I've been struggling with why I haven't been losing weight.  Because of this, I've been feeling like I'm not important.  I'm just a stay-at-home mom who is trying to lose weight and nobody even notices how hard I'm trying,  picks up after people, cleans up after people, cooks, washes, vacuums, etc with hardly anyone noticing the things that I'm doing.  (or so it seems)  Isn't that where David was before "the big show"?  He was just a little brother, who tended to get picked on and ignored while his brothers were fighting in battles.  He was just a shephard boy taking care of sheep.  BUT....by being a shephard, he learned to defend his sheep by keeping the lions and bears away.  Little did he know, he was preparing to fight the giant! 

Later on in chapter 18, as David played his harp for Saul, Saul flung a couple of spears at David trying to kill him!  But David dodged the spears twice!  A reminder that bad things can, and do, happen to people who are just trying to do good.  When people are doing good things for God, Satan likes to interfere and tries to ruin it. 

I wonder what "giant" God is preparing for me to battle?  I sure hope I'm ready. 

Let's show Satan who is in charge!  With God on our side, Satan doesn't have a chance!

Looking for answers

And the journey continues.....

I finally went to the doctor today.  I have been working out faithfully (3-5 times a week) for over a year now, eating just the right amount of calories I've been told to eat and I haven't lost a single pound!!!  Yeah, I lose a pound or two here, and then gain a pound or two there...but really I stay within 2 pounds of where I left off after losing my original 50 pounds.  Frustrating?  Very!

I finally decided I needed to find out if there was some medical reason for my VERY LONG plateau.  So the doctor suggested several things for me to try to change things up a little bit, most of which cost way too much money that I don't have.  Some of which include:  Metabolic Research Center, Weight Watchers, and to hire a personal trainer.  Needless to say, those three suggestions got put on the back shelf of my brain to only use when we win the lottery.  (we don't play, so I guess the dust will collect on those suggestions).  Other suggestions were to lift weights, run, and train for a 5K.  Those I can do.  We have a treadmill and a bowflex in our "workout room" in our basement that I can easily utilize.  Another thought the doctor had was that my thyroid is not working correctly.  Both my mom and my grandma have dealt with this so it would not be a surprise if this was a problem I have to deal with as well.  So I got to have my blood drawn and will find out in a few days if that is an issue.  Until then.....Jenni. will. run.

I dusted off poor, poor Henry (my treadmill) whom I hadn't visited since we got the Kinect for our Xbox and also dusted off the Bowflex.  I ran/walked 2 miles and did 20 minutes of strength training.  Will this curve ball in my fitness routine be enough to break my plateau? 

To be continued.....

Goals

I hope everyone had a blessed Easter holiday and celebrated our Risen Savior!  After all, that IS what Easter is all about. 

We had a great church service and then headed to the in-laws where we had a wonderful meal prepared by my mother-in-law.  Then a nice relaxing day spent talking and remembering years past. 

What I have realized in the past week:  that I'm OBSESSED with being healthy and being accountable to myself.  I'm my biggest accountability partner. 

Several days ago I asked Jason if he wanted to do the Biggest Loser workout with me so we were preparing to get started when the phone rang.  He was so excited for the distraction and the excuse to not workout.  I was mad.  He hung up the phone and we began our workout.  He stayed with it for the most part.  Then I asked him if he wanted to do a little Zumba.  He not-so-eagerly agreed.  So we were half way through and the phone rang again.  Again, he was excited for the excuse to walk away.  Well, let's just explain a little why this frustrated me.  We have an XBox Kinect.  We were doing Zumba on our Kinect and any time a player walks away from the screen, it stops the game.  Yep.  Right in the middle of the workout, he walked "off the screen" and that was the end of our Zumba time.  You are allowed to pause the game, but he did not wait for me to do this before walking away.  I was not happy the rest of the night.  OBSESSED.  (or maybe this is just very important to me?)

Although the food was amazing yesterday, I was thinking the entire time about how many calories were on my plate and how long I was going to have to workout to lose those pounds I was about to gain.  OBSESSED!  (or...maybe this is just very important to me?)

The frustrating part:  I have struggled all my life with being the "fat girl".  My husband is fairly skinny and can eat whatever he wants and sits around playing video games or watching TV.  He has no idea how hard I am trying to get healthy and look better.  He just doesn't understand.  He tells me he loves me no matter what.  Which is wonderful, but I want this!  So as I struggle, sweat, and watch everything I put in my mouth, thinking about it constantly, he is oblivious.  I am NOT bashing my husband.  If I were skinny and never had to worry about my weight like him, I'd be oblivious too.  I've tried to explain it, but he just doesn't completely understand.  This is why I was frustrated when he walked away from MY exercise time.


On a brighter note:
I shared a while back about my fitness goals and how I made my goal last year.  Well, to my surprise, I have almost met my goal of this year, AND it's only April!!!  I hadn't really been paying much attention to my goal number, although it's displayed right on the side of my SparkPeople page every day.  I happened to glance at it this morning and was shocked how close I am already!  For the past three months, I have exceeded my monthly fitness goals and have way over 500 minutes/month. 

My yearly goal is 2700 fitness minutes.  At www.sparkpeople.com you can input your weight and how much you want to lose and it designs a program for you with set fitness minutes. (I bumped it up from last year thinking it would be a challenge)  As of today, I am at 2473.  I can't wait to blow right by that 2700!

Note to self:  I'm doing this for me.  Workout on your own.  Worry about doing it for ME!

Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it. – Unknown


Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live. - JimRohn

I would rather say "I did it!" than "I gave up."


KEEP MOVING!

A word of encouragement

If you are someone that is trying to lose weight, I highly recommend you take a before picture, an in between picture, and if you make it to your goal, an after picture.  I was not very good about this as I didn't want my picture taken when I was 228 pounds.  I would delete them as soon as I saw them.  Although I do have a few.  But seeing the difference your hard work is making definitely keeps you motivated.  It does me anyway.. 

I have watched shows on obesity, weight loss, etc for years.  After a person loses weight, I have heard many times on tv, they end up having something like a "fat syndrome".  Meaning, they still see themselves as being overweight, or in the clothes sizes they were in when they started losing their weight.  I definitely suffer from this.  I still find myself going to the "big girls'" clothing section in stores, and when I am in the ladies' clothing section, I have a hard time holding my size up and imagining that that smaller size actually fits me.  So I usually end up in the fitting room with three different sizes and am shocked that that smaller size that looked so small actually fits. 

I wanted to share my pics with you, as an encouragement and to show you how important this step is in the weight loss journey.


This is me January 2008 at 228 pounds



This is me January 2011 at 190 pounds



And this is me now March 2012



Proof that hard work and determination can pay off.  And pictures really can tell a story. 

Moving down the path....

Oh the frustrations of trying to lose weight.  I've said it before, I am one of those weird people who actually enjoy working out.  I workout at least 4 days a week for a minimum of 30 minutes, and on the other days I usually try to get some type of exercise in, even if it's heading to the mall and window shopping for a few hours. 

The frustrating part is that I have been stuck on a plateau for nearly a year.  I got on my fitness message boards recently and explained my frustration.  A personal trainer told me I probably wasn't eating enough calories. I usually try to stay around 1200, but she said since I do exercise as much as I do, I need more food to fuel my body.  Makes sense, but hard to grasp and put my mind around it as so many people think eating less = lose weight.

So for the past two days I bumped up my calorie intake.  I do not plan to weight myself for a week or so just so I don't get frustrated. 

My 2012 fitness minutes goal is 2700...and I am officially at 1473.  I do believe I will make my goal.  With that said, as frustrating as it is that I am not seeing the numbers on the scale go down, I DO KNOW that I feel better, and I am exercising which is good for my body and keeps me healthy.  I will NOT give up!

The Seventh Commandment

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be a fly on someone's wall?  Not literally, but to be able to listen and see what happens inside the walls of some families.  I have often said that I'd like to be a fly on my friend's wall.  The conversations she and her husband have crack me up.  (or should I say, the conversations she tells me they have)  Well, tonight's conversation within the walls of our home made me wonder what someone would think if they could hear the conversation we had this evening. 

Some of you know that I have named my treadmill Henry.  I also recently started doing the Biggest Loser workouts on our Xbox Kinnect so I often say, "I had a date with Bob today".  (Bob Harper is one of the personal trainers on The Biggest Loser.)  Also, I am a fan of Chip Ingram (http://www.lote.org/) and often listen to his sermons on my ipod while working out.  Do you see where this is going???

After dinner tonight I went upstairs to put my workout clothes on.  I came downstairs and made the announcement:  "I'm going downstairs to have a date with Henry.  He's been a little lonely since Bob came into my life".  Both Sam and Jason knew exactly what I was talking about and didn't blink an eye.  Although, Sam did say to Jason, "Dad, looks like you've got some competition".  We all laughed. 

I have also been known to say, "I'm going to bed with Chip.  Goodnight all!".  When what I really meant was, I was going upstairs to lay in bed and listen to Chip's sermons. 

So, to listen in on these conversations would lead someone to believe I was breaking the seventh commandment.  See Exodus 20:14 

A little glimpse inside the walls of our home. 
    ~ Oh if you could hear some of our other conversations.  ;)  ~

An Annual Trip

This past weekend we took a much needed trip to Estes Park.  It was President's Day weekend so the kids had Monday off of school.  We left Saturday morning and came home late Monday afternoon.  Whenever we take trips or do something like this, I usually have two things on my mind.  How much weight am I going to gain and how much money are we going to spend.  I believe I can say we did pretty good on both of those topics. 

We cooked all our food at the condo, not eating out once.  Which helped with both subjects.  Most of the time everyone did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.  Took naps, played games, sat in the hot tub, ate snacks, watched tv, etc.  We also went sledding up in Rocky Mountain National Park twice on Sunday.  Once in the morning and once later in the afternoon.  We did some window shopping in Estes in between sledding and Doug and Peyton got their picture taken at one of those old time photo places.  It was fun to watch.  Then we went back to the sledding hill.  It started snowing on us when we were there in the afternoon and it was so pretty.  We were the last to leave the sledding hill as it started getting dark.  We drove home in the dark while it was snowing.  It was actually quite pretty, coming from someone who doesn't like to drive in snow.

Monday morning we got up and had breakfast. Then got our snow gear on and headed into town to get our snowshoes.  We drove up into the park (Rocky Mountain) and found a good snowshoeing trail near a lake.  The wind was blowing really hard, which was blowing all the fresh snow around, and it was about 14 degrees out.  But once we got into the trees it wasn't quite as bad.  We had so much fun and it was the first time any of us had been snowshoeing.  We snowshoed for over two hours!   It's been on my "Bucket List" for a long time...and now I can cross it off...although I'd love to do it more often. 

Between the sledding, walking around down town, Jason and me taking morning walks, and our snowshoing...I didn't gain weight.  And the only money we really spent besides the condo was on Doug and Peyton's photo shoot and renting snowshoes!  I think this weekend was a success. 

We had a great time and are now home to get back to "normal".  The kids are back in school, Jason is off to work, and I'm home putting the house back together and getting laundry done.  Right where I wanna be. 

Life is good!