Stepping Up

I have a confession to make..and I believe it is a confession that most of you can relate to.  In the first 33 years of my life, I bet I attempted every diet known to man.  This included prescription diet pills in junior high, the low-fat craze of that era where a can of spaghetti-o’s was a staple because if I ate that with a salad, there was no fat involved (to this day I cannot even LOOK at a can of spaghetti-o’s without wanting to gag!).  As an adult, I tried Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers….I have done it ALL!!!!

Medically speaking, I am guessing my metabolism is as confused as can be.  Personally speaking, I stopped believing the giant lie that I was fat years and years ago.  Spiritually speaking, I know God wants me to eat right and take great care of myself.  How do I know this?  Because He TELLS me that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Now, do I always take great care of myself, NO, absolutely not.   I do not smoke.  I do not drink alcohol. I do not drink any beverages that contain added sugars to them, I am blessed to have not had to take any prescription meds for the last fourteen years, and I study healthy eating…A LOT.  We live in the second fattest state in the country guys!  I get really weird looks from folks when I tell them that the only fast food my children eat is Subway and Wendys, because at Wendys they will get chili or a baked potato.  Fast food literally makes my kids sick and they have realized this all on their own.  I totally allowed them to order hamburgers and fries, I simply ask that they listen to their bodies after, and once they did that, they stopped all on their own.

So, I don’t eat horribly, I don’t think I am fat, and we do a lot of basics around this house to make sure we stay healthy…so what is the point of this article?  I could continue the current line of thinking “Ok, we live in the second fattest state in the country and my family, well, heck, we are doing pretty good with this nutrition thing.”  And the instant I think that, THE INSTANT I tell you, God says to me, “Yes, but you aren’t doing what I tell you to do, you are not taking it all the way.”  And I know this….

I exercise, just enough to say I am a steady exerciser.  I eat right and study nutrition just enough that I know a lot about it.  But never, ever do I hold myself up to the standard God has put on my heart and actually go full throttle the way He has told me to do.

So friends, it is time for this blogger to step up to the plate (or in this case, maybe step away from the plate…lol!).  It is time to stop accepting the norm and push myself to what the Lord has called me to do.  Won’t you join me on this journey?  Hold me accountable day by day and share your stories here with me so we all know we are not alone, so we all know we can do this!!!

My game plan for now is this..NO SUGAR is my number one priority.  There are so many evils surrounding sugar that I don’t even want to go into all of that here. It is a medical nightmare.  As I go cold turkey on sugar, I will substitute with honey and stevia everywhere possible.  My next priority will be kicking the diet soda habit.  I know every last possible bad thing that can happen from drinking the three to four Splenda filled sodas a day that I consume. I am addicted to it. I do not like the taste of coffee or tea, so this is my caffeine of choice and I must break the habit….join me as I learn to do this.  Cold turkey doesn’t work well for me on this one, I have tried, and failed, a million times over.

And exercise……I have always been a walker.  I LOVE to walk and on a good week, my goal has always been to walk 15,000 steps a day.  Suddenly in January, The Protector (my hubby) challenged me to begin running.  Did I mention I love WALKING?  As much as I love walking, I hate running just as much.  But I wanted to be up for the challenge for him.  Our time together is so precious and this was just another thing we could add to our to-do list of things to do together…why have him go out for a run alone when he wanted me there and we have so little precious time together to begin with?

I kid you not, the first day we hit the Spartan High School track, this family of four, the mighty Spartans themselves would have laughed at my pathetic attempt, but I was doing it.  By golly, it was the first week of January and I was truly going to start anew, only, not only could I not make it around the track one entire time, neither could our eleven year old, hulking lineman of a football player son.  It was then and there I knew I had to do something.  Luckily, as I watched the Protector sprint around the track as though it was nothing for a 50+  year old to move in such a manner, I also watched the gazelle like legs of our 14 year old daughter and praised God that she had it in her to follow her daddy and do what he was doing.  But my son, he was watching ME and I had a big, big lesson to teach him, momma could DO THIS!

The next time out, I went a little further, and the next time a little further.  As I sit here, eight weeks to the date I first began, Spartan track no longer intimidates me, and twelve times around is my norm..yes, that is THREE MILES for those of you keeping count…three miles for this run hating, exercise loathing, crazy forty-something mom.  And our son…he goes and goes and goes.  I haven’t seen him tackle three miles yet, but he is in school all day and I am running the three miles while he is in school every day, so the chances we get on the weekends, he has improved to well over a mile and I think that is awesome.  I watch him push himself and I think, “Wow, where did he learn that?”  Then God says, “You know, he just might have learned it from watching you.”

So, I am stepping up my game folks, holding myself accountable to the Lord to do what it is He has asked me and given me the strength to do.  I don’t have so much of a weight goal in mind, I have a “get as healthy as the Lord would have you be” goal in mind.  I am not taking measurements.  I do weigh myself once a week out of curiosity, and am down three pounds since I began running in January..woo-hoo, bonus! The Protector has challenged me to a 5k the next time he is home. One thing that keeps me motivated is to imagine the pride on his face when he sees this woman he has been with for 23 years cross the finish line of a 5k…then I will IMMEDIATELY challenge him to a 10k for the next time he is homeJ  No sugar is a goal, no preservatives, and thanks to my beautiful niece Alex, I have dropped the lifetime fear that weight lifting will make me look like the female version of Rocky Balboa ,so as I learn, weights will also be thrown in there…who knows, maybe when I grow up, I will decide to be a personal trainer:)

 

I sincerely hope ya’ll will join me on this fun ride to be the best we can be for the Lord..he only gives us one body guys, one life, but praise Him, He is the God of second, third and fourth chances, so I am jumping on this one!