A New Weigh of Life

Poutine = YUM!

     1) I love to eat!  I love chocolate ice cream, chocolate fudge, monster cookies, Reese's peanut butter cups, Cheetohs, Wheat Thins, Life cereal, cinnamon rolls, sweet potato fries, canadian bacon and pineapple pizza, sweet and sour chicken, Applebee's Crispy Orange Chicken Bowl, Dr. Pepper, mint hot cocoa... get the picture?  I have always been this way.  I have always loved to eat!  I have always loved sugar!  I have always struggled with overeating.
     2) I am an emotional person.  I struggle with anxiety.  I put pressure on myself to be perfect.  I want to please everyone.  I'm an introvert living the life of an extrovert and I get depleted.  So, how do I cope?  I eat.  And, it's usually not carrot sticks!
      3) I am NOT an athlete.  I have never been an athlete.  I have never had much strength or endurance.  I am an expert at excuses NOT to exercise.  You get the idea.
      Add together these three factors and what do you get?  An overweight gal with health issues.  I've been on blood pressure medication for years and have been told to lose weight (about 20 pounds).  I've tried and failed many, many times.  A year ago I was told my cholesterol was too high, so my husband and I quit eating ice cream and I hardly ever ate bread.  I was positive my doctor would be telling me I'd made some great improvements when I saw her in July.  Nope, my cholesterol and tryglicerides had skyrocketed!  Something had to be done.  So, my doctor prescribed Lipitor.
      I was on Lipitor for 10 days.  It was one of the worst experiences of my life!  I couldn't sleep, or if I did I had crazy weird dreams.  I was dizzy all the time and felt sick to my stomach.  I couldn't think straight or make decisions.  My head hurt.  I had zero energy.  And, worst of all, everything made me cry.  I was miserable and scared.
      So, my husband and I made the decision that I needed to consider the poor quality of life I was experiencing and simply quit the medication.  It took days to get back to normal.  It also jump started in me a deep desire to get healthy.  I was determined to finally lose those 20 extra pounds!  I felt driven to exercise every day.  I steered clear of anything sweet or fattening.  My friend Sheryl called it being in "emergency mode."
      I made an appointment with a nutritionist at the St. Cloud Hospital.  She told me about a wonderful resource called plant sterols.  Certain vegetables have plant sterols in them, but a person would have to eat pounds and pounds of them to get any benefit.  So, some smart scientists have infused large amounts of plant sterols into certain foods (specifically Promise Activ margarine, Kashi Heart to Heart crackers, and Village Farm oatmeal).  If a person eats two grams of plant sterols a day, they can improve their cholesterol numbers by 10 to 17 percent!  Sounds good to me!
      In addition to plant sterols, my nutritionist suggested I start eating two tablespoons of ground flax seed meal every day.  I put it on my toast, my oatmeal, and my yogurt.  Plus, she wants me to eat an ounce of nuts a day.  Cashews are my favorite, but almonds and walnuts work well too.  I try to eat only whole grains (instead of white rice and pasta).  I eat organic, sprouted, low sodium Ezekiel bread.  I eat lettuce salads (with my ounce of walnuts) almost every day.  I eat more turkey, fish, and chicken (and less beef).  And, I gave up sugary drinks.  Someone told me that lemon water cleanses your liver, so I have lemon water every day.
      My goal is to exercise an hour a day.  I do a warm up and then walk and run on the treadmill, ride my Aerodyne bike, or follow a Leslie Sansone fitness aerobic walk video.  I have 5 pound weights I lift regularly to try to tone my "Gustin arms".  And, I end with a cool down.  I still don't like to exercise; I'd rather spend my time doing other things.  But, I feel good when I exercise.  Those positive endorphins rushing to my brain make me happier!  So, once I get myself started, I'm ALWAYS glad I did.        
     Remember "emergency mode?"  Well, that lasted for a good two months and I lost eleven pounds!  Woo Hoo!  Then school began.  Once again I was surrounded by snack foods I shouldn't eat.  Once again the stress and anxiety of being a teacher overwhelmed me.  And, once again I let other things get in the way of my exercise time.  September was rough.  October has been rougher.  I have to get back on track or my health will deteriorate more and more.  I need to get to that 20 pound loss goal!
     So, I'm going to write down some tips and statements that have helped me in the past.  Hopefully they will inspire me to get back on track toward success.  And, if you're reading this, maybe these ideas can help you too!

1.  Water, Water, Water!  Drinking water truly does make a difference.  I feel cleaner, healthier, and more energetic when I drink enough water.  I get headaches when I don't drink enough water.  And, drinking water helps prepare me for my afternoon workout session.  Leslie Sansone says it's important to drink water about a half hour before you exercise so that the water can infuse into the muscle before you start working it.  Nikki Carlson has set a goal for herself that she must drink her goal amount of water for the day before she can drink anything fun or sugary.   Bob Harper suggests that everyone drink a large glass of water before every meal.

2.  Practice resistance in your life.  We are a culture so used to getting what we want immediately.  It's okay to deny ourselves what we want!  Hebrews 12:11 says, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained in it."  I try to keep myself disciplined in other areas of my life besides just my struggle with food.  Some examples:  not hitting the snooze button in the morning, practicing piano or violin regularly, exercising regularly, correcting student homework on Friday afternoons instead of Sunday nights and not looking at Facebook when I have other things that need to be done.
     Portion control is also a huge part of resisting to what we want.  After seeing my nutritionist, I was amazed at how SMALL most serving sizes truly are.  Lysa Terkeurst suggests that we talk to God when we are struggling with this issue.  He can be our daily portion.  She tells about a time when she wanted a brownie so badly that she shut herself up in the closet and just cried to God until the feeling went away.  I've never done that.  But, I believe He cares enough that He would fill me up and satisfy my craving.  I just need the discipline to go to Him and not to food.  Psalm 34:8 says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him."

3.  Life is full of second chances, of starting over, of starting fresh.  I have to be okay with that in my weight loss journey.  I may have an Oops day or even an Oops week, but that doesn't mean I should give up!  I need to start anew.  I may get injured or be sick for a while and need to take a break from my exercise routine.  Getting started again, for me, is incredibly hard.  But, the only thing to do is start again, start fresh, start over.  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," Philippians 4:13.

4.  Watch out for mindless eating!  Candace Cameron Bure suggests that we ask ourselves these questions next time we are considering eating something in a mindless manner.  Am I:  hungry, angry, lonely, tired, depressed, guilty, PMS, thirsty, stressed, dicouraged, wounded?  Sometimes defining how we are feeling will help us steer clear of eating to cope.  Also, concerning mindless eating, never eat in front of the TV or computer, especially not with an open un-portioned bag of something!  When I binge on cookies or chips, it's usually in front of the TV or computer.  No more!

5.  Be prepared.  It's always easier to grab an unhealthy snack when you're hungry.  So, be prepared with healthy snacks throughout your day.  Clean Eating experts suggest that we eat every 2 to 3 hours.  Weight Watchers suggests that when you come home from the store, you wash and chop your lettuce, clean your vegetables and chop them up and put fruits and vegetables near the front of the fridge so it is the first thing you see when you open your fridge door.
     Along with being prepared, how about just don't have the temptations in your home?  We still have a teenager at home, so I have felt it necessary to have some junk food around, but we have considerably less than we've had in the past.  Sometimes if there is something tempting, I ask him to keep it in his room.  I know that I would never go in his room to take food.  

6.  Protect your exercise time.  I have found that the best time for me to exercise is from 3:30 to 4:30 every day.  I rush home from school and get right into my exercise clothes, not even stopping to read my mail.  Some days I simply can't get home that early, and then my plan is to exercise from 6:30 to 7:30 in the evening.  That means supper has to be early enough to be digested before I start jumping around!  It's all a balancing act.  But, it's important.  I have found that when I exercise regularly, I make better food choices.  Hebrews 12: 1-2 says, "Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."  Nikki Carlson suggests that a person figure out the night ahead when he/she is going to exercise, and write it on a calendar and not let anything get in the way of that plan.

7.  The scale can only tell you a number.  Lysa Terkeurst writes, "We can step on the scale and accept the numbers for what they are - an indication of how much our body weighs - and not an indication of our worth."  Our worth is measured by who we are in Christ.  I am a child of The One True King!  If I let myself get discouraged by the numbers on the scale, I spiral down and make poor food choices.  I am beautiful just the way I am.  I know many beautiful, wonderful people who would probably love to lose a pound or two and I don't think any less of them.  Why do I think less of myself when success is slow?  1 Corinthian 6:19-20 says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your body."   

Some helpful resources I've used:
Made to Crave book and devotional by Lysa Terkeurst
Reshaping It All by Candace Cameron Bure
The Skinny Rules by Bob Harper
First Place by Carole Lewis
Thin Within weight loss program
Weight Watchers magazines
Hungry Girl cookbooks by Lisa Lillien
Clean Eating cookbooks and blogs
www.myfitnesspal.com

John Balguy wrote, "Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase."

10 pounds lighter and lovin' life