Strong Body, Spiritual Worship

"...be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power." Eph 6:10, NIV

I feel strong today.

As I worked out this morning, I noticed that my knee bends were deeper, my kicks were stronger, my punches were harder...

I'm getting stronger.

Oft times when trying to lose weight, we focus simply on the number on the scale. We might even focus on our clothing size, whether it's shrinking in proportion to our pounds dropped.

But do we think about getting stronger?

"...in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship." Rom 12:1, NIV

Exercising at 6 AM is most certainly a sacrifice, but one that is having tremendous benefit on my body. In addition to being stronger, I have more energy. I'm more physically fit, as evidenced by how much longer it takes for me to get winded and how much stamina I have.

And, this week, I fought off what I believe to be a sinus infection. Scratchy throat, nasal drip, chest congestion. Pushed through my workouts, drank lots of water, and took a couple of Tylenol once. After a few days, symptoms are all but gone. I think my improved health affords me an increased ability to fight disease.

I also realized, the mental struggle I've had with getting up is waning. I still want to lose weight, which I'm doing, but there clearly are benefits I hadn't considered.

I like the idea of presenting myself to God in my best possible physical condition. That in doing so, I'm worshipping God. Maybe that's why the getting up isn't so hard anymore.

Aside from trying to lose weight, what are your health goals? Are you presenting the best "living sacrifice" possible?

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia

Pay Now or Pay Later

Since I really struggled with working out last week, Greg on Faith First Fitness had just the reminder that I needed:

Pay Now
o The struggle with schedule that makes time to workout consistently.
o Planning ahead in order to eat healthy.
o Muscle soreness from a challenging fitness plan.
o Resisting the temptation to derail a good nutrition plan.
o Working out when you don’t feel like it.
o Discomfort during a challenging workout.
o Swallowing pride in order to try something new.
o Get outside help, training, accountability.
o Changing a whole lifestyle that promotes health and fitness.

The Pay Off
o Increased self-esteem
o Increased self-confidence
o Increased mental focus
o Increased strength and stamina
o Increased energy level
o Decreased stress level
o Weight loss
o More restful sleep
o Measurable results that move towards life goals.
o The overall GREAT feeling of health and fitness.

Pay Later
o High blood pressure.
o Type II Diabetes
o Heart Disease
o High Blood Pressure
o Sleep Apnea
o Osteoarthritis
o Gall Bladder Disease
o Fatty Liver Disease
o Chronic headaches
o Varicose veins
o Breathing problems
o Coronary artery disease
o Increased risk of stroke
o PREMATURE DEATH

We will all pay. Either “pay now” or “pay later.”

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia

God's Pharmacy

If you've already seen this, I apologize. It actually posted yesterday but I just had to take it down and put up Obama's acceptance speech instead. Have a great weekend!

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I was checking out pastor and fitness trainer Greg Cheney's Faith First Fitness blog and found an interesting post, which led me to the Faith and Health Connection blog, where I found the complete article. It was so intriguing, I had to post it here. Although I'm in no position to vouch for the accuracy of the information, it's certainly worth considering.

God's Pharmacy
Author Unknown

Then God said, "Let the land burst forth with every sort of grass and seedbearing
plant. And let there be trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. The seeds will
then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came." And so it was.
Genesis 1:11

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and YES science now shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows that grapes are also profound
heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neocortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neurontransmitters
for brain function.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Eggplant, Avocadoes and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? .... It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm cells to overcome male sterility.

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries.

Grapefruits, Oranges, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like body cells. Today's research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the
epithelial layers of the eyes.

Isn't this amazing?

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia

Decisions, Decisions

I recently read a short abstract of a book called "Nudge: Improving Decisons About Health, Wealth, and Happiness". It's a business book aimed at helping corporations and organizations better understand how to frame and provide choices for people for greater satisfaction.

The main premise is that groups should "nudge" individuals toward good decisions. It goes on to say the default choice should be a beneficial one, like automatic enrollment in the company's retirement plan, so that if the person does nothing, in the end, he or she will still benefit.

There's a lot in this material for personal consideration and use level. Things like:

• Types of choices: Auto-pilot vs. reflective.
  
• Choices are always made within the influence of context.
  
• What kinds of things influence choices

This paragraph really struck me:

"People need assistance in making decisions when the stakes are high (health-care choices), when the situation is complex and rare (buying a house), or when human nature would lead them astray (saving money versus gambling)."

Bingo!

It goes on to say:

"If the benefit is immediate (ice cream tastes good), but the risks or costs are delayed (your arteries will clog and you’ll get fat), receiving guidance about healthful choices can help. Some think that the best choices come from having totally free options in a free market, but that’s not the case. People make faulty decisions if they believe wrong data, lack key facts or fall under the influence of someone who misleads them for selfish financial interest."

Isn't that something to think about as we consider electing the next president of the United States?

So having a sense of urgency and information one can trust are important.

My urgency is increasing regarding weight loss and the need to get healthy. 50 isn't that far away and it gets harder and harder to make significant progress each year.

I want to have an Oprah-moment for my 50th birthday. Remember a few years back when she lost all that weight, looked fabulous, and gave herself a year-long celebration, including singing with Tina Turner? That's my plan.

The weight loss, not the singing.

Then, there's the less selfish motivation that I want to live a long life for my children. I'll be retirement age when Littlest One graduates from high school. That's a pretty humbling thought. I'd like to be healthy enough to guide my children into adulthood and see them prosper. I want to travel with my husband to visit our children and grandchildren.

I need to remind myself of these things when I am knowingly indulging in behavior that is counter to my goal, like eating handfuls of Cheetos in the evening after eating really well throughout the day.

It's all about goals, choices, and decisions. My goals are good ones. My choices are obvious. I've got to work on the decision-making in the moment.

God, thank you for giving me a mind to be healthy and for providing the breadth of information necessary to get there. Grant me the presence of mind to make good decisions when faced with choices, decisions that move me toward my goals. Help me to develop a greater sense of being in the moment so that I don't mindlessly make bad decisions and wonder why later. Most of all, draw me closer to you, the source of my joy and strength.

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia

Conquering the Weight Loss Woes

In my welcome, I said that I'd be talking about my weight loss woes.

This is very personal for me as I've struggled with my weight pretty much my entire life. Had I known years ago a lot of what I know now, I might be in better shape. But that's water under the bridge.

The reality: I'm 5'2" and as of this morning, I need to lose 77 lbs. to get to my goal weight. Clinical assessments would deem me "obese", which is not a word I ever would associate with myself. I fit well in the back seat of any car. I take up only one seat on an airplane. I can buy clothes on the rack in the Misses department and my two-digit size does not begin with a numeral greater than 1.

Yet I am considered obese.

77 lbs. is a lot of weight to lose. I'm in my mid-forties so I'm not in a good place but I'm not in a very bad one either. I still have the ability to be fairly active and I make the majority of the food decisions for my family.

So what's the problem? In addition to being a middle-aged, overweight wife and mother of four (three living, one deceased):

(1) I am insulin resistant. In fact, I'm pre-diabetic.
I learned this during my third pregnancy. I fought a raging battle with gestational diabetes that had me injecting myself with insulin three times a day to no avail. Insulin resistance makes it difficult to lose weight because the body is not processing insulin, which is needed for proper use of the energy derived from food, correctly. Turns out my family has a history of this, including full-blown diabetes. Would have been nice to know this and understand the potential impact on my life much earlier.

(2) I've never been particularly active.
Back when I was coming up, girls weren't encourated in sports as they are today. (Besides I was busy being The Brain.) Oh, I've had active periods in my life, like when I was 25 and lost 40 lbs. by going to the gym three days a week. I was single, living alone, and working 15 min from home so what better way to spend the evenings? Not so easy to do when one has a family and a 45 min commute, one-way.

(3) I have a love-hate relationship with junk food.
Bypass the ice cream? No problem. I might talk myself out of that piece of cake, those cookies, or other gooey treats. But I struggle with walking past chocolate bars and lose EVERY TIME to the salty, crunchy snacks like potato chips.

These are my greatest challenges.

There's more stuff going on, emotional stuff that I'll deal with at a later point so as not to depress you or myself from the onset.

Now before you offer words of advice, understand that I know EVERYTHING that I should be doing to make a difference in my situation. The key words here are "should be". I find it easy to exercise but not diet, to diet but not exercise, to exercise but not drink enough water...

You get the picture.

My challenge is putting together all of the things I've learned and carrying out a solid, full-throttle attack on my weight problem to conquer it once and for all.

Occasionally, I pull it off. Last year, I lost 17 lbs in about eight weeks. Not bad. Then I rewarded myself by taking a vacation from everything I'd done right, resulting in a net weight gain of 7 lbs.

Do you see the problem?

So I'm trying again to do the things I KNOW work best for me:

1. Get plenty of sleep.
   
2. Drink plenty of water.
   
3. Exercise a min of 30 min at least 5 days a week, combining cardio and strength training but focusing on the latter.
   
4. Eating reasonable portions of foods that are low on the glycemic index and minimizing or avoiding foods that aren't.
   
5. Taking daily vitamins and iron to help my body work most efficiently.
   
6. Most importantly, seek God's strength and wisdom, minute by minute if necessary.

What else is there? (I said I know EVERYTHING but I didn't really mean it. Well, I did but not really. If you know of something else, feel free to share.)

Recording my progress (or stumbles) here will help me, and maybe help someone else. So at least once a week, I'll recap how I'm doing. I have no timetable and no goal other than I'd like to lose at least 5 lbs. every month. At that rate, I should be at my goal by October 2009.

Let's pray I begin shrinking in size and gaining in health.

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia