Finally...Some Success!!!

I can't remember when I officially signed up for Reshape the Nation, but it was the beginning of last week and that week was a "high carb" week, so while I didn't gain any weight the first few days, I didn't lose any either. Another reason is I allowed myself some "rewards" even when it was not scheduled. Nothing major, but still not totally following the official program. It was somewhat intentional, in that i wasn't emotionally ready to go full fledged. This last week was supposed to only have one reward day, but due plans with friends I actually had two reward days in a row. Thursday was the official day and I just did a Cinnamon Dolce latte for my reward. The rest of the day I tried to eat fully on track and I did only allowing myself that one reward. Friday, a friend was going to buy me dinner, but it was a lo carb day, so I kept with that plan, but figured I'd try to get something close to the plan for dinner. I ended up not really wanting anything for dinner from where she was going, so instead she got me a Pumpkin Pie Blizzard! Wow, am I addicted to those. Seriously, if you like the pumpkin spice products that come out around Thanksgiving, you have got to try it! While she was out getting her dinner and our blizzards, I went ahead and made my dinner and I just cut out the "carb" from the meal, and had the blizzard.  So, for officially following the diet for a week I lost 5 lbs even though I "cheated". Five pounds lost in a week is awesome for any person trying to lose weight, but for me and the fact that I haven't been able to drop weight and keep it off, this is amazing. If I can keep this up and even maintain/lose about 3 lbs every week, I will definitely lose my weight and get down to 155 by the end of the year! If I do it, it will be the lightest my parents and one of my brother's has ever seen me at, since every time I've gotten down to this weight, has been far enough in between  family get togethers that I had put back at least 10 lbs by the time I did see them. I think this, more than anything, is motivating me right now (that and my clothes are almost too snug!). I know my family loves me, regardless of what I weigh, but I want them to be proud of me for maintaining all the hard work I have attained!

Chris Powell's Reshape the Nation

Well, I should be writing a paper about creating a patient complaint committee, I'd rather write freestyle to my few anonymous readers:-)

So, as I mentioned the other day, I have found a new eating plan that I am hoping will help me turn the corner from plateauing/gaining weight and actually help me drop the 15 I'm trying to lose by the end of the year. I can't remember if I mentioned watching Dr. Oz a couple weeks ago and seeing Chris Powell on the show. He is the man that the Extreme Makeover Weight loss Edition follows each week as he helps an extremely obese person drop a considerable amount of weight in a year. I liked his general idea behind the carb cycling-(eating all complex/healthy carbs) having days where you have some form of carb at every meal-eating 5 meals a day and then having days of having just a few carbs in your meals. I won't go into too much detail-don't want to get in trouble for sharing secrets. After seeing Chris again on Dr. Oz, I decided to look him up to see if he had any sort of website and sure enough it's called Reshape the Nation. Comparing it to other programs the general idea is great, but it takes a lot of searching to finally figure out your meal plan and portion sizes. I will say the price is decent for these types of programs. I decided to join for the 3 month plan. That will give me the support I need through the middle of January-so the holidays will be covered.

I unofficially started on Tuesday of this last week. Technically speaking, I followed the program pretty closely, however, my plan only allows for "fats" first thing in the morning. I have read a lot of information over the last couple of years about how important MUFAs are and how fat does not make you fat. So, at least to start with, I am not going to cut out all the fats. I will limit them, but not cut them out like my meal plan requires. This last week I also allowed myself a little reward on most of the days, not completely restricting myself like it was listed. Today is a reward day(you are allowed certain days to have a treat-whatever you are craving), so I plan to go totally strict, minus the healthy fats, tomorrow.

In addition to not being totally mentally ready to go hard core, I also had an oven incident on Monday and have not been able to use the oven, so preparing all the protein last week was out of the question. My oven incident is a comical but scary situation. I got home from work on Monday, hit the bake button to preheat and then went to change clothes. When I walked  back into the kitchen to begin chopping my veggies for my dish, I noticed a flickering glow in the oven. I opened the door and saw a small 1 in. flame in the back left on the baking element. I quick turned the oven off and the flame went down, but the metal on the element was white hot. My sister and I had used the oven all day on Saturday, so I initially assumed it was just something that had fallen on the element from Saturday. I let the oven cool down for a couple hours and then went to wipe down the element so it didn't start on fire again. As I'm rubbing the rag over the blackened area I realize it's actually really hard and snagging on my rag. I grabbed a Flathead screwdriver and just lightly but firmly tried to scrape it off instead, but it didn't do anything. At this point I realized it was not something baked onto the element, but the element itself had started on fire and melted. My brother came yesterday and took the element out. I then called Frigidaire and was told the part was only covered under a 1 yr warranty so I would have to buy a new part. Thankfully it was just the part and not the entire oven. I was able to order the part online for $20, so I'm just out a couple hours of babysitting money and without an oven for another week. Once I get the part and install it, I should be good to go with prepping my food and having a little more variety for this Reshape the Nation eating plan.

On a good note, I was at least able to lose a little bit of the weight I gained last weekend and am almost down to where I can start counting on my countdown again! Maybe by next weekend I'll be able to put a new pound lost on my tracker!

Putting God in a Box...

At my Life Group (LG), a Sermon Based Bible study, this week we talked about distorted views of God and how those distorted views can discourage our walk with God. One of the guys in the group talked about how he tends to put God in a box and doesn't allow himself to experience the full power of God. One of the statements he made was that he had to step back and "be amazed" at God and all he can do. So often that is how I feel. I grew up in a Christian home and my dad is a pastor so I've been surrounded by God and church my whole life. As horrible as it is to say, I have become calloused to all God does and can do. I hate that I am this way and I don't know how to change. One of the ways I can do that is by stepping back and being in awe of all the God moments in my life and by letting God out of the box I've created and put him in. I guess it will take baby steps, but hopefully I will get there sooner than later!

Frustrations in weightloss

Over the last couple weeks my weight has seriously fluctuated. I thought some of it might have been pms, but then my period came and went and the weight did not. Then to add insult to injury, I had a weekend of not being careful. It was an awesome weekend, but did not help my weight gain/loss situation.

My sister and I try to get together for a girls weekend every few months and it had definitely been awhile since we've been able to spend more than a few minutes together. So, I got off work a little early and we did some errands and then came back to my place. We chatted and just had a good time. I had gotten a coupon for a free pizza from Papa John's, so that began my weekend of junk food. We then stayed up til almost 3 in the morning and got up close to 10, so not a horrible night's sleep, but not great. Saturday we started off eating ok, but then she had to bake cookies and of course we had to eat some cookie dough and a cookie or two. No real activitiy at all on Saturday, just sisterly bonding time. She had to leave around 5 and then a close friend that now lives out of state came to stay through Monday morning. We headed to another friend's house for a pizza party. His pizza parties are always unique. He is a master chef when it comes to pizza. The piece I tried was his version of a MonteCristo-swiss cheese, french toast, ham, jelly and plain or vanilla yogurt drizzled over top. The initial flavor was too sweet, but then it actually tasted pretty good. I'm not sure it would be a flavor I would order in a restaurant, but still pretty good. My friend and I, I'll call her C, stayed up til 1 on Saturday, but then I had to get up at 8 Sunday. Lack of sleep really screws with my weight. I had a meeting at church, but then headed home around 11:30. The rest of the day C and I relaxed and ate fairly healthy, minus the small pumpkin pie blizzard. I stayed up til after 11 on Sunday which was great to spend a little more time with C, but horrible for my body. Overall I put weight back on and am now struggling to take it off. C met me on my break and we went for a walk. So far this week I have tried to be very careful and I know I took some of it off, but I didn't weight the last two days. I officially weigh myself on Thur. a.m.'s, so hopefully I will be close to where I was the middle of last week. I'm just hoping to even out. Starting Monday I'm going ultra conservative with my weight-although I'm working my way into that ultra conservative and would have gone full fledged right away, but life is too busy and I am not going to stress completely over it. It may take me a little longer, but I refuse to obsess and continue to keep my weight as an idol in my life. I have to find a balance between eating healthy, with an occasional treat. I decided to try a new "diet"-Chris Powell's Reshape the Nation and I will talk about that in a new entry (once I get it figured out a little more) rather than make this extremely long. Needless to say, I'm having to go back to being considerably more structured with my eating and preparations for my eating. Trying to be more relaxed about it is only causing me to gain weight or stay stagnant at a weight I do not want to be at. I cannot keep going up and with the holidays just around the corner, I need to have my body in burn mode and my mind in a place where I can enjoy the holidays, but still be careful throughout those candy and cookie filled days. I'm still hoping to be down to 155 by Christmas. The last 20 I'll worry about in January.

Blessings of a Sister!

I know there are many families that do not get along and do everything possible to avoid each other. That is not my family. I consider us a modern day Brady Bunch-only without the cheesiness. We love getting together and spend several days together on family vacation during the summer and then at Christmas. There is a rather large age gap between my siblings and myself. My brothers are 8 and 10 years older than myself and my sister is 13 years older. Even with that gap, they all worked hard to not allow the age gap to distance our relationship. My brothers would take me on "dates" and my sister always made sure to have me at her house for a sister weekend, even when I was young. Now at almost 31 and 43 we still enjoy having a sister weekend and getting together for an impromptu lunch(which doesn't happen often). Today was one of those days. I was able to get off work early, and decided to see if she wanted an interruption to her work day. We decided to go to lunch which turned into a 2 1/2 hour affair and then we moved next door to coffee and sat for another 2 1/2 hours. We talked about everything under the sun. Work struggles, family (or for me, lack of family) struggles, weight loss or gain-frustrations, movies ....We are in two totally different times in life. I'm single, wanting a husband and family, in school and looking for a new job. She is married has three kids that are rapidly aging and will all be out of the house in the next 4 years. Even with such different lives, we still have much in common. We both struggle with our weight and have for years. We have tried many diets together and some things we tweak to our own lifestyle at the time. We have both reached the point in our weight loss journey where we know trying all the gimmicks and "diets" just do not work for our bodies. Our emotions are similar, but stem from different places in our lives so we are not completely in the same place. Even still, having this shared bond has been a great encouragement for me. I know I am not the only person dealing with similar struggles. We are able to encourage each other to keep working and to not give up on our health. However we have both come to the realization that we may be stuck in the size we are at now, even with eating healthy and exercise.
In addition to the usual sisterly bonds, it always amazes me how one of us will comment on something in church or from the Daily Audio Bible for the day, that convicted us. Frequently, the other one will have had similar convictions. I don't know if that is good or bad? Are we feeding off of each other or is it just that we have enough similarities to our personalities that we deal with the same struggles in life. Since we don't see each other all that often, I'm thinking it's our personality similarities:-). Whatever the case may be, it is nice to know I am not the only one that deals with certain issues. Now, the next area I need to work on in my life is correcting and changing my ways when I am convicted for something.

Confessions of an Idol worshipper

Wow, God has really been drilling into me the fact that my entire life is filled with idols. Too often I hear a sermon or read a passage of scripture about "idols" and immediately picture Buddha or some other stone idol/monument set up for some ancient god. Well, I can certainly check that off my list of things I don't have to worry about. There is not a single stone idol or image of a god in my house-I must be a good Christian. "Not so fast," God says, "what is that big box sitting on the stand in the living room? Don't you sit and stare at it for hours throughout your week? How often do you read the Bible? How often do you talk to me?" If I am spending more hours in my day watching TV, reading my fictional books, checking out friend's statuses on Facebook and finding virtually anything else to do in my day, BUT talk to God or read his word-I have idols in my life. An idol is really just something we spend a large amount of our time thinking about putting all our passion into. Do you know how often I have obsessed about my weight over my life time, but specifically the last two years? I don't even want to begin to count the hours of time I have spent watching TV. And yet, I I have such a hard time praying and talking to God. If I have a choice of catching up on my favorite TV show or reading the Bible-the TV show is probably going to win 9 times out of 10. Somehow, I have to get to the place in my life, where my passion is God. Where the first thing I think about when I wake up is to praise God and thank him for another day (ok, I may never get to that being the first thing, since the first thing is always "I just want to sleep a little bit longer..."). Where I can honestly say, I actually thought about God throughout the day and not only when I realized I was doing something wrong and apologized for it. I don't know exactly how or when I will get to that place in my life, but I pray that it will happen someday.

I heard an interview with Lisa Harper this morning on WNWC 102.5. Lisa was talking about how she works with women who deal with addictions and how they realize their need for help and that they cannot get clean and sober without help. She then compared it to the Biblical story of the paralyzed man by the pool. Jesus asked the man what he needed, even though it was plain to see what the man wanted from him. It was only after the man said he wanted to be healed...to be able to walk, that Jesus said, "Pick up your mat and walk." God knows all our needs, wants, desires.... When we talk to him and tell him all our fears and failures and all about our lives, he's not shocked or surprised by anything. He KNOWS us, better than we know ourselves. He wants us to acknowledge our need FOR HIM. I have to say, God, I need your help.... This is not to say that God never does things without us asking, but I do know, in many cases, He does want us to admit our need or the fact we are in the wrong and then ask for his help!

Maybe someday soon I will actually be able to say I need help and truly mean it from the depths of my soul! I pray it will be soon.

Living to know Christ

These days, it seems that God is trying to get my attention. The sermon series at Blackhawk church the last few weeks has been on the "idols" in our lives: success, money, image, family/friends.... Then in the Daily Audio Bible reading for today was the passage Phil 3 (not to mention the O.T. passage has been the same area that the sermon series has dwelt). In Phil 3 Paul talks about how he had the right to boast about his life b/c he was a pure blood Jew, a pharisee and a zealot for Christ yet none of that really counted in God's eyes because it was worthless compared to the fact that Christ suffered immeasurably. He goes on to say that his desire is to know Christ more and to know him so well he can understand and know the suffering Christ went through.

Even with everything Paul had accomplished, he still knew that he was no where near what God had created him to be and to do. He wrote to encourage the Philippians to keep striving towards God's views of "perfection". To let them know they have no right to brag about their past accomplishments and to forget the past. To keep their eyes on the future and to keep obey what they already know they need to be doing, but to also continue to be open to new teachings God shows them.

Somehow, someway, I need to get to the place in my life that I truly strive after God. That I can know him and want to share in his suffering. I know I am not at that place in my life. I continue to allow life to distract me from the things God wants me to focus on. I spend my time, working on homework, watching TV/movies, reading all about my friend's lives on Facebook and so many other worthless pursuits. None of which are bad, in and of themselves, but when my life is spent focusing on them, where will I be in the future? I will never have the relationship with Christ that I want to desire to have. I will still be in this mediocre Christian life.

Sometimes I wonder, if maybe the reason I have never had a relationship with a man, is because God wants me to have a closer relationship with him first. That maybe, a human relationship would distract me even further from knowing Christ. But, then I think that probably isn't the case because my desire to have a relationship that could lead to marriage is just as distracting as being in a relationship, so I am still left wondering why I am 30 and have always been single.

So, the goal for the rest of this year, is to spend the time I devote to getting to know Christ, in a more meaningful way. To stop allowing myself the distractions of life and truly spend the time desiring to know Christ in a deeper way.

Bra Shopping

A friend of mine has a sister who owns a lingerie shop, Contours Lingerie, here in Madison. I won a gift certificate, for the shop, last year, but was still in ultra weight loss mode and didn't want to buy something I wouldn't be able to use very long. Well, I've been at such a plateau lately, I decided to just go in and use it. My current size has not changed much since I've put back some of my weight, so as long as I can stay semi stable or lose at a slower pace, I think I will remain about the same. So, who knew that your base number is the actual inches around your rib cage? Most places I read say to add a certain amount to the ribcage size. So, instead of being a 34/36, I am actually a 30. This, of course, means the cup size changes drastically. This explains why I've never been able to find a bra that truly fit me well. I'm not quite ready to share my cup size with the world (or the few of you that seem to be reading this), but lets just say I will never find it in a normal store. Now the next step is finding more affordable bras at that size. Contours Lingerie is a great shop, but they don't carry many everyday type bras, it has lots of fun underwear and some very cute bras, but not many are "practical". While I would love to spend money on fun/sexy bras, I just have no reason for them. The majority of the shop is really cute neglige'/lingerie type clothing, again, nothing I need to be wearing since most of it is meant to be taken off more than worn:-). Someday, I will have a husband and will excitedly buy cute items like that from Contours Lingerie and other shops, but without the husband, it is not justifiable. It's a bit depressing that I am 30 and still do not get to use fun neglige's. Sometimes having specific convictions really suck, but I know that this is something that is a real conviction, I just don't always like it!