Day 12- Clean eating and shakeology....

Today is the start of my 12th day doing a clean eating and shakeology challenge. Last week was crazy, I lost 4 pounds. Since then I have been holding steady, but not losing any more weight. I am doing well. A lot of it is a mental/emotional challenge for me. There are times I eat food, and not even an hour later, I can feel the food burning off and I get a feeling like I could be getting hungry. I know though that it is NOT true hunger, but my body is eating away at my fat stores and burning off calories. I know to experience weightloss, I have to accept that and allow my body to work it's magic. It's hard at times. Sometimes I just start craving things that I haven't allowed myself to have, i.e. coke. I am trying to do my best though, every day. These changes take time and I also have truly accepted that. Or at least, I am working on accepting that. Every day is a challenge... every day, I am pushing myself to see how far I can go... through exercise, eating right, and praying through the hard stuff.

Morning of Day four

After three days of cleaning eating, I have lost 2 whole pounds. In three days! Wow, for me, this is monumental.

Last night, I had a rough time. I started to just feel like I was having a complete and total meltdown. I just wasn't feeling satisfied. I think it is directly related to lack of carbs, because I have been focusing on eating very little carbs because there aren't very many that are considered "clean". I am also counting calories. I have been keeping within my calories, and exercising every day. I am feeling positive about the changes I have made about half the day. I want to see these changes. I want to experience weightloss, but it is hard to give up the things you love. And yet, I know the only way to truly experience God's best for my life is to learn to "control" and train my flesh. That is why God calls us to fasting, in a way that is what I am doing. Fasting is about putting down the desires and lust of our flesh to focus on God and the spiritual. I would say I am definitely putting down the lust of the flesh, now I just need to focus more on God through this process. He is my strength. My peace.

Changes....

Let's see, as of sunday, I had lost 10 pounds total since starting in January. I have had some serious rough patches. Through it all though, I have kept going. I keep pressing on. I am now using Shakeology by Beachbody. It's a nice pick me up. I have quit drinking coke totally. I am currently on day 3 of a clean eating challenge by Beach body. In two days I lost 1 whole pound, so now I am down 11 pounds. I am so excited and can't wait to see where I go from here.

2 weeks!!

I have reached the two week mark. As of yesterday, I have only lost 4 pounds. It's ok, though, right now I know I am building muscle by exercising and my body is changing as I work it. I haven't seen any huge differences yet. It's ok, I know they are coming. I have been doing different exercises all the time. I am not sure if that is good or bad. I do not know how to do what I am doing. I am just trying things out and trying to figure it out as I go. I have been eating less, moving more, and drinking lots and lots of water. I feel better just knowing and doing those things. I am encouraged still. I am motivated still. :)

10 days in

I have kept up the exercising. This week, I even did strength training exercises one day and a 3 mile walk the next day. I have lost 3 pounds. I am also so exhausted that last night I got all teary eyed. My body is sore and I am not used to this. I am not quitting. I am determined. I will press on through the pain, through the exhaustion, I know that I am on my way to good things.

Day 4- exercise

I need to remind myself today that exercise is my friend. Yes, my friend. My friend because it cares about me, it takes care of me, and it knows how to fix my body. Right? For a long time now, food has been my friend, but it was deceitful and it lied to me, convincing me that yummy sugary treats could fill my aching heart. No, only God can fill my aching heart. I must rely on His strength to face the ugly things that caused my heart to think that I could feel better if I ate or drank sugary things to numb the pain in my heart.

No longer shall I try to receive acceptance from people who don't have that to give. True acceptance and love comes from God. When I get that inside of me strong, then I won't feel this aching need for people to fill His place any longer.

Ephesians 3:14-21

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,^{[c] 15} from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, ²¹ to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 1:6
to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

and lastly.... a reminder....

“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose

heart.” -Galatians 6:9 (NKJV)

Today is day 3

Today is day 3 of my journey to freedom. Actually, it started awhile ago, but specifically I am referring to me changing my lifestyle in order to lose weight and to be healthy. Specifically, I just want to be healthier. I want to seek God first, and let Him fill the deep holes in my life instead of trying to get food, tv, the internet, and other things to fill the deep holes that only God can fill and heal.

So, this blog is specifically for this area of my life. I am not sure how pretty this journey is going to be. At this moment, I have very high hopes that all things will go smoothly. But, I know myself quite well. It isn't unreasonable to imagine that I might have a day or two where I want to quit, where it's hard, and I don't want to do it.

Today marks day 3 of exercising and drinking a lot more water. Those are my first two goals. I am doing this piece by piece. I think that is the best way for me, it may be a slower way to go, but I am looking at the long term.

My biggest challenge is drinking water and exercising. I hate exercising, and I hate sweating. I hate drinking water, it seems the more water I drink, the more water I need and not vice versa, which is why I hate drinking it. Truth, LOL!

I have been doing it. I am already seeing a change in me, my desires, and even in my body weight. I weighed myself yesterday morning and weighed in at 274. Today I weighed in at 271.4. I am shocked, I don't think that has ever happened so quickly to me. I must of been retaining a lot of water or something. I have been walking (Aerobic walking) 2 miles a day. I am sore, and truly exhausted, but I know I need to keep going.

The weight I want to get to, while supposedly still not my ideal weight, is 160. I think that is reasonable compared to where I am now. That is a total weight loss of 111.4 pounds as of today that I am working towards.

This coming July, I have my 20th class reunion. I haven't seen my class since I graduated in May of 1992. I am very nervous about it, and I want to be really seeing some progress in working towards my goals by then. I know I won't lose it all by then, but I am just looking for progress.

So, with that, I am signing off for now.

Anna