Springtime

I love the spring. I love when winter begins to whither away and the warmth begins to take over. I love seeing the flowers and the grass grow and the smell that is in the air. We are preparing to plant our garden and to mow the lawn. I am busy, busy, busy between homeschooling, church, teaching and speaking, planning, my weightloss journey and my exercise classes. I just haven't had the time to blog.

I've shared our upcoming Famine in my last post. My husband and I have been actively planning and sharing the vision and are so excited and looking forward to what the Lord has in store. :) We greatly appreciate your prayers.

I haven't talked much about my weight loss ventures here on my blog because over the past years I've begun only to quit. I am praying for the Lord to strengthen me and to help me to keep my focus not on how I look but on my health. Sunday in church Pastor mentioned the billion dollar business to extend life and look good, everyone looking for that fountain of youth. I'm not so much seeking to extend my life (although if that's a bonus I'll take it) so much as I want a better quality of life. I want to be able to move, feel confident to stand up and speak, have the energy to do things with my own children and the children in our ministry at church. I want victory over overeating and laziness in the name of Jesus Christ!

I feel like I've crossed a milestone so to speak and that I've established some healthy habits that are now a part of my life so I can share them now. For the last 8 weeks I've been changing the way I eat and making exercise a new way of life for me. I've eliminated everything but water as my drink. I do have the occasional cup of decaf coffee or hot tea with Splenda or Stevia but only occasional. Water is my main source everyday. I've also eliminated sugar, white flour, and high starch foods from my diet. I'm eating foods in their whole state, lots of veggies, some fruits, nuts, legumes, meats and lots of fiber. It is a low carbohydrate diet but it isn't a no carb diet. I have indulged in a slice of birthday cake once and a slice of cheesecake another time, but found both times that the sweet was TOO much for me. I'm amazed at how desensitized we get to sugar when consuming too much of it.

Our community offers free aerobics classes. They have classes everyday of the week at all times of the day with distances ranging from 15 minutes away to 35 minutes away, one way. Not too bad considering most of the classes are free, a few of the day classes cost me $4 but it's worth that to me. They offer a variety of choices such as Step Aerobics, Sculpting, 30/30, Water Aerobics, Line Dancing, Yoga, Pilates, Chair Aerobics, Cardio Dance, Kick Boxing Belly Dancing, Bhangra, and other styles of exercise classes. I've made it a point to hit these one hour classes at least 3 days each week and sometimes 5 days! I really feel like the exercise has made a huge difference for me. Somehow it has strengthened me and made me more determined to succeed. I think that when you put that much time and effort into something its not as easy to quit or fall off the wagon. When I diet alone its so easy to give up and quit with the thoughts of 'I'll do this later' or 'I'm can live with my size, its too hard to do this.' I work so hard with the exercise, I'm actually enjoying it, and I can see it remaining a part of my life. I feel better, my tastes have changed, I'm satisfied with less food and with different foods than I was before.

My goal was to lose 63 pounds. To this point I've lost 17 pounds, so I only have 46 more to go. The first week I dropped a lot of weight, the weeks following have been 1 or 2 pounds a week which is fair, slow and healthy. I'm very happy with one pound a week!

I've also begun taking vitamins. I had a few health issues before beginning this journey and I'm taking supplements to help regulate my thyroid, my monthly cycles, the regular everyday vitamin, super omega 3's, CLA and Cortisol. In 8 weeks I've seen an amazing difference in my cycle. I've gone from not being able to leave my house to functioning as a normal person during this time! My 3 days of bloating dropped to one day this past month. Now, I'm waiting for my hair to begin thickening again! :) I'll be sure to share more victories with my health as time goes by.

In our homeschool news we are back to the basics. With life so busy I haven't been able to keep up the vigorous schedule I had planned but all is not lost. We are covering all that needs to be covered and will pick the extras up later!

My heart continues to grow for my church, it's people and our pastors. I'm ever so grateful to the Lord for leading us there. Everyone in my family is flourishing there. God is good!

Blessings to you all!