Category: Body Work

Rock ‘n’ Roll

It’s Monday and time for a blog post. There’s only one problem. I’m sick and exhausted and my brain is less than functional this morning. Here goes anyway.

Yesterday we did it. All 8 of us completed the Inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll St. Louis 1/2 Marathon (13.1 miles). Our plan all along was to walk this race, but for a few of us, when we realized that we might be able to finish in under 3 hours, we ran a couple of miles to try to get there, and almost made it. My time was 3:00:56. That is my 2nd best time out of  seven 1/2 marathon races, and this is the most I have ever walked. Needless to say I feel pretty good about that. But what I feel even better about is that 6 of our 8 Bacon Lovers (anonymous) members completed their FIRST EVER 1/2 marathon yesterday, felt good about it, and some of them are looking to do it again, possibly even running! What a huge difference from 5 months ago!

Today, our muscles are recovering, our vehicles are getting stickers on them that say 13.1, and we are basking in feelings of accomplishment.

It just goes to show:

I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

Yes, we decided to do this race. Yes, we trained. And trained. And trained. Yes, we read about things we should and shouldn’t do on race day. But, we also prayed and asked God for his strength and protection throughout the training and the race. And we give Him the glory for bringing us through victoriously. Because as one of the signs we saw yesterday said, “FINISHING = WINNING.”

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:12-14

After all of this, I am almost convinced I can train for and complete a full marathon (26.2) this spring. I am also convinced I will need a nap this afternoon.

The Time Has Come

We’re almost there. The day that we have been waiting for all summer long is a mere three days away. All the days spent counting calories. All the hours spent trying to find interesting ways to walk miles and miles in and around Greenville. It all comes down to Sunday when the Bacon Lovers will come together to walk 13.1 miles at the Rock ‘n’ Roll St. Louis Half Marathon.

We’re ready. For lots of reasons. Not the least of which is we are tired of trying to find two to three hours every weekend to get our long training walks in. But we are also physically ready. Those team members who doubted (and even whined a little) when Crystal and I proposed walking a half marathon have found that not only will it not kill them, they can actually walk that far at a pretty quick pace. We are looking forward to the fun of race day – bands playing along the route, how awesome we will all look as we walk down the street together in our Bacon Lovers (anonymous) t-shirts, crossing the finish line together and getting our medals, and of course the naps we will all take after the race since we will be getting up at PBC (pre-butt crack of dawn for those of you who may not know) to get down to the race on time.

While this will be my seventh half marathon, it will be the first one I have walked and my first Rock ‘n’ Roll series, so I am excited to see how the race plays out, and am hopeful that by walking, maybe I won’t be quite as shot after the race as I am when I run. I am also excited to be doing it with seven other women with whom I love spending time. (If you are doing the race on Sunday, I apologize in advance if we get to laughing obnoxiously, or get a little over the top with snarky comments to one another.)

But I think one of my favorite things is this: many of us are already looking past the race at what is next. There is talk between Crystal and I of doing a full marathon this spring. There is talk from some other members of doing the marathon relay at the same race as Crystal and I. We are all talking about how we want to change our exercise schedule after the race (as opposed to completely stopping). And to me, that speaks volumes about how important it has been and continues to be to have people to do life, weight loss, and exercise with. We spur one another on. We encourage one another. We challenge one another. And not just in exercise and weight loss. The conversations about various life issues that we have had on these walks, the advice given, the prayers given and received, all of these have been and continue to be invaluable to our success, not just in weight loss and exercise, but in life.

The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to surround myself with people I love and who love me back; people who can speak truth into my life and vice versa; people who love me no matter what, but are willing to say (and hear) the hard stuff; people who can laugh with me at the funny stuff and cry with my at the sad stuff. For me, these people include the BL(a)’s, my small group, my co-workers, my family, and some other great friends that I am blessed to have. And while it is hard work and time-consuming to maintain all those friendships, it is worth it 100 times over.

Pray for us as we race this weekend, and as we continue on in our journeys. And make sure you have people around you that you are doing life with. You won’t be sorry.

Who are you are doing life with right now?

Reboot

As a church administrator, I get a lot of computer questions, most of which are some kind of problem that needs to be fixed. By default, my first response is always, “Have you restarted the computer?” Most of the staff have heard me say this enough that now, instead of responding, “I’ll try that,” their response is, “Yes.”

Sometimes technology just needs to be rebooted. I had to reboot my phone just this morning because it somehow froze up while doing a back-up of my contact list. My computer ran some updates over the weekend and before they could “finish” installing, the computer needed to restart.  Every now and then one of the AC units at the church has a glitch and all I have to do is turn it off and back on and that takes care of the problem.

Lately, I have felt like I need to have a “reboot” in a couple of areas of my life.

First, I have now lost 49 pounds and in addition to the scale not moving for a couple of weeks, I have been having some other weird things happening in my body. Since the end of the Biggest Loser competition, I have let a few sweets sneak back into my diet occasionally, have not been quite as over the top on my exercise, and have made excuses for not being as careful about what is going into my mouth. It seems like a reboot back to the beginning of the competition and what I was doing at that point has become necessary, both to get my body back in order and to get my focus back on the goal. I have 34 more pounds to lose and I don’t want to stop now, or worse, go backwards. So today I am starting the reboot process. Back to eating my everyday breakfast, heavily weighted with veggies lunch, and reasonable dinner, and nothing after 7:00 p.m. Back to seven days a week, sometimes twice a day exercising. Back to being careful to weigh and measure what goes into my mouth instead of just “guessing.” And I am going to go through my closet tonight and clear out all the clothing that is too big. Hopefully that will inspire me to keep working hard at losing.

Second, I have been struggling to find make time for prayer and devotions. Mornings had always been my best time, but because my workouts now take longer than they used to (and I don’t necessarily want to get up at 4:00 a.m.), that time is not always available. By the time I get home of an evening, there are so many things that need to be done, that it isn’t on my radar to sit down with my Bible. And yet, as soon as I climb in bed I can pick up the book I am reading for pleasure and spend 30-60 (or more) minutes reading it before I go to sleep. So, beginning tonight, my Bible will be sitting on top of my book next to my bed and it will get my attention first. If I finish my devotion and prayer time and still have time (and am awake enough) to read, then I can pick up my book.

There’s probably more, but I’m not sure it is wise to try to “reboot” too many things at once, some might not start again at all. 🙂

How about you? Any areas of your life that could use a reboot? If you say yes, make and implement a plan to get it done.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I shocked myself a bit yesterday. Since the end of the Biggest Loser competition, I haven’t been bad, but I haven’t been as strict about what I have been eating and I have been feeling guilty about it, but not guilty enough to try harder. Then, yesterday morning as I was standing in front of my mirror getting ready for work, I remembered a picture I had taken of myself a few years back when I first started exercising again. It is a picture that immediately after printing it out, I deleted it off of the camera and the computer so the only copy in existence is in my bathroom upstairs. I did have it hanging up in my make-up cabinet, but the tape tore so lately it has been sitting on the top of the cabinet and I haven’t looked at it for months. This picture of overweight me in my undergarments was used to inspire me to stay active and watch what I ate. It worked for a while, but then it fell down and I shoved it on top of the cabinet. Well, yesterday I pulled it down and compared it to the image of myself I saw staring back in the mirror. And boy was I shocked. I had no idea what a difference 45 pounds can make. I had no idea just how round my face had been, not to mention other areas. Yes, I have been realizing that my clothes are way too big and I am down two clothing sizes, but to actually see the difference was shocking, amazing, and inspiring.

I am over half way to my goal and that look in the mirror yesterday was part of what I needed to get back on track. The other part was walking with a couple of my BL(a)’s this morning and hearing them talk about the fact that they have been struggling since the end of the competition, too. We all are realizing this week that we let our guards down and fell off the wagon a bit, but we all also realize that we have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and climb back on because we don’t want to go back to where we were. We want to keep moving forward.

Add this to the fact that everyday this week I have had at least one person, and usually more than one, tell me how good I am looking, how I am glowing (not in a pregnancy kind of way-thank God!), how I am drop-dead gorgeous (yes, someone used those words), and so on, and it encourages me to keep going, stay strong, eat well, and get out of bed to exercise even when I am exhausted.

So what happens today when I am determined to stay strong? A tin of Danish butter cookies was delivered with our Quill order to the church. I love Danish butter cookies. And I want to eat the whole tin. But I asked God for strength to avoid them. And every time I was tempted to get up and get one, someone was in the hallway or the workroom, which completely deterred me from picking up a cookie. God definitely answered my prayer by using the fact that I have told people I am not eating sweets and carbs and thus I didn’t want anyone to see me eating a cookie. 🙂 Maybe that reveals something else about me that needs work, but I didn’t eat the cookies!

I added some pictures of me to this post. The first one was taken about the time I was at my heaviest, the second one in early June, right after starting the Biggest Loser competition, the third one part way through the summer, and the last one two weeks ago at our victory celebration. (No, I am not including the picture of me in my skivvies – no one gets to see that one.) It’s pretty neat to see the changes just in my face over the last few months. Here’s to more changes to come!

What changes do you want to see in your life right now? How can you document those changes as they happen to keep you going?

And the Losers are…

…BACON LOVERS (anonymous)!!!

And we won all on our own merit – exercise and weight loss.

We brought in about 5 lbs less food than the group who brought in the most. Thanks to all who donated! Our team alone took over 447 lbs of food to the food pantry. And when you add that to what all the other teams took – there was food everywhere!

Our Pay it Forward didn’t win, and that was fine with us. The Yellow Team has a GREAT Pay it Forward plan for their charity and totally deserved to win.

We knew we had a good chance to win when we walked into the meeting last night, but we were all very nervous. There were a couple of other teams that had their eyes on the prize as well. But when they read our name as the winners, there was screaming, there were tears, and there was excitement. We won $1500 for our charity, Bond Christian Service Camp. What a gift we have given to them! And what a gift we have given to ourselves – bodies that are improving daily. We also have over $500 in pledges for the 1/2 marathon as well, and anticipate more coming in over the next two months. (If you would like to pledge, you can get a form here.

Our Most Valuable Bacon Lover (MVBL) came in second for the overall Biggest Loser of the competition. We all wanted her to win, but to say she lost over 19% of her body weight in the last three months is nothing to be ashamed of! You can read more about Angie’s journey here.

To celebrate, we took the $50 that we won at the egg hunt a few weeks back and went to Bobby’s. If you aren’t from around here, Bobby’s is a frozen custard place in Maryville, IL. It is AMAZING. We spent $41 of the $50 on ice cream. We put bacon on it, we ate it, we took pictures of it, we loved every second of it. And we were all on an extreme sugar high and calling attention to ourselves as we laughed and acted quite obnoxious for a bunch of 35+ year-old women. It was wonderful. And then we spent the last of our money on french fries from Burger King. And then we all felt sick all the way home. The problem with eating healthy is that your body gets used to it and when you try to put junk in it again, it rebels. I had to chew a gas pill and a Tums last night – something I haven’t had to do in months!

But we had fun. And this morning, we are all back on the bandwagon, because we are not done yet.

We are all setting our next goal today – where we want to be by the 1/2 marathon on October 23 and will be sharing our goals with one another. We will also continue to have weigh-ins and measurement updates every other week. We aren’t stopping until we all hit our goals. And when we hit our 1/2 marathon goals as well as finish the race, we’re all going to get pedicures. And as we all hit our weight loss goals, we’re going shopping together to buy new clothes, because we are giving away anything that doesn’t fit – we will NOT keep it in our closet “just in case.”

I think we all have learned something over the last three months – if you get the right group together to encourage and challenge one another, there’s no stopping what you can do together!

Who do you have to encourage you to meet your goals?

UPDATE: I got this message this week: “because of us, Bond Camp is 1.2 Acres bigger than it used to be. He was able to get 2 parcels at $752 each at a tax auction. Paid them right off because he got the check from church already.” Hopefully we can add to this with our pledges for the 1/2 marathon!

Finishing Strong or To Be Continued…

Well, it’s almost here. The day we’ve been waiting for all summer. No, I’m not talking about the first day of school (but that will be nice, too), I’m talking about the end of the Biggest Loser competition.

For the last 11 weeks we have been counting calories, watching carbs, exercising like crazy, watching our waistlines get smaller and the number on our scales go down. There have been moments of victory and moments of discouragement. There have been days when exercise ruled the day, and days when ice cream won. Some days I was offering words of encouragement, and some days I needed them offered to me. I have lost 27 pounds during the competition – 41 overall. My Bacon Lovers (anonymous) teammates have all done well, too. We have been very consistent throughout the competition, and have taken third (twice), first (twice), and fourth (once), at the bi-weekly meetings. That means twice we have gotten a little extra money to give to our charity, Bond Christian Service Camp.

But that’s not enough for us. We want to give more. Since we are going to continue to train for and walk the St. Louis Rock-n-Roll 1/2 Marathon in October, we decided we would ask our friends and family to sponsor us in the race. The money we raise will all be given to Bond Christian Service Camp. Our hope is they can buy at least one (hopefully more) parcel of land to add to their property – this place where kids go to have fun and learn about God’s love for them.

But that’s still not enough for us. We also want to lose more. I don’t think any one of us is at our goal weight, so we are going to continue on. Maybe not as drastically, but maybe so. We most definitely are going to continue our training regimen for the race, and I think we have all learned valuable lessons about how much better off we are now that we have changed some of our eating habits.

But that’s still not enough for us. We want to win this competition. We want to win the money for our charity. It’s a big hunk of cash and we want the camp to have it. We also want to win because none of us thought it was possible at the outset of the competition. This small team of seven women, none of which with huge amounts of weight to lose, all of which with busy lives and schedules, and yet here we are, with a very real possibility of taking the top prize. (Add to that the fact that we are all Type A and highly competitive, and you might be able to imagine just how badly we want to win this thing.)

We have one more week to finish strong. We have one more week to collect lots and lots of heavy canned goods. (The team that collects the most will have 15 pounds taken off their total weight loss and then the food will be given to the local food pantry – two good reasons to bring me some cans!) We have one more week of bantering back and forth with the other teams. We have one more week of competition.

But we have a whole lifetime to reap the benefits of the competition. Lessons learned. Life-changing decisions made. New goals brought to mind. The end of the competition brings with it a choice – go back to the old way of doing things or continue on in a new, healthier lifestyle. I choose to continue on.

I’ll update you next week about the results of the competition, but the overall story is to be continued. In the meantime, pray for us and if you can help our team by pledging or by providing canned goods, let me know. A pledge form is below.

What “finishing” could be a “to be continued” for you these days?

Exhausted, but Energized

I’m tired. Soooo tired. I am not sure the total reason for my exhaustion, but I am sure that much of it can be attributed to 5:30 a.m. wake-ups for exercise, 40+ hour work-weeks, evening commitments that pile on top of one another including ball games, play practice for a play that isn’t happening anymore, and Biggest Loser, and some nights of little or no sleep for some reason or another.

But on the other side of the spectrum, I am energized. This summer has been a fun one so far, and much of that is due to the fact that I am losing weight and exercising my tail of (literally). Now, some of you may not think that sounds like fun, much less energizing, but that’s only because you don’t have a great team of Bacon Lovers (anonymous) to go through the journey with. Every walk I take with one or more of these ladies energizes me. Every text, Facebook, or MyFitnessPal message I exchange with these women encourages me, every success and failure that we experience together tightens our bond, and every challenge that we complete at our Biggest Loser meetings cements the fact that we are a very competitive and amazing group.

It’s easy to get out of bed in the morning for exercise knowing that my gals are waiting on me and depending on me. It’s a highlight of my week to meet them all on Saturday mornings for our long walk. I love our every other week BL meetings because I get to be with these amazing women. And last night, we tied for first in the challenge and got $50 to go out together as a group – something else I will look forward to.

We have four more weeks of competition, but at least 100 more days together as BL(a)’s because we are training to walk a half-marathon. And I’m glad for that extra time, not only because I love these gals, but because we weren’t meant to do life alone, and I am glad to be doing life with these women.

Who are the people who are energizing you as you do life together?

Miscellaneous Musings

It’s past Monday and time for another blog post. The only problem is, I don’t have anything big rolling around in my head today, just lots of little things, so here goes:

  1. Today I am thankful for good friends who love my kids. Particularly one friend who called up and offered (and made good on said offer) to take my kids swimming with her today. I love that and I love her.
  2. Over the weekend I got to spend some much needed time with my parents, middle sister, and her family. It was wonderful. On Sunday morning we had family worship at the campground and spent time singing together and sharing in a time of remembering God’s faithfulness to our family, beginning with my dad’s dramatic conversion when I was two and Steph was a baby. We have been immensely blessed by the Lord throughout the years and his faithfulness continues to be evident.
  3. It is frustrating when people you are depending on to fulfill a commitment let you down and don’t seem to put as much time and effort in as is needed. My hope is that I am never the source of that frustration for anyone else.
  4. Sometimes you just need a friend who understands exactly what you are going through to talk to in order to bring some clarity and a sense that you can make it through another day.
  5. Watching what you are eating while everyone around you is eating whatever they want is hard. Falling to temptation and joining everyone else in eating whatever you want is easy. Climbing back up on the wagon is easy when you feel physically terrible after eating whatever you want.

That’s what’s rolling around in my mind today. What’s rolling around in yours?

Little Victories

Seven or eight years ago, I had to buy a bike. Anne was learning to ride her little one and I wanted to ride again. Now, I know they say you never forget how to ride a bike, but what you do forget is how HARD it is to ride a bike. Especially up hills. I remember trying to ride from my house up a particular street that happens to be a slight hill and having to get off the bike and walk it to the top of the hill. How embarrassing!

Fast forward to Sunday morning. I was out for what I am calling my “weekly Sunday morning ride” and just happened to head up that same road and pedaled to the top, no problem (this after successfully navigating a number of other, taller, longer hills on my ride that morning), and a line from one of my favorite Trisha Yearwood songs (For A While), ran through my head: “Little victories, I’ll take ’em.” And then I started to laugh. I have ridden up that hill a number of times since that first try. I have run six half-marathons since then. I have proved that I can do so much more than I ever expected. And yet, just being able to ride my bike up the hill that beat me years ago gives me a sense of victory.

So I have been thinking about that the last couple of days. There are tons of things that I could look at as “little victories.” I got out of bed this morning – that’s a little victory for my tired self today. I ate fruit and veggies instead of cookies and cake at a get-together with my friends over the weekend. I didn’t (completely) freak out when a wasp landed on me during my walk yesterday. I have managed to stay on top of my laundry for three months now. (That one might be a more than a “little” victory.)

I think we need to give ourselves a bigger pat on the back for the little victories in our days, instead of waiting for the big victories that don’t come nearly as often. When the kids clean the bathroom and it is almost “mom-clean,” that’s a little victory – they are getting there! When we leave the house in 90 degree weather to take a walk instead of staying on our couch in the nice cool AC, that’s a little victory! When we manage to get our quiet time with the Lord in at least one day in this crazy week, that’s a little victory!

When we celebrate these little victories, we are more likely to have more of them because we like how that feels.

So, what little victories will you celebrate today?

Encouragement Comes in Many Ways

Some days, you just need to be encouraged. It could be because it seems nothing is going your way. It could be because you had a tough conversation with your boss. It could be because you had another fight with your spouse. It could be because your kids are acting like raging lunatics.

Or it could be because you have been working very hard to watch very carefully what is going into your mouth in the way of food, and you have been exercising your tail off (or at least trying to) and you woke up hungry and have been fighting the urge to eat anything and everything that would be considered unhealthy the entire day.

And sometimes, encouragement comes in the most unexpected, and yet amazingly helpful ways.

A daughter of one of the team members of Bacon Lovers (anonymous) made us this picture this week:

I loved it. It brought a smile to my face. But even more so, it brought an amazing amount of encouragement to my soul.

Whatever you are dealing with right now, I pray that you are encouraged in an unexpected way today.

And remember as you go through your day, you might be someone else’s unexpected encouragement.