Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride (Week 2 Update)

I have been really busy this week and haven't had time to post. I did not loose any weight this week - everyone says week 2 that is to be expected. I think it was a combo of it being week 2 and the 2 rounds of Japanese food I had over the weekend. I learned/am learning alot last week about emotional hunger. I wasn't physically hungry but with John being here I felt like come meal time I needed to eat. I am not blaming John (although he says I am :)) but I am just saying - it was harder with him here. So for once I was glad to see him off for a week so I could get a better handle on my eating.
I decided that we have to find things to do as a family that don't center around food. So Saturday morning we are going for a short hike and I am excited. I found a website with a few places close by but haven't settled on any some suggestions would be great (ie - jess).
Also my friend Shannon has said she will do the Mercedees 5K with me which I am really excited about. It is not until Feb which gives me time to build up. I plan on signing up as a runner but not sure I will be able to run the whole thing. Running is very much something I look forward to after loosing my weight. John loves to run and I can't wait to do it as a family - sometimes.
I am not disappointed about not loosing any weight. I am learning so much through this. I think that having my food options so easily accessible - I just go to the cabinet and pick from the already prepackaged meals (that are surprisingly good) and make it - has taken my mind off thinking about food. I don't have to think about what I have had today and what I can have and so on. I will eventually need to do that but for now I can really think about when and why I eat. It is forcing me to concentrate more on this whole emotional eating. I want terribly for this to be a lifestyle change and with that comes evaluation and retraining and sacrifice. I am there - I am ready but it is not easy!!!
I am starting to have more energy which is great as well. So all in all I am on the right track. I have found a plan that is working for me and I am really excited about it.
There are so many other things I want to write about but right now I can't focus on that. In a few weeks I will be back. Thanks for sticking it out with me friends!!!

Weight Loss Update

Hear me squealing as I tell you I lost 10.4 lbs this week. I was very pleased. I have been surprised how easy this week has been. I really never feel physically hungry and I am fighting to deal with my emotional hunger. It has been a successful week. I have a dear friend meeting me at the gym every morning. She walks 30 min with me (which is all I can do right now per docs orders) and then she goes and actually sweats for her workout. The time has passed so quickly every day. It is fun for me to start finding new ways to hang out - rather than grabbing lunch or such we walk for 30 very fast minutes.
The nurse told me at my weigh in today to not expect a lot of weight loss the second week. She said your body kinda realizes week 2 that something is going on and tends to hold on to its stored fat. I wanted to get onto a Monday weigh in day anyway because that will motivate me to do well over the weekends when John is home. So I am going to just go for 11 days and then weigh in the that next Monday. So this will give me a longer stint to loose a little more weight.
Already I feel more energetic. I am super encouraged. Thanks for all the encouraging emails and comments I have gotten from you all.

9 years - really 15

Today we celebrate 9 years of marriage and 15 years of our life together. Next year I will have spent half of my life with this wonderful man. Last year I shared our story. Here it is in it's entirety if you want to read it:
I love the story that God gave us surrounding our relationship and I thought that in honor of our special day I would share with you are beautiful story of redemption.I went to school at a small private school in Fayette, Alabama. John started this school our 11th grade year. He was a football player and I was a cheerleader (really?). We became fast buds - really just friends to start with. We really had fun laughing and cutting up together. Every time he saw me in the halls he would say "Hey sugar." It was a fun relationship that, surprise, surprise, turned into more of a love interest rather quickly. So he ask me to go on our first date together for Friday, September 16, 1994. The night before we had a football game and I of course was elated to be cheering for him on the sideline. Oh those high school days.

So we went on a double date with some good friends and well that started a relationship that is celebrated 14 years tomorrow. Our years in high school were good but rocky. We both broke up twice during the next two years only to always end up together again. The fall of 1996, after graduating high school John proposed to me and of course I said yes. We spent 1 year at the JuCo in our home town where his mom taught before moving to South Alabama.

I had gone to church off and on during my life and would have said to you I was a Christian. I tried to be a good girl. John on the other hand, did not even believe in God. I specifically remember a conversation we had our senior year of high school (I even remember exactly where we were and what we were doing) in which he told me that something drastic would have to happen for him to believe that there is a God. I continue to love him and later planned to marry him so that tells you where I stood spiritually as well. So our Sophomore year of college we moved to University of South Alabama. I planned to be an Occupational Therapist and well John just planned to follow me down there and decide later. This move completely changed our life!!!!!

We moved to Mobile in May of 1997 and I started summer classes. Oh, and we were living in a townhouse together. I met a few girls that summer that I started spending time with. I really saw a difference in their lives and how they lived and what they talked about. When fall classes started they invited us to a picnic that Campus Outreach was having to welcome the students back and meet the new ones. John wanted to play intramural football and one of my friends had told me that a guy there was putting together a team. So he decided to go with me. I remember meeting JK for the first time. He was flipping burgers and he said "My name is Jonathan King, but just call me JK." He had that sheepish grin on his face that now is so endearing to my heart. We met several people that day and had a blast. Some of those people have become our life long friends (even though we stink at keeping in touch Todd Russell!!!). So John began to play football with JK and his team. Several girls starting initiating time with me as well. At this point, I would have told you that I was already a Christian and was ready to re-dedicate my life to Christ. For me, now the big part was getting John - who said something drastic would have to happen for him to believe there was a God - to believe. John came home from the first practice and said JK approached him afterwards and started talking to him about God. He said it was ok and JK challenged him to read the book of John. So he did - and well after a thousand conversations with JK the drastic thing had happened.

JK came over to eat dinner with us one night (I remember he was wearing this red Alabama sweatshirt - that he was wearing at my house this last Christmas 10 years later :)) He talked with us alot about the book of John and clearly shared the gospel with us. For me, I realized that the key thing I was missing was not the belief in God but the lordship surrender. That night, October 27, 1997, John and I both prayed to receive Christ together.
The night that we became Christians, Jk, left the house and did not say one word to us about our living situation. He began meeting weekly with John and teaching him how to study the Bible. I got hooked up in a Bible study as well. It was a little over a month later that John and I really became convicted about our living situation. So I found a roommate for the spring semester (quarters then) and John lived on JK's couch for about a month until he could move into the dorms. (we later ask JK and Tammy why they never challenged us to move out and they said they knew the Holy Spirit would do it in time and that He would be a true conviction) That summer, John went to SBP and I stayed behind for OT school and meet one dear friend that taught me all I know about marriage and parenting - Emily Teague. I wouldn't have traded that summer for a 1000's SBP's. Late fall of 1998, John and I decided it was time to break off our engagement. It wasn't an issue of our feelings for each other quite as much as it was about knowing if this was God's will or ours for us to be married. It was hard because our lives were completely interconnected. We still spent time together and kinda acted like we were together until the first week of SBP 1999. This was the week that John decided that it was time for us to not spend any time together. We had to really sort this out and it was so hard. So the summer was spent completely apart doing our own thing. I stayed after SBP to babysit and John left and spent a week at my parents river house alone. He said he really needed to be with the Lord and decided if God's will was for us to be together or if it was just what we had known for so long.

Often when I share this story I tell people that I felt like Abraham walking up the mountain to slay Issac. God had told me to lay this relationship on the alter. For me it was not a question of my feeling for John - I loved him and had always loved him even in those silly teen years it was real. So I chose to obey God because I believed His word to be true. Jer. 29:11 became my sustenance during this time - it kept me going. I could not see that John was not the best for me but God gave me the faith to believe that He had my very best in store and that He would give it to me if I chose to trust Him and surrender my wants and desires. This was probably one of the hardest 3 months of my life. (Jill do you remember :))

About a month after school started, John ask me to go to lunch with him on a Wednesday. I had a terrible sinus infection but I was not about to pass up time with him. (I had told the Lord that I wanted to marry John and that I would trust him to show John otherwise and close the door if it were not the best. I knew I couldn't trust my emotions so I ask the Lord to slam it shut if it needed to be.) So we went to lunch and talked about our summers. After lunch we went to the park near South and sat by the lake and we continued talking about our summers for 2 hours. It was great because, he was my best friend and I hadn't talked to him all summer. After that talk, he told me that he felt like God had given him a solid answer about our future and he pulled out my ring and ask me to marry him again. I was completely shocked - we had been sitting there for 2 hours!!!! Of course I said yes and bust into tears. God gave him back to me and I feel completely blessed!!!

Update

Day 1 and Day 2 have been great!!! No hunger, no headaches. We had to explain to my little garbage disposals that they can't eat mommies food. John told them it was special food for me and that I didn't get to eat much of it and they didn't need to ask for any. He told them it was like medicine for me. So John just sent me a text and said "me and the boys are at full moon eating and Jake just said that mommy couldn't come here to eat with us because they don't have medicine food." yes son you are correct - no medicine food will be found at the BBQ place!!!!

A new journey

So today starts a new adventure for me and I wanted to let you in on it. I have thought long and hard about sharing this with you because it evokes a level of accountability that I didn't know if I wanted. But this upcoming year is about change for me in so many ways on so many levels. So here it goes:
I am starting a drastic weight loss diet today. My whole life I have struggled with weight. Yesterday when I did my physical for the diet and they took history - in your immediate family do you have any of the following - heart disease (yes), diabetes (yes), cancer (yes), thyroid problems (yes), and most of all the others (yes). You get the picture. I have tried to loose weight my whole life and for various reasons it has not been my priority. That time has come to an end. John and I have decided that for our entire family my health is our top priority this year. So that means that our days will be scheduled around me going to the gym 5 days a week, going to weigh in, eating out as a family at places I can eat. I am doing the Bariatric Diet which during the first phase I eat their foods. I started today because the friends that have done it all say the first 3 days are hell and then it gets easier. I wanted to do those first 3 days while John is home and can support me and help take care of the kids. That is why I started today.
So I want to loose 110 pounds. It is alot and it will be a long road but it HAS to happen. And I decided that sharing this with you is hard but is just means if I succeed I do it publicly and if I fail I do it publicly as well. I want my life to change. Sometimes I feel like there is this whole other person inside me waiting to get out. I tell John sometimes that I think if I were skinny I might dress like a hippy :) who knows I guess we will see. So when you see me please please please ask me how I am doing. Don't be afraid - I need it. Thanks for joining this journey with me. I will post at least weekly when I weigh in. (I plan on starting to post more anyway now that we are settling)

Be The Man You Want Him To Be!!!

Today I was SUPER encouraged by my wonderful husband and I wanted to share the story with you. As you know we are moving into the house this week and John took the week off to help. That itself gets tons of kudos!!! But this is even better.
John decided he wanted a new TV and for the last nine years we have been a one TV family so we decided to put our old TV in the playroom and get us a new one upstairs. When we went to Wal-Mart to get one Saturday at 5:30 (1.5 hours till kickoff) they did not have the specific one he wanted so he got a smaller one - still big. Then yesterday we were in Sam's and he found the bigger TV there for only 100 more than the one he bought. So he was going back and forth deciding if he should take it back or keep what he got.
This summer Jake saw a double sided light saber and ask for one. John promised he could have one when we got into our new house. Well you better believe that 2 months later Jake did not let him forgot so off to Wal-Mart they go. Jake picks a red one and Brady gets blue. Well this morning - after having it a few days, Jake came in the room with me and said I decided I want a blue light saber instead of red. I told him that he picked red and that was what he would have and then I talked about being thankful for what he has. His response to me was "if i break that one will you buy me a blue on?" UMM -NO!!! So I took it away from him for a little while. He went inside and when I came in after 2 talks he was crying. I said why are you crying "because I really want a blue one." So I really didn't know how to respond at that point and so I sent him to his room until John got home.
So John comes home, goes to talk to him and gives him the once again be thankful talk. Then he keeps on about it and just won't drop it. In the mean time John comes in there where I am and says "I really want to exchange my TV but I just gave him this talk on being thankful for what I have." So a few minutes later the topic comes back up with Jake about the light saber and John just shares his struggle with him. And he said "so when I think about that bigger TV I just have to remind myself to be thankful for what I have and ask God to help me have a grateful heart." Jake said "daddy, I know what I need to do - I need to pray and ask God to help me have a grateful heart too - will you pray with me daddy?"
What a sweet reminder that they just need to see that we really understand their struggles.
So today I got to watch my husband make a choice to be the man that he wants Jake to be. We still have the smaller TV and he loves it!!! I love that man!!!