Everyday Life: The Weight of Even Good

On a Monday, I read aloud the letter slowly and deliberately for the first time. 

We sit around my dining room table as the boys play not-so-quietly in the adjoining living room.

Our hands -- they are so very full, I explain, smiling at the goodness of blessings in arms. 

Our employees, who are more like family, friends, they nod as my words unfold and then come together again realizing that this letter I'm speaking isn't one of just gratitude but rather one explaining our decision to seek out new hands to take the ropes of our Curves. 

Our hands, I say again, they are too full.

I can feel the heaviness lifting out of my arms when the understanding comes pouring out of their lips and shows in their knowing nods. 

Everyone knows what I'm saying is true, and I probably was the last one to realize it anyway. I've been feeling the heaviness we've been carrying since the first of this year brought about an unexpected health journey and the emergence of two growing boys who require more than just extra muscle to haul their lengthening bodies but also extra endurance and strength to shoulder the pangs of getting older. 

Then God, being good and being God, well, he's been pulling me toward living out the strengths He's given me, by not just opening doors, but hand-crafting them with only a carpenter's skill out of seemingly enormous and solid and unlikely walls. 

I can almost feel the stress in my arms when I think I about trying to carry it all ...

or when I think about trying to strong-arm my will against His out of the simple fear of change. 

We don't entertain the thought of carrying the entire good but heavy load -- the club, the boys, our marriage, writing, the ministries, the new callings -- for longer than it takes to pray and seek council and hear

that something has to be given into new hands

because we simply can't carry any of it well, if we keep dropping pieces of everything along the way.

And, so on a Monday, I turn my palms up and unclasp my grip

willing to let another set of hands unload from our arms 

some of the weight of blessing we're no longer meant to carry.

Living Healthfully: An Arrival of Sorts

Editor's Note: After taking my journey with calorie-restricted diets and and restrictive food diets, I no longer feel that either are healthy. You can read my hard-fought-for, hard-lesson-learned food philosophy here. 

Stunned doesn't begin to describe it.

But thankful does.

This past weekend, I met my final weight-loss goal when I weighed in at 136 and noticed a total body fat loss of more than 5 percent of my body weight since May.

When I met my last goal -- reaching 141 -- I shared that I couldn't even remember ever being at a healthy weight during my adult life; I'd always weighed into the category or overweight or obese. My lightest adult weight prior to Curves was 168 pounds during my college running stint.

Seven years and two babies birthed later, I'm within the parameters of a healthy weight for my frame and height.

It's been a really long haul, but it's been a worthy battle to wage.

It's been a lot of making the harder choice, but it's been rewarding at seeing how the harder choice, over time, actually becomes the easier one with which to live.

And it's been a total shift of attitude, habits and allegiances.

Changes, however, I'm so glad to have embraced by the grace and power of God.

Because inquiring minds wanted to know, here's my transformation in pictures.

That's me with the short dark hair in the middle at 200 pounds in 2004; I didn't readily pose for the camera then.

188 after college, pre-Curves, post running {June 2006}

Just a full-body shot at 188 {June 2006}

175 two months after G's birth, worked out at Curves during pregnancy {October 2007}

166 one year after G's birth, consistently working out at Curves {Sept. 2008}

156.8 1.5 years after E's birth, consistently working out at Curves {May 2011}

141.6 after Curves Complete {nutrition+exercise+motivation} {July 2011}

136 after Curves Complete {November 2011}

If you're thinking of changing your allegiances from satisfying food cravings to achieving health, can I just say one thing?

Don't wait. Do it now. Because a day from now, a week, a month, a year, you'll wish you had made the harder choice today. I know I sound like a motivational booklet ... but, you know, strength and encouragement is transferable and shareable.

Consider this an open invitation if you need to borrow some of mine right now; someone once did the same for me.

Living Healthfully: Choosing my Allegiances

Editor's Note: After taking my journey with calorie-restricted diets and and restrictive food diets, I no longer feel that either are healthy. You can read my hard-fought-for, hard-lesson-learned food philosophy here. 

As promised ... my final results from the Curves 90-Day Challenge:



Also, quickly, because I know I rambled on and on {and on}, more than a few people have asked me what my secret was for staying motivated during the entire 90-Day Challenge, so I'll writing about that this week at some point {in a regular writing blog post -- because really I get a little passionate about that, and we don't need me recorded forever on video talking about it!}

Before:


After:


And exhale ... two things I never thought were realities-- weighing 140 and publishing a vlog -- both accomplished. So at that, I rest.

{And I must give credit where credit is due: G took my after picture. Kid has an eye, don't you think? ;) }

Living Healthfully: Feasts

Editor's Note: After taking my journey with calorie-restricted diets and and restrictive food diets, I no longer feel that either are healthy. You can read my hard-fought-for, hard-lesson-learned food philosophy here. 

Here's the thing about dieting and living healthfully that popular culture wouldn't have us believe: we don't have to starve or leave the table unsatisfied to shed pounds or maintain a healthy weight.




In fact, you can, and you should eat filling portions of tasty, colorful, seasonal foods.


So, today, at my Curves club, we did just that: we feasted on delicious, healthy, metabolism-revving foods while celebrating our members who have logged more than 1,000 workouts during the past decade {and may I add-- that is a lot of toning, sweating and just plain working it.}


The coaches and I made dishes to pass and served our super-dedicated, super-beautiful ladies a lunch they enjoyed and feel good about indulging in. Also, the lunch was a really awesome way to share with some of our most loyal members a smattering of the recipes from the Curves Complete 90-Day Challenge {and, you guys, we only have TWENTY THREE DAYS left!} -- all recipes with which the coaches have been nourishing their bodies while shedding fat and inches and pounds.


Between the delicious, filling food and the delicious, filling conversation, our celebration of their achievements was an absolute delight. It's so heart-filling to hear about what Curves has meant to our extremely dedicated ladies. And, I have to say -- I can relate. This place, it's meant so much to me -- the beautiful faces, the warmth, the support, the encouragement, the results.

Oh, and while I'm mentioning results, can I tell you something super exciting? Probably more exciting than fitting into single-digit shorts?? I met a second goal today: my BMI jumped into the fair category -- And it's just ONE POINT away from the good zone. {I am almost just speechless at the overwhelming gratitude I have for Curves International and its amazing research of the eating and exercise plans; I cannot even fully express.}

Goosebumps. I keep catching glimpses of myself in mirrors or photographs and blinkblinkblinking while asking is that girl really me? This whole health journey has been incredible.

So I am full -- in so many ways after today. Between the conversation and the sharing of our lives and having met another goal -- our feast-- for both the body and soul -- was the best way ever to begin my trek into year three as a Curves owner.

Virtual Coffee: Twelve

If we were having coffee today, this cloudly, overcast third of May, I'd be sipping my almond oolong from a steaming mug because it's still chilly enough to need the warmth of tea.

I'd ask what you'd like for your afternoon caffeine fix, and we'd likely let the conversation naturally drift from complaining about the bleak midwestern weather.

Because my irritation with the weather is getting old. :)

So I'd share with you something else that I am SO done with -- G's whole sassy almost-four attitude that's creeped into his normally sunny {albeit strong-willed} personality.

And I'd ask for prayers and any guidance you might have with helping to curb the sass.

Because the kid is driving me bananas. Ba-na-nas, I tell you! I just don't do sass well.

But, in positive news, I am doing well at something with which I normally struggle. Yesterday my Curves coaches and I began the Curves 90-Day Challenge, one issued to us by the head honchos of Curves at our spring training regionals event last month.

We're using the Curves Weight Management Program for the nutrition aspect and getting our exercise from working out the Curves circuit, which we all usually do anyway.

And it's going swimmingly! Curves has come out with some new awesome interactive tools to help guide us through the Weight Management program, and the coaches and I are test piloting it.

When it's all said and done, I'm hoping to have shed this last 15-20 pounds so hopefully I'll be meeelllllting. And maybe eight weeks from now you won't recognize me?



Maybe, also, eight weeks from now when I take another body shot I'll have cleaned the bathroom mirror, too, before inviting guests over for coffee?

Probably, also, we'd talk about how I broke my own heart yesterday: without fact checking, I posted a non-quote on my Facebook wall. Turns out, the first part of the quote was from someone else who wasn't nearly as famous as the person to whom I attributed it.

Don't you hate it when that happens? Or is that just me because of my inner journalist? I just hate printing anything that isn't totally accurate, even if it is just to Facebook or Twitter.

And I could probably drone on and on about the myriad reasons why I simultaneously love and don't love those social mediums. But I'll spare you my Neil Postman-esque monologue.

At any rate, it was a good reminder for me to always double check my sources.

And, yes, in that moment of truth when I realized my error, my mind went flashing back to the time in college when Dr. Murphy marked a big fat D on one of my papers for her senior-level journalism class after I'd misspelled someone's last name.

And that her heaping out a mega-dose mercy on my perfectionist soul; she normally assigned an F for that type of mistake.

Well, enough about me -- how are YOU! What's new? Have I missed a post close to your heart? Will you link it with your comment? Or just tell me what you're thinking about today? Or how about curbing the sass?

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