Weightloss, the scale and freedom?

As I prayed and fasted at the end of last year I felt confident in the plans I made for this year. I talked with God about both ministry plans and personal plans. Lately I feel, personally, I’m being pulled in a different direction.

At first I almost felt guilty, like I had made the wrong choices. That I had manipulated what God was telling me to do to fit my needs. But when I look back, the choices I made weren’t my original choices that I brought to the Lord, they are the choices I felt he was leading me to.

Let me backup and tell you how I got here.

About two, maybe three weeks ago, I hit a bump in the road. I could not get over the bump. The bump was food, more and more of it and little to no motivation to move. I know it was all connected. Not eating the right things usually makes me blah and want to spend time on the couch instead of getting in the workouts that I know make me feel better.

It took me several days to take my struggle to the Lord. I think I kept thinking I would wake up and feel different the next day, but it never came. I felt like I was, I don’t know, maybe disappointing him by not doing the things I felt he was calling me to. Shamed.

That’s not how he works. We need to, I need to, take my struggles immediately to him.

As soon as I did. The struggle diminished. I didn’t immediately start making better choices, but the guilt and shame disappeared. And in that I started wanting to make better choices.

I’ve spent nearly a week, or more, talking to the Lord about my next step. For some this may seem silly, I mean I’m spending a lot of time with the Lord talking to him about what I should eat, should I count calories, track macros, and on and on.

I said loud and clear at the beginning of the year that I felt led to track my calories. That weight loss was my goal. Honestly, I’m still not sure if that was me or the Lord. Maybe he led me there to get here. More than likely, he let me go there so I could get here. And who knows if things won’t change again in a couple of months. But here is where I’ve landed for now. 

I want freedom. Ultimately, that’s what I’ve always wanted. I know God can give me freedom. I’m unsure what that looks like. I mentioned earlier in the year that freedom can still have boundaries. Boundaries are healthy. I still firmly believe that and that is why I struggle with what I’m about to say. I struggle because I’ve done this before and used it as an excuse to do whatever I wanted… hence my need for boundaries, such as tracking.

But I feel God calling me to ditch the scale and the tracking apps.

This is not a prescription that everyone might be called to. We are all at different points in our journey. I believe that there are times, especially early, when I NEEDED tracking and the scale.

If I’m honest, I still want both right now. I think they keep me more honest.

But, I also think the restricting, while it was well within a healthy range, led to my overeating as well.

I fear failing and ending up heavier than I am right now. I want the scale to decrease.

God is reminding me, and I'm pushing back, that the goal has never been about weight loss. It’s about being healthy. Healthy isn’t a number on a scale, even though I’m convinced my knees and back would disagree. He’s reminding me that there are people that need to see that healthy isn’t one size fits all. Which leaves me frustrated and asking him if that means I get to eat all the healthy things, do the workouts and have this same body?

To which he replies, so what if you do?

And that’s where we are right now.

A struggle between what I want and what the Lord knows I need.

We are still tugging the rope.

I’m praying that I can get on his side of the pull.

I’m going to give it a try, but I want a better attitude about it.

I truly, honestly, never thought my motivation was physical appearance, but he’s revealing to me that it just might be. He’s revealing that I need to let that go. That being healthy should be enough. That eating healthy whole foods is a gift in itself. That having the ability to workout is the reward. Not that I will only do it if there is a physical reward of a lower number on the scale or smaller jean size.

He’s showing me that boundaries can look other ways too.

Boundaries could be paper tracking, just simply writing food down so you can see where hunger is different, where foods might not agree with you, etc.

Boundaries could be eating whole healthy foods that fuel you and saying no to processed foods, at least most of the time.

Boundaries could be simply making sure you move 30 minutes a day, getting steps in.

I may have further to go on this journey than I thought. 

I’m thankful for an open heart to God who can hear these quiet whispers, even when they're not the words I want to hear.

Fill My Cup

"Fill my cup, Lord
Run it over
Give me love, give me joy
Give me peace (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Fill my cup, Lord
Run it over
I am Your child in need (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Lord, I need You (to fill my cup)" - Andrew Ripp

This past Sunday in church our youth pastor stepped in and preached a message in our Delighting in Glory series. He spoke from Psalm 50 and Joshua 6. What a gift his words were!

His message was about serving. He talked about how there are basically two trains of thought people have in regards to why we serve Christ. The first being that Christ needs us to. I immediately started graoning inside. Christ doesn't need us to serve, God is a BIG God who can do all things. And, if I had waited, that's where he went with the statement too. Many people serve out of burden, feeling like they "have to". If no one else does it, I guess I will have to do it.

That's not at all what serving should look like. God's been talknig to me a lot about serving him this year. He's helped me realize what a gift it is to serve! And that's where the pastor went next. He shared about how God allows us to come beside him and serve. It's a GET TO! Serving is an opportunity to get closer to God. He invites us into his work. How beautiful is that, seriously.

I'm nothing without God. So nothing I can do is without God either. 

I had just shared in Saturday morning workout the day before this message about how God can use unlikely people and circumstances to accomplish his will. I encouraged the ladies to think about ways that they may feel unqualified, but also feel a tug from God to serve. To start getting closer to him through the Word so they can hear where he is leading them. 

So much of what I do in person through Faith Fueled Wellness and even behind the scences is far outside my comfort level. If you've only known me through the ministry you probably wouldn't believe this but it's so true. This whole thing is a God thing, he gets all the glory, and I get to know and love him more.

What he's been telling me recently is to give it away. Give away my time, my resources and more. As our pastor shared Sunday morning when we serve from that place that God needs us, we often end up burned out and empty. Our cup runs out because we are dependent on ourselves. When we serve out of invitation from God, out of our need for Him, not the other way around, he fills our cup continutally to do the work.

God's also been speaking to me this year about beng a cup filler. I didn't have words for that until this sermon. But that's what I desire my ministry to be. Filling the cups of others, through Christ, so that they can fill others cups as well. We talk a lot about being a light, it's the same principle. What gets poured into us, we are willing to pour into others. 

Sit with God this week. 

Ask him to fill your cup. 

Ask him where you can fill other's cups so that there is room in yours for him to keep pouring into!

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:5-6

 

Weigh in, Old is the new new, & influencers

How about a monthly weigh in here?

And not just a weigh in of my weight loss progress, but what I'm doing that is working or not working for me and other random thoughts I have about things.

If you read February's post about weighing in, you know that I'm going back to sharing my weigh in's this year. I'm not going to share them weekly. But I would like to share them monthly to you. It's partly in hopes of encouraging you and it probably mostly for me. In the beginning of this whole journey, way back in 2013, sharing all of the things helped hold me more accountable. I need that right now.

My goal is to lose 3 pounds a month, that's a goal for the year of 38 pounds. In January I lost 3.6 pounds. And drumroll please, in February, I also lost 3.6 pounds!

I have to admit I'm a little surprised with a loss in February. With all that has been going on the last month, I've been a little distracted. As much as I did not enjoy the stomach flu, it has ended up being blessing for me. That little unplanned extended fast really helped me. It helped my body feel like I was getting a fresh start. Fresh foods are what sounds good so far, so I've stuck to a lot of them. I'm sure getting good and cleaned out with the bug really helped the loss this month, but I'll take it. I'm going to use it to try and encourage me to make even better choices the WHOLE month of March, instead of the last little bit like I did in February.

On thing I did recently that has seemed to help me is adjust my nutrition goals. I looked back at several months in 2017 and 2018 when I was REALLY focused and examined what I was doing then. One of the biggest things I noticed was that I was eating smaller more frequent meals instead of larger meals and trying not to snack, like I have been doing most recently. I've implemented that this past week and it seems to be a huge game changer. Maybe that's what my body needs. We are all different. No two journey's are going to look the same.

Maybe at some point in time I need that shift in eating to the larger meals and less snacking. I don't really remember when I shifted from smaller meals to larger less frequent ones. What I imagine happened was that somewhere along the way I heard I could/should eat more at a meal and that for whatever reason I shouldn't snack. So, away I went. 

We do have to be flexible on this journey. We have to be able to consistently evaluate what's working and what's not. Our body is always changing. That's why tracking can be really beneficial. Having data to look back on was really helpful for me. I could see the types of foods I was eating, when I was eating them, what my macros looked like. I could also see what my workouts looked like. So, for now, I decided, the old way is now the new way. A week isn't enough time to tell if this is a difference maker, but unless it goes crazy bad, I'm going to give it the month of March to see how it goes.

That leads me to my final thoughts for this post. I have plenty more thoughts for posts for another day. But I got to thinking about the power of social media influencers. I do not consider myself in this category, however I can also see on a small scale how I could be in this category.  But, I digress.

That being said, I hope you know that social media influencers, people sharing things on social media, are just people sharing what works for them. I think it's amazing that we have so many people interested in trying to share their health and wellness journey to encourage others. 

But, I do caution you to take all the recommendations with a grain of salt. You need to do your own personal research for every one of the recommendations you think you want to follow. Find people who are professionals, find out what their qualifications are to make the claims they are making. Are they just sharing their thoughts, sharing their latest trend on their journey, trying to sell a product or do they have the education to support their claims. There are LOTS of good influencers to follow, just do your homework about the ones you trust.

And for what it's worth, know that a lot of what I share is my personal journey. It's not a prescription for every person who follows. I strongly encourage finding your own way. That being said, I am a American Council on Exercise (ACE) certified Health Coach, an ACE certified Group Fitness Instructor, Certified Revelation Fitness Instructor and Certified Wellness Revelation Facilitator. I am always working on keeping my credientials current. So, while, my journey is personal, I do try to provide current education on relevant topics as well.