Weigh In Day - Part 2

Have I mentioned how much I dread Friday mornings??? :-) Being away from home for 3 days was tough, so I had no clue what to expect. I really struggled with exericise this week, too. It seemed 10 times harder than normal! In fact, I came home and exercised on Wednesday night and I was so exhasted I almost quit about halfway through. I stopped for a minute and had a nice talk with Jesus and kept going. Progress requires work! It's not going to happen while I'm sitting around. I did too much of that for years...

But, this morning the scale showed a 1 pound weight loss. Hurray! Down to 176lbs, which makes my total weightloss so far 66lbs. Thank you, Jesus!

*in a radio announcer voice*..."And now. The moment you've all been waiting for!".



Okay, maybe not. But it's time I continued my story. When we left off, I was shocked and disgusted as I saw my weight was 242lbs. (Boy, things can't get much better than that! I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see how this ends! )


I walked out of the bathroom that day knowing something had to change. I couldn't keep living like that. I had to lose weight, plain and simple. Or, so I thought. The truth is, I had no clue! I knew only basic and rudimentary facts about nutrition, and exercise was not even a word in my vocabulary. That left me with a few hurdles to jump over before I could even think about losing weight.


I knew a few things from the start. I didn't want to diet, in the sense that I would follow someone else's meal plans and such. I wanted to understand nutrition for myself and simply eat healthy. I don't find "dieting" to be practical at all, and I knew it wasn't right for me. So from June through September, I did my best to add lots more fruits and veggies into my diet and stay away from the "really bad foods" such as desserts/chips/fried anything,etc. However, my idea of eating more healthy then was only having 2 pieces of pizza instead of 3 (or more!) or eating only 1 cookie instead of 2. I can look back now and see that I began really small, just baby steps. I didn't change into a "health nut" overnight, and it's taken me several months to acquire my limited (but growing) knowledge of nutrition and exercise. But, God used those baby steps. It was a start! At least I was off and running (okay, more like crawling...).


Speaking of exercise, that was where I really had no clue what to do. I mean, I knew the basics like walking, running, jumping jacks, stretching, and the like. But, do you have to do them in a particular order? How many or how long? Do you just make a schedule and stick to it for the rest of your life? When do you increase how many repetitions or how long you exercise? Do you need lots of equipment or can I get along just fine with me and my tennis shoes? What do you do when your muscles get sore? How do I know if I've pulled something? IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE TO LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT A TREADMILL???


I had lots of questions. :-) But not a lot of answers. So, what do you do at a time like this? Not sure. But I'll tell you what I did. I made it up. I figured, who needs exercise videos and expensive equipment? That's for people who REALLY need help or are too stupid to figure it out themselves! I can figure this out. I mean, seriously - what can be so hard about exercising!?!


I remember the first day I decided to exercise. I went out to the only place on our property that has an ample amount of pavement. I set down my water bottle and clock (I stole the clock from the bathroom. Every good exercizer times themselves, right?) I was all prepared for my 30 minutes of exercise. And then I had this profound moment of "Uh............now what?". I realized one thing in that moment. This is why people buy exercise videos!!! But, seeing as I had none on hand, I decided to start with a little stretching. After stretching, some jumping jacks. Then I walked for a few minutes. I kept glancing at the clock thinking I must be almost done. Nope! A whole 10 minutes had gone by. This was going to be a long workout...

I finished and went up to the house. I was tired and felt like a fish out of water when it came to exercise. I didn't know if I'd done enough or if what I did would even make a difference. But slowly, over these past few months, I've been able to gain more knowledge about how to exercise from my parents, friends, books, the internet, magazines, etc. I knew the information was out there - I just had to find it!

The end of Part 2. More later! Much love, Bekah