Hmm

"Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness." — Earl of Derby

Romans 6:10-13

¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹²Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

Romans 6:4-9

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.

Romans 6:1-3

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

September 29, 2011

Tonight we had a GREAT group with three new members and a total of 10 people! Yay!

We read and talked about Romans 6. We talked about how overeating isn't really necessarily a SIN, but that God does want us to be good stewards of all the gifts God has given us - including our bodies. So overeating is certainly not doing God's will.

Probably the coolest part of the discussion of Romans 6 was what A read from the notes in her Bible:

Here Paul emphasizes that we need no longer live under sin's power. God does not take us out of the world or make us robots - we will still feel like sinning, and sometimes we will sin. The difference is that before we were saved we were slaves to our sinful nature, but now we can choose to live for Christ (see Galatians 2:20).

Our discussion went far and wide, including sharing some super recipes. Hopefully folks will add them here as comments!

We finally had wifi at our meeting, so were able to take a tour of MyFitnessPal.com and discussed a slideshow of Frighteningly Fattening Fall Foods.

What did you take home from tonight's meeting?

Organization - ha!

So tonight I tried to write down an organized outline for our meeting - so we could create a rhythm and a familiarity to the meetings. There are certain components that i thought were important to have - so I came up with this outline:

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Meeting Outline

• Welcome & casual chat
• prayer
• Bible reading
• discussion
• prayer
• highs & lows
• prayer
• sharing tips/ideas/resources/motivation
• prayer
• good night

I'll be gone the next two Thursday nights, so this way, it will be easy for someone else to take over leading the meetings. 

This week's recipes

We had great recipes this week:

September 22, 2011

Wow! That week went fast! I never got around to writing about our meeting last Thursday night. There were only three of us, but we were mighty! We read Romans 14:13-23 - focusing on verse 20: "Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat...." Yes, I know that passage is not talking about dieting, but rather about ritual foods and the question of the validity of food laws after the time of Jesus. But, we took that into consideration, then realized that we could think about this - even the ideas of laws and relationships with other people - and apply it to our eating/overeating. Since we were a small group, most of the evening was spent in GOOD conversation about personal (very personal) issues which I will not share here. It was good to be in each others' company. It was good to have a place to be open and honest about what we may know we're doing wrong, yet we continue. We prayed for each other and for those that could not be with us.

Psalm 139:13-16

¹³For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

¹⁵My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

¹⁶Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

Out of town

I really did well today, surprisingly. I spent 7 hours in the car and only ate what I had planned to eat. Ate a light dinner too. Quite proud of myself!
Got to hold little Luke for about 2 hours. Fun!

Psalm 139:7-10

7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.

Psalm 139:4-6

Even before a word is on my tongue,
   O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
   and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
   it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Logging food & exercise

I have been using LoseIt.com, MyFitnessPal.com, and SparkPeople.com for the last several days, and I have finally decided my favorite. MyFitnessPal.com is the winner. So please come on over, if you wish, and be my friend. I'm KarinMom on there. I think you can search for me by that name and find me pretty easily. Let me know if you have any trouble.

Psalm 139:1-3

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
   and are acquainted with all my ways.

Day 2

Ah, I love how weight just falls off during those first few days of a diet (or, lifestyle change, or whatever you want to call it - essentially FINALLY watching what I eat...).
I got on the scale this morning and I was 4.2 lbs lighter than yesterday! HA! If only I could lose weight like that for just a month! Sweet!
I know it will slow down dramatically eventually, and that will be depressing, but I have to NOT obsess on the scale. It's just SO fun in the beginning that it's hard not to.

9-14-2011 Goals

Here are some of our goals for the coming week:

• drink more water - increase by some
• increase exercise
• Walk with Sue
• Go to the Y
• cardio - 3x/week
• bring old dvds & tapes to share
• make a menu - plan food for the week
• eat some salads
• no late night ice cream
• eat actual serving sizes and healthy snacks
• don’t medicate yourself with food
• tomorrow is today
• fewer excuses

9-14-2011 Tips

We shared some tips for the week:

• go gradually
• 15 lbs in 3 months is doable
• short-term goals
• get up 15 minutes earlier - then increase
• get up once an hour for 5 minutes
• stretch afterwards when exercising
• sit on an exercise ball
• change the rate of your heart as you’re exercising
• schedule your exercise - like any appointment
• go brush your teeth - instead of sweets
• SMALL piece of dark chocolate when you need something sweet
• break foods into serving sizes - little baggies
• get the carry-out at beginning and cut in half
• share a meal

9-14-2011 Motivators

We listed some of our motivators:

• stop sweating all the time
• blood sugar down
• cholesterol down
• happy doctor
• good cholesterol up
• more energy
• blood pressure down
• not short of breath
• not die on stairs
• knees stop hurting

First meeting 9-14-2011

We had our first meeting last night. 8 people were there. It was a great group!
We started with prayer and a little introduction to the point of the group.
We read Psalm 139
and heard that:

• We are fearfully and wonderfully made
• You can’t get away from God
• we are made in God's image
• God wants us to be healthy

A told us: Blame your elbow - if it doesn’t bend - it doesn’t go in!!

We all agreed that the accountability to each other was really important for success. 
We want to do this for our kids and (future) grandkids.
Some websites/resources:

• MyFitnessPal.com
• LoseIt.com
• SparkPeople.com
• The ELCA GO Challenge can be found here
• 2011 GO! Challenge tracking sheet (B&W)
• 2011 GO! Challenge tracking sheet (color)

I also mentioned the Pomodoro time management software - to be used to make sure you get up out of your (MY) desk. You can find that here. 

Authors Welcome

If you'd like to contribute to this blog - of course you can comment on posts. But if you'd like to initiate posts, I would be happy to make you an author of this blog. Please just let me know, and I'll get you all set up.

"Secret" Facebook group

I started a "Secret Group" on Facebook - which means that if you're not in the group, you can't find the group, see the group, see who's in it, or see any of the posts. So - you have to be invited in. It's only so clandestine so folks can feel free to talk about their weight loss struggles and goals without the "rest" of their friends seeing those conversations. If you'd like to check it out, just send me a message on facebook, and I'll be happy to add you to the group.

Day One

Today begins the final time through this. I'm so excited to see who will show up to the group tonight. I've started a weight-loss support / Bible study group at church, and tonight it begins. There are about 5 or 6 who have said they'd be there, so at least I know I won't be alone. Whew!

I think I'll share this blog with them, so they can comment and post if they wish. Maybe I'll even share it with the ELCA For Wellness group on Facebook.

I have 139 lbs to go. Big goal. So many ways to go about it. All the trackers, websites, gurus, advice, etc. I'm going to go with God.

I'm actually really excited...