Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Weight-loss Wonderings

Watching The Biggest Loser from last night, this morning, brought me back to this past February when, after 8 months of working, I reached my weight-loss goal. It also brought me to a place of thankfulness and gratitude towards Christ, because I firmly believe that without my relationship with Him I would not have been able to reach the goals I had as quickly, if ever.

So, after reflecting this morning I wanted to share my story. I simply desire to give glory to the One who helped me reach my goals and to let other mothers know that it can be done, and it can be done at home while mothering your beautiful children.

My weight struggles started when I was very young, about 2nd grade. I was always somewhat overweight, maybe not obese, but overweight nonetheless. I wasn't steadily packing on the pounds but once I reached my
senior year of high school I had put on quite a bit of weight over that year. Even though I played soccer since 5 years old I couldn't play the weight off.

The summer after graduation I went on an internship with
the association of churches that I belong to. It was called SIP - Summer Internship Program. It was a 6 week long program about working with youth ministry. During those 6 weeks my sole focus was my relationship with the Lord and the direction that He wanted to lead me in. It was over that summer that I, for the first time, felt beautiful. Not because of what I was wearing, not because I was suddenly thin, not because I was beautiful by any societal standards. But because I knew that my heavenly Father had knit me together perfectly. He knew my inside and out, physically, emotionally, and spiritually and He was pleased with His creation.
He considered me perfect and perfectly beautiful and that took my eyes off myself and my physical struggles and put them back where they should be - on Him.

Once I returned home that relationship continued to flourish and at the end of the summer I got a nanny job. It was while I was working as a nanny, 5 days a week, 10 hours each day, that I started to lose weight. My nanny job ended in early December and I went back to college that January and the weight continued to slowly fall away. That October was also when my now husband started courting me.
By the summer of the next year, 2004, I had lost a total of 52 lbs.

After I became pregnant with our first child in 2005 I put a lot of that weight back on and was not able to shed it in between the successive pregnancies
in 2006 and 2007. Wyatt, our third child, was born in April of 2008 and after 2 months of not losing any of the baby weight I decided that it was time to change my priorities and activities.

So, in July of 2008 I started getting up early, before the children woke. I would
eat a small breakfast, do my T-Tapp (an amazing at home exercise program that helped me lose all my weight, tone my entire body, and kept me strong through each pregnancy), and then would spend time with the Lord and in the Word.
That was also when I started taking the kids out for walks - every morning - for 2.5-4 miles. I would use that time
to pray and draw even closer to the Lord.

I re-focused my time on the Lord and chose to start each day with Him. It is because of that, I truly believe, that I was able to lose a total of 56 pounds and reach a number I had never before reached!

So, today I am praising God for that weight-loss - both journeys that I have been blessed to be one. After years and years of fearing that I would always be over
weight and would never be at a healthy weight for my body He helped me get there.