Falling Off The Wagon

So after I posted yesterday, one of my friends was kind enough to remind me that currently I have "fallen off the Weight Watchers Wagon." And yes, she was right. I did take a hiatus of sorts for a couple of days.

Her comment caused me to think a little deeper about putting such personal goals on a public blog such as this one and opening myself up to criticism and a tarnished reputation if I fail.

However, I thought that in the end this is a place for me to post successes and failures and to allow others to see my mistakes and my triumphs. Yesterday's post on my plan for discipline is one that is stretching me to explore areas of my life where I have been lax. To open up areas of my life to a greater control of the Holy Spirit and to allow Him to work in me and clean me up.

I will fail. I will fall. I will bruise myself. I will end up with bloody knees on this road. But I will continue to set lofty goals, I will continue to challenge myself, and I will continue to let you see me in my weak moments and my strong ones. Perhaps so you can be challenged to do the same thing in your life. And perhaps so that we can know that we are not alone on this journey. That there is indeed nothing new under the sun.

A Season of Discipline - September through December

Since coming back from Montana, I have really felt that I have needed to focus on a couple areas of my life. Mainly I had a realization that my faith is shallow. While we were at the ranch in Montana, there was chapel twice a day which was really great. The preacher was amazing - I didn't agree with everything he said, but he was very solid in what he was saying. Two major takeaways that have stuck with me are that God doesn't need us but He chooses us anyway. The second is that Christ needs to be my higher affection. These two ideas have really burrowed their way into my heart and challenged me to find ways of deepening my faith and my understanding of who God is and who I am.

So a season of discipline - to get my mind, heart, will, emotions, spirit under His control.

The first area is physical discipline. To accomplish this I joined Weight Watchers to learn more about taking my physical desires under control and being a good steward of my physical health and body.

The second area is in finances. Some of you know that I have had a significant amount of credit card debt accumulated over the years for a variety of reasons. For several years now I have made it a goal to become credit card debt free but haven't been able to quite manage it. However, in about two months, I will send in a final payment and be done with it. Since I don't want to fall back into that pit, I am going to be taking Crown Financial this fall to learn more about what God has to say about money and finances and become a good steward of the financial gifts He has given me.

The last area of discipline I wanted to focus on was spiritual, but I wasn't really sure how to go about it. I realize that I need and want some accountability in this area simply because I know my weaknesses in really following through. So I thought about joining a small group at church, but I didn't know which one would be the best one (we have over 70 - interest groups, bible studies, speciality groups, etc.). On Friday, one of my pastors approached me and asked me if I would be interested in helping co-lead one of the groups called Holy Spirit Encounter. It is an introductory course into who the Holy Spirit is, why people talk about Him, what roles He plays, what the gifts of the Spirit are and living a Spirit-filled life. Although our church is affiliated with Assemblies of God, we are very non-traditional in the approach we take, so this kind of group is a safe, non-threatening and frankly non-weird way to examine the Holy Spirit. I said yes and am excited to see an opportunity open up for me that "forces" me to be disciplined in study. I cannot be a leader in my own strength, but must continually look heavenward for wisdom and humility.

I'm looking forward to this time of growth and am excited to see how God is going to use me, not because He needs me, but because He chooses me.

My Brain On Running

So last night, I went for a run in my neighborhood. I had a really great run heading down to the local park and then back home again. I started on the trail into the park and got just far enough in to realize that I probably shouldn't be running through there by myself at 8:00 at night, so I turned around.

On the way home, my right foot was hurting and I attributed it to not running in a while. Once the run was done, I was stretching and noticed the bottom of my right shoe was really worn out. I looked on my left one and it looked really new. I couldn't figure out why one shoe was so beat up and the other looked great especially since these were my "new shoes" (ie bought a year ago or more).

I stood up and looked down and realized that I had two different tennis shoes on. The one on my left was my newer shoe and the one on my right was four years old.

No wonder my foot was hurting.

For the record - this was the first time in my life I have ever done this. Let's hear it for the thirties!

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

So I still don't have my Montana pics yet. But I'm tired of looking at all text, so here's a picture of me and my roommates in April I think celebrating my one roommates b-day at home. My friend Christy is also in the picture. Enjoy.



And here's another dancing picture of me. I'm way in the background. This was at my company's 10th anniversary party at Sequoia in Georgetown. Holla!

Fun Activity-Revisited

Just cause I like this activity :)

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Turn to page 23.
3. Find the fifth line.
4. Write the next three lines here and post the directions.
5. Grab the nearest book only. Not the coolest book or the most interesting book, but the nearest one.

My book: Eat Wisely

Shop for single-serving portions of snacks, like mini bags of pretzels or chips; Weight Watchers bars, Smoothies and snacks are also ideal. When this is what you have on hand, you won't mindlessly eat more than you expected to. For times when big portions can't be helped, learn to recognize Hunger Signals (page 52).

Weight Watchers!

So today I joined millions of others around the world in participating in a lifestyle change called Weight Watchers. Although I am not significantly overweight, I am perhaps the heaviest I have ever been in my life and I just don't feel as comfortable in my own skin as I would like to feel.

I signed on for this to re-establish my eating habits, re-learn what a portion size should be and understand exactly how much food I should be eating each day, not how much I want to eat or have been eating. I have felt out of control for a while now when it came to my eating - not particularly the quality of the food I was eating, but primarily the quantity and the splurges.

So I guess you all will have to put up with my "Weight Watchers Ruminations" for a bit here on the blog. However, this is part of my road, my journey and I hope that this sense of control and regaining control over my physical body will have applications to my spiritual body as well. I will post on that in a bit.

For those who want to watch the progress happening :)

Today's weigh in: 153.8 pounds
Goal: 135

Let the fun begin!

I'm A Montana Girl.

I went on vacation last week in Montana (or Mountaintana as I like to call it). I will post pictures and write more about the amazing time I had horseback riding, fly fishing, paintball, hiking, tubing, skeet (clay pigeons) shooting, air hockey, eating, swimming, river wading, etc. later.

Till then - I've got to catch up on some serious work :)

Lisa