The Wellness Challenge HAS Begun!

How's the beginning of 2012 going? Have you taken time to reflect, prioritize, and plan? I know it's hard with our busy lives to find those quiet, reflective moments...but they're SO necessary. One of my big goals for this year is to make time each weekday morning for those quiet times. The few times I've done it so far, have blessed me abundantly. I truly love those quiet moments with my Heavenly Father. Makes me wonder why I ever leave them out of my day. Anyway...

Here are some of my personal tips for each part of our 2012 Wellness Challenge:

• Eating: We all know our bodies. And, as much as we'd sometimes like to deny it, we (probably) all know exactly what we should and should not be eating. In the old days (a.k.a. two years ago), I was the queen of making my food choices this big mystery. I never seemed to be able to string together enough days of good eating to see weight loss. But, what I learned this last year, is that all I really have to do is: STOP. MAKING. EXCUSES!  Just do what my brain knows I should. I started off by setting the rule to not eat past 7PM and to cut my portion sizes in half. I began to realize that I needed to "feel hungry" when I went to bed, or it was a sign that I had eaten too much during the day. The big thing? I realized that it's OK to feel a little hungry! It's actually a real novel idea to a chronic over-eater to allow yourself to GET hungry in the first place. Did you know that God makes your stomach growl for a reason? I know. Astonishing. Try not to eat until your stomach actually growls. And then...stop eating the moment you feel satisfied. Not full. Satisfied. My first hope for each of my Wellness Challenge friends is to get to a place right now where you're in tune with your body. Be able to recognize real hunger. Remember: you don't have to eat everything today! It will still be there tomorrow. I promise. 

• Exercise: Have you started working out regularly? It's got to become part of our routine. As much as I tried to tell myself that exercise could come later...that's just simply not true. I happen to be someone who cannot lose weight unless I exercise. I know there are people who can, but it's still not the healthy way to go. You want to make sure you're losing fat and not lean muscle. The first way that I get help with that is through my eating plan of choice (Cinch from Shaklee ~ clinically proven to retain your lean muscle and lose the fat). But exercise IS crucial. When I started this journey, I felt old beyond my years. I now feel better than I've felt in over 10 years! I feel younger at 40 than I felt at 30! I'm seeing tone and muscle on my body that I never thought I'd ever see. I have energy to keep up with my 3 busy kids. I no longer want to sit on the sidelines and watch life. I want to be an ACTIVE participant! So, find your exercise of choice and do it at least 3 times a week. And don't be afraid to push yourself! Push the physical limits of what you ever thought you could do. You'll be amazed at what God designed your body to do. It's actually become quite fun for me to see myself doing things I never thought I could do...and wanting to do even more! Catch Lysa TerKeurst's blog post from today and you'll have even more motivation to get off the couch. (click here)

• Emotional well-being: Oh, friends. This is so important! After spending my entire life being overweight, I had wracked up an amazing amount of emotional baggage regarding my size. I cannot tell you how much I despised myself. I cannot express how heavy the emotional baggage was that I was carrying around. Truly, the emotional baggage weighed FAR more than all the extra pounds I had. In order for me to begin to make good choices in the areas of food and exercise, I first had to convince myself that I was worth it (and not the big, fat loser that I kept telling myself I was). For about 6 weeks after I sat in on the Made to Crave DVD filming, I argued with God. I hated that He was trying to make my weight a spiritual issue. I hated that it had finally come down to something I couldn't just push under the rug and ignore. God was asking for obedience in this area. It was time to open the door and let Him into my most fragile place. So for about 6 weeks, He worked on my heart. He worked on showing me how to recognize my unhealthy thoughts (because it was so much of a part of my life that I didn't even know how stinking my thinking even was!), and then how to change them. It was finally after about 6 weeks of this that the light bulb went off. God clearly told me that as long as I was saying all these horrible things to myself and staying locked in this negative thought pattern, I was doing the enemy's work for him. It was time to stop. Praise the Lord, He set me free from the hugest emotional bondage a person can be in. I'm on the other side offering anyone still stuck in that rut a lifeline. You do NOT have to be stuck in those patterns. You CAN have freedom in this area. I want you to feel the freedom that I now feel. Oh, sweet sister. How I wish I could flip that switch for you. I pray that before another month of 2012 has gone by, your ah-ha moment comes. Don't let the enemy win this battle anymore. It's time to be free.

Well, I am really excited for the next few weeks/months. I think that God has some BIG changes in store for everyone on this Wellness Challenge journey. My new motto for 2012 (thanks to Lysa's blog post today) is: 

"Push Through Until You Breakthrough"

Isn't that great? I look back on where God has brought me in the last twelve months, and I do see some major breakthroughs. But He ain't done with me yet. Praise the Lord!

What about you? I can't wait to hear all about it.

Blessings friends!