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Barb's Health Plan:
My Humble Thoughts on Losing Weight and Exercise
CURRENT STUFF: On a personal note, I want to share what the Lord is doing in me in an area I have struggled with most of my life... Last fall, I happened to be looking at Chase, one of my three precious grandsons, and noticed how, at age five, he is looking less and less like a baby, and more and more angular, and like a man. This thought both delighted and startled me, and shot me ahead twenty years ~ to when I imagined Chase, as a full-grown man, to be standing before his bride on his wedding day. This got me doing some quick math ~ tacking 20 years onto my age of 58 took me to :GULP: SEVENTY-EIGHT!!!! I thought, "Wow, I am currently 196 pounds, having problems with my knees (I had surgery on one of them last summer - of 2010) and generally health-wise, I am not getting better! I am going downhill!!! I'm on blood pressure meds, have a hard time getting up a flight of stairs, have outgrown even my 'fat clothes,' and am generally out of shape." My musings about Chase and his wedding day now merged with these thoughts, and I continued: "I do NOT want to be wheelchaired up that aisle at Chase's wedding, nor walk up with a walker ~ if there's anything *I* can do about it!!!!" ... And I knew there was, but I was not doing it!!! I realized that, if I did not "get it" and start losing my weight, exercising, eating right, and taking better care of my body, I would be doing well to even make it to Chase's wedding at all! ~ let alone in a wheelchair or pushing a walker!!
It's easy to
focus on pretty much anything but our own physical health.
There is SO much to do, so many things clamor for our attention ~
all the time! While we don't want our physical
health to be our main focus or to become an obsession,
we are much less likely to be physically able to "finish the race"
if we do not get this area onto our radar and give it due
attention. If this is a struggle for you
too, I warmly invite you to continue reading, asking the Holy Spirit
to speak to your heart between the lines of what you read here.
You don't need to imitate what I do; just hear the Lord on how
He wants to lead you!
People ask "What did you
do... what did you read.... etc." and those resources are "it." Hint: I am not on a professional weight loss program. The Lord
has led me to do my own thing ~ with Him. And none of it ~
the food, the ways I exercise ~ is costing a cent, other than what
I'd normally spend on normal food. Not that you can't do
Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig with the Lord!!! What I'm
doing is just a
different focus and method.
 (Note
that there are a couple of books you can purchase if you want, but
selling you something is NOT the reason I set up this web page and
shared my story! The books will just help you understand ~
and go further with ~this IF you are wanting to do so!)I have lost ~ and regained ~ weight many times in my life. I am utterly ashamed of myself. I am also sad for the shame my excess weight has brought to the name of Jesus ~ who is supposedly my Love and my Victory, yet looking at my body, you would not know it. For this, I ask the Lord ~ and you, my sisters (and brothers) in the Lord for forgiveness, as I know my sin affects you ~ in different ways.
My current journey to victory ~ as that's where I'm headed, and what I'm currently experiencing ~ began with complete repentance, and will continue by counting on the Lord's FAITHFULNESS to "complete the work He began in me" many years ago! He alone is able to set me FREE from my life-long addiction to food!!! I'm ashamed to admit that I have lived most of my life addicted to food. But the Lord, in His mercy and grace, and true to His own nature (which is beyond ME to fathom!), is full of love and mercy, and is "faithful to complete the work He began" in me.
There is something very relieving,
comforting, restful and releasing about GOD ~ as opposed to ME ~ being the
one completing the work that HE BEGAN in me. This is not a work of myself; it is HIS work IN me! *I* am His work! I do
not need to figure it all out and
go on a self-improvement kick!!! I just need to LET HIM do HIS
work in me!!! ~ to cooperate with Him as He leads and empowers me
to walk the path He desires me to walk! ~ not to EARN His grace or love;
but to WALK in it! ... THIS is the
foundation of "My Plan."
to lead me out of "Egypt"...
Eating this way ~ as God
originally designed us to eat ~ we are free to eat whatever sounds good,
just wait
until you are actually truly hungry to eat. God designed our bodies to eat what we are hungry for,
and the hunger mechanism was designed to tell our body what it needs.
But then we are to
Another excellent book is Love to Eat, Hate to Eat by Elyse Fitzpatrick. That's a very odd title, in my opinion, but the content is amazing. It's totally focused on God being at the center of our hearts, lives, and appetites, plus very practical application of this to our "real life" and is very spiritually and nutritionally sound. It goes even deeper than Thin Within. (Click on the picture of this book to get it at Amazon. We are now affiliates with them.) I don't go by this eating plan, it's more focused on calories; I prefer Thin Within's approach of waiting for hunger and stopping when satisfied. With that, there is really no need (in my humble opinion) to count calories. But you will still get PLENTY out of the book without that part! And as Elyse even herself says, the food plan part is not even her main focus!
IDEA: Click here for a document with the cues for my stretching routine, my floor exercise routine, and my aerobics, if you'd like to use it for ideas. Someday I plan to videotape myself doing these so you can see them in action! But not quite yet!
DANCE TO FAVORITE MUSIC:
I just DANCE
to some of my favorite music!!! I do it low-impact ~ no jumping ~
to keep my knees from
ANOTHER IDEA:
Click on the
picture to the right to go to a resource I enjoy dancing to. Look
for this same picture ~ the very first link on that page ~ and click on it.
(Clicking on this picture here just takes you to the web page.)
This first picture has ALL of the songs, one right after another!
This is nice for doing 15 straight minutes of aerobics. I often
pull the bar
back and repeat songs I like, to make my workout longer.
Some of the songs are more energetic ~ others less. But you can
dance to ALL of them. You just might need to push yourself a
little more on some of them. (If you want the
individual songs, just keep scrolling down that page!)
*NOTES ON STRETCHING
- This is SO beneficial!!! I
used to think that, since it isn't very "exertive," it really wasn't of
much value. But there are MANY benefits to stretching! At the
www.dummies.com website, I
just found a good, quick summary of...
If you are having a hard time getting motivated to exercise, perhaps this four-minute video by Kaiser Permanente will help a bit! (Clicking on the picture to the left will take you to the web page it's on ~ you still have to click on the triangle on the lady's tummy once there.)
Allowing God to change my HEART is!
Specifically, turning my heart from food and toward God; learning to abide in and lean on Him, and be satisfied by Him! As others have put it: I thought I had a weight problem; what I really had was a spiritual problem.
My accountability is in the form of a chart that I call my "PERSONAL CARE FOCUS CHART." I've done it different ways over the years, changing what I include, and the amount of detail. It has several disciplines that I am wanting to focus on. This chart, in and of itself, has NO innate power; it's just a tool to help me keep my focus on things I want to focus on to better my health and deepen my walk with the Lord. Click on this little chart here to see a sample, which you can use as a template and edit to your own needs and desires, if you want.
Here
(below)
is another of my entries for the SPIRIT-EMPOWERED VICTORIES TODAY
section. (If you do not have a problem
with food, you will think I'm CRAZY!!! But if this helps someone who
is struggling with food, then I'm happy to look like a fool!)
(Yes, I know;
I do tend to get a bit excited!!! Someone amusedly told me that the
exclamation mark must be the first key on my keyboard to wear out!!!!!
So I have invited a few gals in my life ~ as the Lord has brought them to me ~ to help keep me accountable to this. They are my "cloud of witnesses" whose presence in my process, and whose eyes upon it, help me walk in the light, and stay walking in the light ~ instead of hiding!!! They are staying connected to me throughout this process since I re-started on January 1st of this year, and are free to speak into my life. (If you would like to be part of this, where I'd send you my chart/journaling every day, please email me to tell my why you'd like to do this, and I would be happy to add you on!!!! You'd be free to quit anytime if it's just not helping you.)
Having gone the "health food route," tried just about every diet there is, and now doing
this as I am (as explained in the Thin Within program), I have come to believe that the single factor that affects health even more than
the specific foods we eat is
exces
I know personally, and only TOO well, what a burden excess weight is, not only physically, but also emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I want OUT of this "Egypt" that I have been in for most of my life!!! I want to walk in and enjoy the freedom in this area that God has for us! ~ the freedom that is our birthright, which I have, sadly, been selling for a "bowl of soup."
I believe that merely focusing on healthy eating, exercise, and herbs, minerals and vitamins, etc. is not the main key to weight loss or good health. These are certainly elements of it, but they are not "the key" or "the answer." "The key" in losing weight is Jesus Himself. If we want all that God has for us in either area, we must "take up our cross" and "die to self" ~ daily surrendering all to God. This is not a nice "side dish"; it is absolutely "The Real Meal Deal"... and foundational. Nothing else is more important or more effective if we truly want all that God has for us in any area of our lives.
(Click here to see the write-up on the book called Thin Within. Scroll down a few items until you come to it. You can purchase it at the end of that write-up.)
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Hundreds of men and women have lost thousands of pounds through the Thin Within ministry, and have kept it off! Visit the Thin Within website (click here, or here's the name: www.thinwithin.org) to read success stories of these people, as well as more information explaining what it's all about. It's not just about weight loss, but about getting victory (via the Cross of Jesus) in any area of your life that currently has control over you.
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MY EATING
PLAN:
This
is actually quite simple: 
In the
meantime, when not really hungry, and "head hunger" is raging,
demanding to be fed, I GO TO GOD to be satisfied deep within.
Click
Pun intended! (Physical flexibility, but mainly types and timing.)
I want to exercise for 45 minutes to an hour and a half a day.
Usually an hour or so. To some that might
seem like a lot ~ to others it might seem too little ~ but this is a
good amount for me since my lifestyle ~ with no babies, and a
sedentary job at home ~ does not include much physical activity.
I don't use any one resource
or "tool" for my exercise; mostly I have just learned
many things over the
years that make sense and feel right and good to me, and that are
producing the results I want. 
place!!! A good
and balanced place! If you are sensing a
desire to get into better shape, know that this desire is from the Lord,
and whatever He
calls and leads us to, He will also equip and give us the grace for! It is truly "ours just for the asking"!
"We have not because we ask not"! ... Do you need
more motivation? Then ASK
God!!! Do you need ideas?
Then ASK God!!! He will lead you to whatever is just right for YOU!
THE HEART OF THE MATTER:
A
Bit More About Thin Within
to homeschoolers
