The changes that have happened

So it's been awhile since I've wrote on my posts, my weight loss journey had a sudden hault when my husband and I started trying to have a baby. It took about 6 months or so before I finally conceived and during that time I struggled with depression, I just wasn't used to getting pregnant taking so long. I was ferttle murttle when when we tried for our other children. Then we decided to wait and have children when we were on the road raising funds to become missionaries. When we finally got settled and the Lord told us to stay here my first thought was nows the time and then when it took so long I got frustrated as most moms probably would, it was only after I lost that baby that I realized how depressed and angry I was. Here we had given our lives for the Lord and the only thing I asked for was a child. Why then would he take Caleb away? I struggled with this for awhile by myself quietly staying away from those who loved me most so that I didn't have to deal with my loss. Till one day my friend sat me down and told me I needed to deal with it because I was losing myself and she was right, it's just harder to deal with it then it is to just ignore it. So I sat in my closet one night and just let the Lord have it, I told him how angry I was at him for taking those years of my life away that I could have been having children and how angry I was that all I asked for was a child and He couldn't deliver. Then I spent the rest of the night asking him to forgive me for my attitude and to forgive me for the things that I had thought and the way that I had acted. Lastly I named my baby, I'm not really sure why naming my baby was such a big step, but it was a huge step in my letting him go. I had something tangible. Something I could remember him by other than that baby.

I finally convinced myself it was time to try again, so my husband and I tried again and conceived. Unfortunately about the same week we found out we were pregnant I had some severe pains in my right ovary. So I went to the Dr. and of course with the baby being so small he couldn't tell me anything. I have the worst veins I think anyone in the hospital as ever seen and to find out the count if the baby was doing better or worse I had to give blood. Unfortunately for me that meant getting poked 4 times before I was sent to the hospital to get it done again because they couldn't get it. So my weekend was filled with worry and prayers for my sweet baby. Monday morning I called the Dr. and asked what it looked like and got the news that it didn't look good. Immediately my mind went back to Caleb and the pain I went through after I lost him and the depression. I went home and locked myself in my closet and begged God not to let me go through that again, I couldn't take going through the depression again. Not only for my body but for my family who counted on me. I went in the next Friday and got the D and C done and went straight to sleep, as my husband and I had gone to the hospital the night before with labor pains and I was exhausted.

I remember lying in bed and thinking I needed to come up with a name for this baby, it seemed like the thing that helped me get past all the pain. I had been listening to the song Wonderful, Merciful savior and asking for God's mercy in this situation and there it was Mercy. I named my sweet baby Mercy Nichole. Not really sure where nichole came from but it's the name the Lord gave me. I'm not sure why God has put me through this pain and I may never know. But I do know this, he brings beauty from my pain. He doesn't just let me stay the way that I am, he chooses to use these things to draw me closer to him and to grow me in ways that I otherwise wouldn't have had I not had to go through this.

If you've gone through a miscarriage you can relate, it seems like such a harsh thing from a God who loves us. But it's because he loves us he chooses to work in us and through us and one day I have the hope of seeing my sweet babies again. Until then I'll keep serving Him and remembering them.


For my sweet babies Naomi Grace, Caleb Andrew and Mercy Nichole mommy loves you with all my heart, wait for me because I will see you again.

Power Plant

So this last week I went with the teens in my church to spartanburg S.C. It was awesome! God was moving and working all week. We helped church planters Derek and Megan starting Kaleidoscope Church, passing out flyers, hosting a block party, payed for peoples bus fares and finally my favorite, we cleaned some bathrooms. Why on earth would you do that? It all boils down to love. God sent His son to this earth to die for all our sins and acted as a servant in love for his disciples. Washing their feet, he did not consider himself higher than them, but became an example of what we should do to share the love of Christ. This week was challenging, I'm not going to lie, but in the end God has changed me for the better and I'm so thankful. If ever there is a chance for you to grow in the Lord, you should take it.

I was thinking just today about how much God has showed me over the last year, moving us from one church to another, one job to another, and one family to another. If you are a child of God this change needs to be a constant, never staying the same, but always challenging yourself to get closer to Christ. I have not shared my faith like I should with those I don't know, and so I have been challenged, will you accept the challenge as well? Time is drawing nigh and I don't want to sound like those TV preachers but, He's coming back. I've been praying that he would come back before my kids are teens, lol.

Pray for our teens that God would use them in a mighty way as they have been challenged this week to do so.

Pray for the Church planters in S.C. Derek and Megan and little Moses that God would bless their ministry and send workers to help them.

Pray that God would give you an oportunity to share Christ with someone who needs it, and then slow down to see where he's at work.

Here's a slideshow I put together of our teens as they worked this week I put an address on the end of it so you could see the rest of the pictures I took. Go to www.faith_werks.winkflash.com and type in Powerplant as the password and then look for the folder titled mission trip. Opps, the blog wouldn't let me put the video on here I'll try again later.

P.S. I didn't lose any weight but I didn't gain any either, thank the Lord for the Gym. lol.

Our Future Generation

It has been brought to my attention that we as adults don't think about the things we do and how they affect our children. This can be applied to every area in our lives, but today I'm talking about the way we eat and our habits we help them form. I can't go into specifics, but this is something that needs to be brought to the forefront of our minds, if not for us, then for our children. We are responsible before God of how we raise our children, in every area of their lives.

I was outside with the kids and dieting is on the mind. I looked at Sarah with her cute little bathing suit on and something just clicked. I have a tendency to be big and unfortunately I have passed that on to her. Sarah is perfect in my eyes, but if I don't teach her now how to eat she will be right where I am in a few years. I love my daughter and I don't want her to have to go through the struggles I have had to go through. Take the time to talk to your children, if they're older, just go ahead and share your concerns and help them be healthy. With teen girls you have to be careful that it doesn't turn into an eating disorder. Explain that you just want them to be healthy not skinny. With small children help them to acquire healthy taste buds early.

Little kids hate anything that's new, or at least everything that's green, so make it fun. Ants on a log are fun and tasty. Cut up celery into 2 inch long sticks and put peanut butter on top and top with raisins. I never thought my children would eat celery, they loved it! I think the ants helped. Make a veggie pizza! Every kid loves pizza.

Go to the section in your grocery store where they sell biscuits and look for pizza dough, roll that out and take low calorie ranch dressing and use as a sauce. Take either frozen or canned corn, carrots, peas, and green beans and sprinkle over the pizza. Get some low calorie mozzarella cheese and sprinkle lightly over pizza. They will love it and so will you. Sneak in those veggie's every chance you get.

Make it a family event to go on a walk after dinner. Walk for at least 30 minutes, you'll help them start up they're metabolism and after wards they'll still have an after burn. Don't make it "Exercise" make it family time. It's good for you and good for them and your helping them to make good habits for the future. Walk, ride a bike, but get them involved and they'll love the quality time that they get with you.

Unitl later, walk on.

Exercise

I know, I know, exercise, ug. This is the key to weigh loss.

What do I do?

You can get video's, netflicks is an economical way to get your workout on. I started out with Bob's biggest loser workout. You start out with 5 min. of warm up and 20 minutes of a workout and 5 min. cool down. You do this for 2 weeks then add the next 15 minutes to it, then after 2 weeks add the next 10 minutes for a total workout of 45 min. plus the warm up and cool down.

You don't have to do the biggest loser, I'm just a goober and have found this to be more helpful for me. There are the leslie Sansone video's, they're good if you want to start walking, but walking outside is a bigger challenge, or at least it feels like that, lol.

Go to Netflicks.com and type in fitness or workout, try a few out and see which ones you like. Jillian Micheals from the Biggest Loser is not the person I would have chosen but thanks to a friend of mine, she bought one of her video's and after doing the "trouble zones" I have since started liking her.

I wouldn't recommend trying P90X until you've been exercising for a while, but it is a good workout. Go back to the 80's, not with your hair but with the workout's, THEY Work!

Wanna do your own thing? Then look at some fitness books and make up your own routine. Just remeber the more you lose the more your going to have to workout, stinks I know. but it wil be worth it all when you start losing the weight.

Just an update on my progress, I started at a size 20 and now I am almost in a 12 comfortably! I have lost 36, that was my first goal and now I'm on to another goal of 10 pounds. Gotta keep it realistic so you'll make it to the end.

Feel like you've eaten pretty bad lately and have had no time to exercise? This weekend was horrible in my book with the memorial day cook outs (plural) but I made myself walk afterward and the next day I made myself run. Take a nice walk with the kids, they'll love it. It beats sitting on the couch letting it turn to fat. Get up and walk! That's what I'm getting ready to do. see ya!

Faith

Pics of Pudding snack

                    

             

First find the 60 calorie pudding.

                   Then find the Honey Maid Chocolate Gram crackers

                             and crumble over the pudding.

Then cut up your chioce of fruit, go to Calorie king if your not sure how many calories there are in your fruit snack.

 

And top with whip creme.

YUMM!!!

Confessions

I have to confess that as time passes on I feel like this ride has taken forever and will never end.  My weight loss has slowed down and it has become harder to get time to work out.  Now comes the time when you HAVE to make a small goal that you can attain and give yourself a little something for making it.  I chose for my 30 pound victory to go get my nails done and my hair done.  This is something that I've wanted to do for some time now but haven't had the time, now I'm going to make time, if and when the goal is made.  

Another amazing victory is when you've learned how to cook healthier you know almost immediately how many calories are in everything, lol.  My husband and I went out on a date and they had a salad bar, should be ok right?  NOT!!!  There is so much stuff that we think it's on the salad bar, we can eat it right?  I sat there in amazement at the things that I couldn't have and sought out the things I knew I should fill myself up with.  What's up with the light salad dressing being all the way in the back where the short people can't reach it?  My husband recently went to the store for me and got regular ranch dressing, I compared them and was shocked at how much difference there is.  Light=80Cals for 2tbs.  Reg=200cals for 2tbs.  WOW!

The tip for this week is to not get discouraged, make a goal, take a day off and then get back on it!  Don't beat yourself up.  You will meet this goal, you have accountability!  E-mail me or leave a message.  I'm here, I know how important it is to have help.

Food for today: Pudding bowl.

Take a small bowl and take one package of pudding (60 calorie pudding) and find a pack of the 100 calorie cookies that you like and smash them up and then top off the pudding.  Again take your ready wip and 5 calories 2 tbs.  And you have a 170 calorie snack that makes you feel like you ate something and maybe get rid of that ice cream withdraws. lol.  Works for me and my husband.  

Celery sticks:

Cut up celery into 4 inch stalks and then open 1 can of tuna and some mayonnaise (look at the calories, Hellmann's Light 35 cals 1 tbsp) mix the tuna and mayonnaise together and then put it on the celery.  YUMM!!!

Until next time... Keep it up!

Lunch Specials

Lunch Idea's

Ok, I know most of you probably skip out on breakfast, DON'T, You need those calories for your body to burn calories. Sounds weird, yeah. Your metabolism is kicked in gear when you eat, so if you skip out guess what? So did it. Now at lunch time your starving, so you cram down whatever you can find. Ok, here's my favorite tip, if you eat breakfast at 7:00 you need to eat a good snack at 10:00. Eat more calories? YES, if you eat a snack, (and I mean like a 100 calorie snack) you won't be as hungry when 12:00 gets there and you'll be getting your metabolism going and burning calories. That's what you wanted to do right?

My favorite lunch time food is my famous Taco salad. It gets rave reviews. Take a bowl in your kitchen that can be put in the oven and spay with some nonstick spray. Now get a Taco Torrtia shell and rub with olive oil (VERY lightly, olive oil is good for you but it has a lot of calories) and then rub cumin on both sides as well. Lay the torrtia over the bowl and and pinch 4 sides so that the torrtia will lay over the bowl. Stick this in the oven at 350 and let bake until it has dried out and has become hard. I normally make 2 or more at a time so that I don't have to bake every time I want a bowl, just put it in a plastic zip lock bag and it's ready for next time. Once the bowl is done, take it off the bowl and put it on a plate. Use the bowl to hold all of your salade. Now my favorite part, I love salsa!! After you added your lettuce, take 2 tablespoons of salsa and sprinkle it on your salade. WHAT, I can have salsa? Yes, it's only about 10 calories for that serving. Praise the Lord! I would also grill some chicken (again this can be done ahead of time and make extra, so next time your ready) which you need to go online and weigh how much chicken your going to have and Calorie King can tell you app. how many calories are in the chicken your going to eat. Go sparingly here with the chicken because the bowl itself is about 120 to 130 calories. Lettuce is only about 15 cal. and then the salasa and then dressing, it could add up, just be careful. I can now get it to 200 calories and I'm full and satisfied. I know weighing your food doesn't sound like fun but it will help you with portion control, believe me. Oh, speaking of that, I mentioned calorie king, it's a website I've been using to find out how many calories are in the foods I'm eating, they have everything up there. Try it out. As for the salade enjoy!

I know, "I'll just eat salade and I'll lose weight", yeah right, that diet won't last long. You need a variety, try looking at bread in your local store, I found some bread at Food Lion that only has 40 calories per slice and there is lunch meat that is 60 calories for 7 slices, (normally I only eat 3 or 4 slices so I'm not getting the total calories) add some lettuce and low calories manias and you can have a sand which AND a bag of 100 calorie chips and you've only eaten 250 calories for lunch which you will burn off just doing your normal everyday activities. SWEET!

Today I had a BBQ Chicken pizza for lunch and it was great and only cost me 250 calories. Go to your local store and buy the pizza dough or look online for low calorie pizza crust recipes. Look at the labels and get the lowest calories BBQ sauce you can find, and cook some chicken, that easy. Roll the dough out, very lightly spread the sauce all over the pizza dough, chop the chicken or cut it, (I have the Pampered Chef food chopper and that made the chicken pieces a lot smaller) sprinkle the chicken over the pizza, again weigh it to see how many calories. Add some low calorie cheese, very lightly and then place in the oven until crust is browned. Yummy! It's a great lunch and can be warmed up for those times when you need something fast.

Keep up your food journal, I'm telling you, this is key! Also, some weeks you might not lose weight, but you might lose inches. Measure yourself, around the hips, chest, tummy, legs, thighs everything. It can normally be an encouragement on those days when you need it. You can look back and say, "I didn't lose weight this week but look at how many inches I've lost!" With this it's ok to look back, see where you were and how much you've accomplished. Be proud of it! Celebrate it!