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!

Food, my favorite subject.  

I don't know about you but every time I started a diet I would buy those prepackaged meals and counted my calories that way.  That's ok, but it can get very expensive.  What if I told you there were great receipts that wouldn't cost you a lot?  Would you think about changing the way you ate and how you cooked?  This can not be a diet, it has to become a life change, or you'll just be in the same position next year when all the fat girl commericals come on after new years.

I would suggest one thing first, patience.  Your going to have to look at the labels, don't quit with me now, keep reading.  You don't realize how many calories are in the things you love.  Pizza, my favorite thing in the world, right beside taco's that is, can range from 300 cals to 600 cals a slice depending on where you go.  I used to pick up frozen pizza's all the time because it was "easy".  Now I realize that that's what got me here.  Think about the food's that your used to eating because they're "easy" and check out the calories count.  You'll be shocked and amazed.  The days of prepacked have ruined us, yes, it takes more effort to make a good homecooked meal, but think of it this way, your burning calories while cooking and your eating less calories than you were when you were popping something in the microwave.  It's all awesome.  

I want to take a moment and share my experience in the grocery store the very first week I was on my life changing experience.  Ok, normally it would take me about an hour or less to grab the "easy" stuff and browse by all the cute clothes I couldn't wear.  Well, this trip was a little different.  I started at the back of the store and worked my way around comparing not only cost but calorie count in everything.  2 Hours later I was done and exhausted.  I just wanted a Slurpee and a sub, conveniently place right by the front door.  I was not going to give in, so I grapped my pack of bottled water and my 100 calorie snacks and ate them before I left.  VICTORY!!  Usually I would have just given in to my tired self that would tell me it was ok, because I had worked it off shopping, not this time, I am going to beat this and you can too.  If you fail to decide you'll decide to fail has been a saying my old pastor used to use and it's really true.   You must decide ahead of time what your going to do when you get into those situations so that you won't fall flat on your face.

Ok, enough preachin', here it is, there are some great stuff you can get to snack on.  The easiest of which are those 100 calorie snacks.  I would suggest getting a couple of different things at first so you can figure out what you like.  Mind you, this is not the snack your used to, it doesn't last very long, but remember to eat slowly, that's how we're supposed to eat anyway.  Let the food get to the stomach before you eat anything else.  I know, it's a hard one.  I didn't realize how quick I was to slam down food, especially when we're hungry, so slow down, train your mind and your body.

I just discovered Live active Pudding cups, they're only 60 calories and they taste great.  Along with that I like to crunch up 1 or 2 of the Quaker chocolate rice snacks.  7 cakes are just 60 calories, so I normally just add them to the pudding instead of eating them by themselves.  Another good low calories snack are the Fiber one yogurts, I know pudding, yogurts, yeah, I was right along with you.  I'm a texture kind of person and this was hard for me but after eating it for awhile, I liked it.  Try it you might like it.  Another snack that has become and almost nightly treat for my husband, it's well, it's almost like a banana spilt.  Take a small bowl and scoop out the chocolate pudding and then break up one half of a chocolate gram cracker,(they're kind of high in calories so I would limit it to one half) and sprinkle it over the pudding.  Cut up a banana (anyway you like) and place it over or around the pudding.  If you have strawberries you can cut some of those up too.  Strawberries are low in calories and filling.  Place them into your sundae, then (READ the labels at your local store) add whipped creme around the top, lightly.  You want the one in a can, not the one in the packaged, it's much better for you.  I found one that was only 5 calories for 2 tablespoons.  There is also a chocolate syrup that you can get that's only 25 calories and put a small amount on top.  There you have it.  Count your calories in your ingredients and figure out how many calories you've had and you'll be very surprised.  A great snack, filling, and you get your chocolate fix.

The last thing I would want to add to this is, you would be amazed at the things that you can have and lose weight, so pick yourself up a copy of the biggest loser cookbook and learn how to cook healthy for you and your family.  Just a little fyi, the receipt that I shared I made myself, but they're are some great ones in the biggest loser family cookbook.  When you start reading labels and you know how much calories are in things you'll be able to come up with your own creative creations.

Want to Be the biggest loser?

As most of you know I have been dieting to live the last 4 months and I want to help others to lose the weight and feel great!  I started my journey at 186 pounds and miserable.  Nothing fit and I was in a size 20 pants, this was the biggest size and weight I had ever been, even while being pregnant I never weighed this much.  I got to the bottom of the barrel and the end of my rope when out of nowhere one of the ladies at our church said she and another woman where going to do the biggest loser diet and lose the weight.  This was a big step, to be accountable someone, to have to go to church and tell them all if I worked out, if I cheated, if I lost weight, ug.  

Well, I did it and it was the best thing I ever did.  I've tried this one my own, and I have failed every time, but this time I had accountability.  In every area of our lives, there needs to be accountability, spiritually, this is an important thing and hopefully this will carry over.  

I'm not going to lie and say that it was the easiest thing I ever did, I hated getting up and rushing through our morning routine so I could have some time to exercise.  But I made the time and the first week I lost 3 pounds!  The one thing I would say is to start out with realistic goals.  The first month I wanted to lose 15 pounds needless to say it didn't happen and I was discouraged.  Most people can lose anywhere from 1 to 3 pounds a week.  Make your goal from that, with not making 3 pounds every week, because it might not happen.  Being realistic will help you to not get discouraged.

After you make your goal you need to go online and find a calorie burning calculator, you type in your age and weight and it will tell you how many calories you would burn while exercising a certain amount of time.  This will give you an idea of how much you need to work out.  The smaller you are the more you have to work out.  After months of working out I found a watch at Walmart that will tell you by your pulse approximately how many calories you have burned.  It's awesome and it will track you throughout your day.  You don't realize how many calories you burn just by cleaning your house, or even just standing.

Next, PLEASE, keep a food journal!!!!  This will help you know how many calories a day your taking in, if your taking in more than your burning off, your not going to lose weight.   Don't starve yourself!!!  You can eat and you need to, you need the calories to give you the energy to be able to exercise.  Find a good balance for you.  I work off app. 2000 or so calories a day, and my body needs app.1500 calories, so if I stick with that all week long, guess what!  That's a pound right there, just think if you burned more?  Need to know how many calories you need to eat in a day?  Take your weight and times that by 7.  If you don't eat all your calories that's fine, I don't always have that many, but I make sure that I have what I need to keep my body going.  Also, 3,500 calories is a pound, so burn it off!

Well, next time I'll talk about food, dessert's, my favorite!  You can eat and still be happy and lose weight.  You just need to get started!  Don't wait for Monday or new years!  DO I

T NOW!!!!!!!!