Stay Inspired

You’ve been doing great! Staying on target with your exercise and eating habits. You are even getting your 2 liters of water every day! Then it happens. No, it isn’t one of those times when a major life event throws you off. No seismic shift in the universe or anything like that. It is really hard to even put your finger on the exact cause, but it happened. Your groove is messed up. First you reach for the M&M bag, hidden in the back of the freezer. Next thing you know you’re ordering up a large sweet tea {it contains close to 300 calories} and finishing off a basket of chips and salsa.

What happened?

It feels like a bucket of iced water was thrown on top of you. The treadmill will not get the chance to hum in rhythm to the beat of your gym shoes, the yoga mat will stay curled in its place against the wall and the bag of salad will end up in the trash can. A split second—maybe more like a minute—and you’re done, giving up on the whole healthy-living-sacrifice-routine. Sound familiar?

Unless you are one of those super-duper disciplined people, {I’m obviously not} then this has probably been you at some time. As I was trying to reverse engineer {a friends phrase that I am now using} the process I realized that several things cut our inspiration.

Lack of goals

Lack of planning to accomplish goals

Did you know that it is much easier to accomplish a goal if it is written out on a piece of paper? Did you also know that you have to put a plan in place to accomplish your goals?

Here is an example:

Goal—drink 80 0z of water every day this week

Plan—keep my water bottle full and/or water available to me and set a 2 hr. alarm on my phone to remind me to drink another 16 oz.

Goal—run 3 miles 4 days this week

Plan—change into my running clothes/shoes the minute I get home from work and get to the gym {or take a walk} as soon as dinner is over.

Don’t allow yourself to be sabotaged. Think about the things that knock you off your groove and then write out a plan to prevent being sabotaged. For me, if I don’t change into my running shoes {and clothes} as soon as I get home from work, I won’t run that day. I get wrapped up in helping with homework, fixing dinner and being a good-listening-wife. So I now have a plan of action. I change my clothes right away and then start dinner while helping with homework. My family knows that when I’m in my running shoes I will be unavailable for at least 40 min. after dinner. The bonus side is that my plan also keeps me from overeating at dinner! Have you ever tried to run after stuffing your face? Not good!

A new week is here. Take a few minutes to write out your goals and develop a plan to accomplish your goals. I promise you it will make all the difference!

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”—Ecclesiastes 9:10

Be Free!

Are you afraid? Do you feel that you need to protect yourself?

Are you running away from accomplishing your goals?

Many times we go through phases in our life that we feel afraid. Maybe afraid of change—maybe afraid that something will never change.

Today I need you to hear these words in your spirit and with every feeling in your heart.

Be at peace. You are safe. The Father of heaven holds you in His hand and you cannot be plucked from it. He loves you! He approves of you! Nourish yourself with spiritual food. Be free and satisfied. Forgive the past. It is safe for you to go beyond the limitations placed on you.

It is time to take the tether off your ankle and fly!

My husband told me that he wished he could play the piano. He has voiced this many times over the past 13 years. I told him to start taking piano lessons. Why not? If I was passionate about learning guitar, I would.

Do you have a passion for something and only fear of failure holds you back?

I say, “BE FREE FROM FEAR!” Even if you've tried and fallen before, try again. Who says we can’t spend a lifetime trying?

“There is much in the world to make us afraid. There is much more in our faith to make us unafraid.” ~Frederick W. Cropp

Pursuing God with Every Pound

How many of us made the resolution to exercise or lose weight this year? I redecorated my resolution. Instead of saying “I resolve to exercise or lose weight” I let myself feel better {and offered a way of escape from it} by saying, “I resolve to be healthier”.

For a week I have been trying to wrap my head around the missing link to a person having success in their weight loss goals. I crawled back into the depths of my own “fat” memories and reviewed my thoughts, actions, or inaction. Can I just say crawling back into the depths of my mind is scary on so many levels! Anyway, tucked between those memories were times of immense insecurity, fear, anger, and grief.

Before resolving to lose weight, exercise or be healthier physically—resolve to heal emotionally and spiritually. In healing emotionally and spiritually, you will stop running to food for your answers.

How do you heal emotionally?

• Professional help—a godly counselor or truthful friend.
  

• Work through the process on your own {usually only after you recognize your addiction}.
  

• Help others—start a support group, teach a class about food freedom.

When you focus on healing emotionally, food/beverages, become an afterthought. A word of warning: make sure your focus is HEALING, not wallowing. If you need to talk about what catapulted you to the place you’re at, that is fine, but talk and MOVE ON! No pain is too hard, no scar too wide for the healing power of our Savior. Read through the Gospel of Mark if you are not familiar with His healing power. The best part of this is that He gives you the power, through Him, to be a witness of His mercy and grace.

Several great resources are:

THE WEIGH DOWN BOOK- Gwen Shamblin

MADE TO CRAVE-Lysa TerKerust

LOVE HUNGER- Dr’s Minirth, Meier, Hemfelt, Sneed, and Hawkins

These are just three of my favorites. I do not advocate or agree with the “diet” principle or food recommendations {I believe we should eat GOD made food}, but the main point of each is VITAL to your success—EMOTIONAL HEALING!

Let’s stop dieting and measuring. Let’s pursue God with every pound and let Him sort out the extras!

“The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, “God.” …The highest love of God is not intellectual, it is spiritual. God is spirit and only the spirit of man can know Him really.” –A.W. Tozer

One Word

A friend sent me a link to the Women's Bible Cafe. It was a blog post about throwing all of your goals for 2012 into one word. As I read the post I thought about what my one word would be for 2012. To be honest, after my recent revelation of being a shopaholic, I was too discouraged to make a list of goals for 2012. But God impressed the word GROW on my spirit. He said that this year I need to grow. When I shared my one word with my husband he raised an eyebrow and said, "not physically, right?" I think he was afraid I was going to give up on using my personal gym room! *smile*

Today when I was doing my daily Bible reading I once again saw GROW. I am reading in the Gospel of Mark right now. Today I was in chapter 4. When Jesus explains to the disciples what the parable of the sower meant, I was blessed. Once again He impressed on me that GROW was my word for this year. He used seeds as analogies for people; there are four types mentioned:

1.) Wayside-People who hear the truth but Satan immediately takes away the revelation of their need and keeps them from change(vs.15). This group of people are called "wayside". Satan obviously has a lot of control in their life.

2.)Stony-People who hear the truth and rush to make the changes! They are fired up and go cold-turkey (so to speak). Deciding to exercise 7 days a week, drink 100 oz of water a day, pray for 1 hr every day....etc. But they don't allow themselves to grow and so within a week their diet is over, or their new year's resolutions are history (vs.16-17)

3.)Thorny-People who hear truth and know they need to change but they are so entangled with the world and their jobs, or their desire for more that the truth is choked out (vs. 18-19) before change can take place.

4.)Good Ground-People who hear truth, and accept it. They take that truth and apply it with a humble heart. By submitting to the truth they bear fruit.

WOW! I want to be a "Good Ground" person. When I hear the WORD spoken, when I read it, or when the Spirit impresses it on me I need to humbly accept it and GROW!

How about you? What would your one word be? Which category of people are you in?

2012 is your year to find yourself with the "Good Ground" group!