I am happy to report that since I have slowly been changing my eating ways along with my exercising, I have lost 7 pounds in just a few weeks.

I have been continually exercising for almost a yr now with getting up at 5:30 am Monday through Friday even with getting up throughout the night with a baby. This has been the true test of my discipline! So, this I am proud of as well.

I really thought that exercising would be enough, but, no......I needed to change my calories and I stopped snacking at night. I eat dinner and do not eat again until breakfast the next morning. I also learned that if you do not eat/snack 3 hours before you go to bed you burn more calories while sleeping, and you actually sleep better because your body isn't having to work to digest your food. You are actually allowing your body to give you better sleep instead of trying to give it energy to work when you aren't going anywhere but to bed.

It's been hard to break myself of snacking at night but my discipline is paying off. I have so many pounds I want to loose in order to be healthy for my family and the best part of all.......I am setting a good example for my children. They eat veggies with me as snacks and they are starting to crave them too! I will slice up a bell pepper and Alyssa and I will eat it.........I can't believe she loves them. I have to be careful what I buy though, produce can be expensive and living on a seminary budget is challenging, hard, and sometimes stressful but necessary. I know some of you can relate or at least know what I am talking about!

I am looking at pictures of myself on my honeymoon when I was a sz 5!
I was 26 yrs old and really cute! I think I will put it on the fridge to remind myself that I can look like that again. Now if I can get Jason to exercise with me more than the whole 2 times he has participated lol.

Above all, I want to take care of my body for Christ. My body is a temple and I do not have the right to abuse through food and inactivity which is something I have felt convicted of for awhile now. God has given to me this body on loan and I have a responsibility to take care of it. I have to show good stewardship even with taking care of my body because it's ultimately not about "me", it's about Christ, so I also need to take the focus off myself and how "I" want to look. Which is another example I have to set for my children. It's hard because as a woman I focus on the creation (my God given body)..... instead of my creator, God, whom I am made in the image of, and ultimately desire to bring honor to.

I hope through God and his living word, I will ingrain into my girls to look at themselves the way God sees them, and not how the world sees them, or even how they will see themselves sometimes. I broke into tears one day when I found a drawing Amber had made. She drew a picture of herself and wrote "Ugly Amber". My heart broke! I went to her right away and talked to her about and then took her to God's living word. She is becoming a teen and will turn 12 in May so I am preparing her and us for the ride of our lives.......the teen yrs! The best preparation for this adventure is our daily morning bible study and filling her mind with the word of God.


ROMANS 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.