GIVE-AWAY UPDATE: For those of you who haven’t left a comment yet, there is still time to hop on and be entered in our little incentive give-away. Just leave your quick thoughts before 11:00 pm EST Thursday when the random winner will be chosen. And tomorrow, I will be posting a yummy, healthy recipe to try this weekend….

Hello, Wednesday weigh in gals! I have been so looking forward to this day. Not because I got to hop on the scale and see if the red needle went down, but because I get to check in with all of YOU!!!!!

If you haven’t joined our little cyber group of girlfriends, don’t fret! Newcomers are always welcome.You can get caught up by clicking on Weight Loss Wednesdays in the side bar.  

And this week, we even have a little incentive giveaway I’ll tell you about in a minute.

Sooooo, how did it go? We were encouraged to figure out our calories, stick to the budgeted amount and then write down what we ate each day. And we said we’d move more. Walk, ride, aerobicise, etc… If we did these things, the scales would go down. 

Did they?

I was very hopeful as I hopped on the scale this morning. I kept track of my food, exercised 5 days at the gym for 30-45 minutes and my jeans were zipping up much easier than expected. So I whipped the scale out of its locked down location (I’ll post someday about my need to do this since hopping on the scale more than once a week proves often to be detrimental to me)

It said I lost …. 1.8 pounds.

A measly 1.8 pounds!

What!?!

I was sure it would say at least 2 or maybe even 3. 

I felt gypped.

And I felt like running to the kitchen to make a frozen waffle or two, slather it with real butter, spread it with some Peter Pan and douse it with a load of pure maple syrup to drown my sorrows.

Then I stopped and remembered what I felt the Lord wanted me to say to you this week.

Define your week by obedience, not by a number on the scale.

The scale does help measure our progress, but it can’t tell us everything.

It can’t tell us if the problem was too much salt of late that is making us retain a pound or two of water that might not otherwise show up.

It can’t tell us if we actually lost a pound of fat but gained more muscle from weight training that wouldn’t show up as a total loss on the scale.

And, (in my case this week) it can’t tell us what time of the month it is and then give us automatic credit for the extra two pounds or so that glorious few days brings to us.

So I had to stop.

I had to ask myself the following questions:

• Did I overeat this week on any day?  No.
• Did I move more and exercise regularly? Yes.
• Do I feel lighter than I did at this time last Wednesday? Yes
• Did I eat in secret our out of anger or frustration? No.
• Did I feel that, at any time, I ran to food instead of to God? Nope.
• BEFORE I HOPPED ON THE SCALE….did I think I’d had a successful, God-pleasing week? Yep!

So, why oh why do I get so tied up in a stupid number!!!!!! And why did I almost let it trip me up and send me to the kitchen for a 750 calorie binge? (Don’t worry. I had a yogurt and tea instead.)

Sweet bloggy friends, we need to define ourselves by our obedience, not a number on the scale.

Okay?

Pinky promise?

Good.

Now, how did you do this week? Leave your thoughts and how many pounds you lost (or perhaps gained) if you’d like, but you certainly don’t have to.

I am more interested to see what changed for you? Your thought patterns? Habits? Feelings of hope?

Hop on and leave a comment. Hop on again to encourage someone else who left a comment.

We are all in this thing together.

And we WILL get the weight off, even if it is 1.8 pounds at a time!

But first, for the little perk-you-up giveaway and this week’s assignment. 

(Fuzzy picture snapped with my cell phone. Can’t find the card reader for the camera, sorry!)

One of you will be chosen at random to receive a cute, clever and colorful notebook with elastic tie-shut  to record your food in each day as you log your calories. Also, I’ve included a pretty silver Breast Cancer Awareness pen, two bags of one of my favorite teas (Passion by Tazo) and two Soft-lip chapsticks. One in Cherry and one in Coconut Cream. Slick some of these on when you have a sweets craving and sip the tea with a little Stevia or Splenda  or even plain.

Yum…

And your assignment for this week (being Halloween when chocolate and all things sugary just float in front of your face screaming “Eat me!”) has to do with sweets.

Now I know some gals who lose weight by sticking to a strict never-will-any-sugar-touch-my-lips-at-any-time rule. And it works great for them. If that is you, bravo! 

However, for me, I had to learn to CONTROL my sweets; to have just a dab of them now and then; to learn to treat them as treats, not one of the major food groups. I was prompted to do this by a woman in my Weight Watchers class who had lost 167 pounds and was trying to lose 40 more.

She was an inspiration.

And, she ate chocolate every day when she shed those 167 pounds.

Yep, each night when the kids were in bed, she settled in to read, fixed herself a hot cup of black coffee and ate 6 Hershey’s dark chocolate kisses.  They are 20 calories each so her little treat was 120 calories each night.

She planned for it.

She ate it s-l-o-w-l-y.

She thoroughly enjoyed it.

You see, I really don’t think for me that just chucking all treats from my life is always the answer. There are times that I do refrain from eating certain things because they trigger me. Other times, I feel God is telling me that by just refusing to deal with them, I am refusing to take the test. He wants to test me to see if I can control the treats rather than the little buggers controlling me.

So here is your assignment this week (unless you really fell called to a no-sweets plan)

Eat a treat. 

No, this is not a trick…

Plan for it. Save the calories. Make sure you are really hungry when you do eat it. And, next week, tell us what happened when you did.

Just think this way when it comes to treats, “Less and less often” Meaning eat less (half a piece of pie rather than half a pie!) and do it less often (once a week rather than nightly.)

We can still see the scales move downward even with an occasional treat. And I know for me, it helps to keep me from chucking the whole weight loss thing because I can’t go out for dessert with the gals or try a small piece of the birthday cake or whatever.

So, this week don’t be tricked….you can have a treat! 

Okay, I now can’t wait to hear how your week went and to give away our little give-away

Comments, please…

Not-just-a-Number Blessings,

Okay…..so I know the post says Weight Loss Wednesday and it is already Thursday.  I just want to give all of you who want to join us on this journey a chance to say “I’m in!” So, read on and leave your comment. I am praying for you!!!!

Oh gals, can you hear me shouting from wherever you are? I am soooooo excited to know that nearly 50 of us are beginning this journey together! In fact, just knowing that you all are on this same quest to see the scales go down helped me over the weekend.

I was at a fabulous family gathering and had MANY chances to eat lots of yummy food. However, I knew we are all counting on each other to provide encouragement, support and prayer and I thought of you many times when I wanted to dive into the cream cheese caramel apple dip (which I never did) or eat two whole pieces of tiramisu (I took two bites).

I know that without the accountability, I would have played the old mind game so many of us play.

You know the routine. You vow to start your diet tomorrow. Tomorrow comes. You eat a sensible breakfast. The mid-morning munchies soon set in and by noon you’ve “blown your diet”, so you vow, “I’ll start over tomorrow.” and promptly raid the fridge.

Tomorrow isn’t so hot either and by 2:00 pm, you are plum out of calories (not from eating plums, but from cramming cookies down your throat or opening the hatch and downing nearly a pound bag of peanut M & M’s!!) so you tell yourself, “I’ll start next Monday.” Then you eat like a pig until Monday comes, try to start over, blow it again by noon and promise yourself… “Okay, let’s try next month. Yeah, that’s it, I’ll start the first of next month…..” and on and on it goes.

But with accountability, it is so much easier to stop yourself. If we know we must check in each week and leave a comment with the honest results of our weigh in, we’ll be more apt to behave!

And to take it up a notch and ensure even more success, weigh in with a friend. That was the number one key component to the success God gave to me.  You cannot fudge when weighing in on the scales in front of someone else (after eating too much fudge!) You also cannot afford to blow it for days on end when you must weigh in in front of someone else. Were (and are) there times that I overate? You bet! But it was VERY short lived.

Maybe I ate 500 calories of junk one afternoon. But then I’d slap myself in the face and say, “You dummy! Why did you do that? You have to weigh in next Wednesday. If you keep this pattern up, you will see the scale go up, not down! However, if you stop right now and behave the rest of the week, you’ll only be over 500 calories for the week. Why, that is only about 70 calories over per day. That won’t hurt you. Stop it now, Karen!!” And my little self-talk worked! So, find a buddy! 

Now, here is the dealio. I know many of you have started already, but let’s make today the official beginning.

• Weigh yourself today. Record it somewhere. (You’ll never have to tell us what you weigh).  Next week, I want you to comment and tell us how much you have lost.
• Also, have someone take a “before” picture of you. I’m not going to ask you to post it. However, later when many of you have dropped pounds and pants sizes, we may have a before and after cyber show and tell! 
• Then, your homework assignment for this week is to begin to recognize and record.

Recognize when you eat when you are not even hungry; out of habit or boredom. And record what you do eat. You can just write down calories. Or you can include carbs too or fat grams, if you want. But the most important facet is the calories.

Now, how many calories should you be eating? When I lost my 106 pounds, I pulled out a formula I learned years ago, but usually didn’t apply. That formula is to take your current weight and times it by 12 if you are sedentary, 14 if you are moderately active (exercise 2-3 times a week for 30-45 minutes) and 16 if you exercise an hour a day 3-5 times a week. That is how many calories you would need to eat each day in order to stay at your current weight. Then, subtract 500 calories a day for each pound you’d like to lose per week. (500 calories x 7 days=3500 calories. Every 3500 calories burned equals one pound)

So, lets say you weigh 200 (because it is an easy number to figure and I am not near a calculator!) You are moderately active. So, to keep at your same weight, you’d need to consume 2800 calories. (200 x 14= 2800) If you want to lose 1 pound a week, drop the calories down to 2300. Make it 1800 to lose 2 pounds each week. Drop it further to 1300 to lose 3 pounds each week. Most experts say not to drop below 1200 calories per day.

Now, once you lose 10% of your starting body weight (in our example that would be 20 pounds) stop and re-figure this all over again. Now you’d take 180 pounds, re-crunch the numbers and aim for another 10% gone. Keep doing it until you are at your goal. I am no fitness expert, but this worked like a charm for me! And breaking it down in chunks helps to keep it from seeming like a daunting task. I could wrap my brain around 10%. It seemed doable. When I thought of losing 100 + pounds, it seemed overwhelming and I wanted to reach for a fork and a cheesecake!

So this week, get yourself a cute little notebook and record, record, record!!!

Also begin to move your body. We’ll talk later about exercise. Just start doing something. Walking is a great start.

Next week, you will leave a comment with how your week went and what the scales did. Today let’s leave a comment about what your toughest time of day is; when you eat because you are bored, lonely, stressed or just because ‘something sounds good’. Maybe it is when you are feeding your kids lunch with creamy peanut butter and homemade jam and you want to make yourself a sandwich with a thick layer of both. That is my greatest tempting time.

Then, feel free to hop on and encourage each other. I’ll hop on as much as I can too to offer my two cents worth.

Ready?

Recognize….

Then record…

Can’t wait to see those scales going down, down, down…..

Scale-plummeting Blessings,

First, let me say thank you to all who left comments on the subject of the last two days: frenemies. I never dreamed one little word could drum up so much emotion. Seems we’ve all either had or been a frenemy. I pray we handle these sticky situations better in the future after our little cyber discussion.

And congrats to the winner of the Starbucks card. She is:

Melinda       Timestamp: 2009/10/14 at 10:03pm

Congrats! Email me at karen@proverbs31.org so I can get your home address and mail you your Starbucks card.

Now, for the kick-off of a new feature:

Weight Loss Wednesdays

I know it isn’t Wednesday, but I couldn’t start this on Wednesday this week due to the Proverbs 31 devotion I had running. So, to begin, we’ll talk about this today. Next week, check in on Wednesday. K?

Here is the dealio……many of you have read my story or watched my interview on The 700 Club. For those of you who haven’t. In 2005 I began a weight loss journey and lost over 100 pounds.

I wrote about it.

I was interviewed about it.

I spoke about it.

I was asked about it on the streets and in numerous emails.

Then, I was begged to start an online weight loss group for women for the purpose of accountability.

I hemmed and hawed. I toyed with the idea, but didn’t follow through. I had enough on my plate (pun intended) already with homeschooling, writing, speaking and such.

Besides…..I didn’t need an accountability group. I’d lost and kept off 100 pounds!

Enter the year 2009.

• My husband was laid off from GM on Christmas Eve 2008 (yes…..Christmas Eve, thank you very much). He didn’t return to regular work until this September. That is 9 months without work, people.
• We were forced to move from our dream home in the country, complete with a pond, 8 acres of woods, a cute little creek, a deluxe whirlpool and an executive, custom-built two story house with a stone fireplace. Bummer.
• My only daughter and BFF graduated and moved 15 hours away to North Carolina.
• We experienced some stress and illnesses in our extended family.

To sum things up……. 2009, thus far, has stunk!

And, as a result, instead of totally throwing myself at Jesus’ feet…..I threw myself a big ‘ole pity party.

Oh, and I invited some old friends.

Namely chocolate, salty chips, cheese and ice cream.

I, the weight loss queen, put back on 1/3 of what I lost.

*Gasps*

*Dissonant creepy organ chords*

*Shocked raised eyebrows*

Ahem……..Humbled blogger.

Now, it is I who is in desperate need of an accountability group.

And shame, shame, shame on me for not doing it sooner for all of you who asked.

Will you forgive me?

I want to break up (again) with my old love- food.

For good this time.

Anybody else feel my pain?

I want to hit the “restart” button. To get serious about my health again and quite flirtin’ with the brownies, for the love of Pete……..er Pan Peanut Butter! (Oh, I do love that stuff too!)

How about you? Are you in?

Let’s start simple.

If you want to drive a stake in the ground and say “Enough, already!”, just leave a comment today with a very basic thought.

What is your motivation? Why do you want to see the scales go down and your health increase?

I know for me, I want to feel again like I am at the weight God intended for me to be. To not feel as if I have a “Says she follows God but is a total failure with her eating” sign on my back.

Oh….and fitting into all of those smaller size clothes I bought and had given to me would be totally fun too!

Okay….your turn…..

I hope LOTS of you respond.

But if only one of you….or two or three do, that is okay.

We’ll be weight loss buddies. We’ll check in every Wednesday and let each other know if the scale went up or down. (No weight will be given, just the # of pounds lost or gained….mostly lost, I pray ) And we’ll tackle some topics, share some recipes and chat it up about the many facets of this universal women’s struggle.

Oh….and I’ll make sure to work in some give aways too for rewards and incentive…….

Ready?…..

Set?…….

Comment!

And above all, thanks for still loving me when I failed to take my own advice and let some pounds creep back on.

I so *heart* you for that, sweet cyber-sistas!

Ready to re-enter God’s Weighting Room together,