600 Miles Short

16000 Miles

Today I hit 16000 miles on my exercise bike. That’s about 600 miles short of 2/3 of the way around the world. I think it was kind of neat that I hit 16000 exactly. When I punched in 11.4 miles my formula on the spreadsheet hit 16000 on the nose. I started this in the spring of 2006.

It just shows where doing a little every day can get you.

Praise HIM

I have been fighting to not go “off the wagon” so to speak for about 8 or 9 months now. I have a little success and then “miss” a few days of staying on track. What it all comes down to is that I am not following my own advice of giving it all to GOD. If you are reading this would you please just say a two word prayer for me. Help Larry. That’s all just two words. I will let you know how it goes.

I have to remind myself every day that God is in control. It is VERY obvious from my behavior that I am not. It is no wonder people gain all their weight back if they are trying to do this on their own power. I just have to remember to give this struggle to Him CONSTANTLY. Thank you Jesus.

Having been on this weight loss journey for my entire life it is very apparent how difficult staying on track is. Bottom line it comes down to saying “NO” to worldly passions and saying “YES” to God.

After the 4th of July weekend we are going to try going for a month without sweets. This means no cakes, candies, cookies, sweet toppings (Cool Whip, whipped cream, etc.), desserts, and on and on. I could go on and make a list of all the stuff we can’t have but I think it’s easier to list what we can have. The only “sweets/desserts” we are going to allow are fresh fruits… period. This also means that for the month we don’t get to take a “day off” for ANY reason.

We will see how this goes.

I don’t got none… As I was reminded today at church the only “self control” is “God control”. As we can see in Galatians one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is self control. Did you hear that? It is a gift from God, not something I can conjure up on my own. When I turn my will over to Him He gives me the self control I need. When I try to do this on my own He lets me fail to see how much I need Him.

Praise Jesus

I’ll admit I have given in to the hype and bought my share of the various varieties of 100 calorie snacks. But today it dawned on me that they don’t help me and may be sabotaging my weight control. They seemed to be hollering at me “I’M ONLY 100 CALORIES… EAT ME!!!”. So I did… Too many times. And these 100 calorie snacks are not necessarily reduced calorie snacks. They are just repackaging of regular snacks into small packages. Hey, I can do that myself and save a ton of money in the process.

You are probably saying that all this is pretty obvious, and it is, but I still didn’t “get it” or at least I didn’t take it to heart. Well today I am saying NO to buying 100 calorie snacks. I have determined that if I want to eat 100 calories of something I will do the following.

• Pick out a regular food, let’s say some crackers that have a 120 calories for 14 crackers
• Divide the calories by the number of crackers (120/14=8.57)
• Figure out how many of those are in 100 calories (100/8.57=11.67)
• I round down the number, to 11 in this example
• Eat that many items, 11 crackers in this case

Not rocket science but sometime my brain looks past the obvious because I want to eat something.

Until next time with my next amazing revelation.

I have been able to keep exercising every day but the eating has gotten out of hand at times. I think I may be gaining ground and I pray often for God’s strength to say NO to the temptations. I think part of the reason I am struggling is so I can identify with others that struggle. It’s real easy to get arrogant and think you have this weight loss thing figured out. Well I certainly don’t so I just think about today as it has enough troubles rather than thinking about tomorrow or the next day.

I was able to stay with my “sugar fast” for the two weeks I had challenged myself to. Now after having sugar again I notice the cravings returning thus I am now going to implement another two week “sugar fast”. My son’s birthday is over, my birthday is not until next month, and I can’t think of any other “special occasions that I all too often use and an “excuse” for not staying with my eating plans. I will let you know how it goes.

For the last several weeks and maybe months I have been struggling with keeping to my calorie count. I have been faithful with my exercise but the eating has, at times, gotten completely out of control. I pray frequently for the Holy Spirit to give me the strength to say “NO” but then I get in the way and say well just tonight or I’ll just eat this one. I can totally identify with people who say they can’t stop eating but I would still say it’s not can’t buy won’t if God is involved. I claim His promise of not tempting us beyond what we can bear. God never said it would be easy and in many ways I’m glad it’s not easy as it does help me to empathize.

What I did in my situation is try multiple ways of CHanging my eating habits. I told myself I wouldn’t eat past 8:00p or I will always sit down to eat or I won’t eat standing up. These all worked somewhat but situation seemed to arise that sabotaged them so I didn’t stay consistent. Then in my reading it became clear to me that one of my, and perhaps the nations, biggest problems is with sugar. There are some indications that it is addictive and sugar apparently is at the heart of fat gain. I therefore CHallenged myself to not eat sugar for two weeks.  This seems to be working great for me as I find that other foods don’t create the same cravings for more that sugar does.

I’ll keep you apprised.