Monday Meal Plan

Breakfast-Whole oats & wheat toast or 2 pieces of wheat toast with SF jelly & a piece of fruit
Lunch-Chicken salad (homemade..yummy) sandwich on thin wheat bun w/pretzels
Snack- 100 cal snack of choice or fruit


Dinners
Mon-Whole grain spaghetti w/ ground turkey, salad
Tues-Grilled Pork Chops, mixed veggies & baked potato
Wed-Salad w/grilled chicken (hot dogs for kids)
Thur-Grilled Chicken w/stir fry veggies
Fri-Meal replacement shake (kids will be gone until Sunday pm)
Sat-Leftovers
Sun-Grilled Chicken w/green beans & carrots 


What does your menu look like this week? Do you sit down with your family and eat together? We have found that this is one of the best times for us to talk as a family. It has also given our girls a chance to see the changes in my diet and encouraged them to ask questions and make changes of their own.


Jamie

Prayer Pal's

Did you ever have a "pen pal" when you were in school? It was always exciting knowing that someone across the sea or just across town was thinking of me and sending me a letter. The same principle can and should be applied to those closest to us. I have found it very encouraging to have a prayer pal in the last few weeks. We don’t talk every day or get together frequently (too many kids in the mix) but I know that she is praying for me daily and I am praying for her and her family.


I encourage all of you to pick at least one person that you can make your Prayer Pal and that you trust with personal information. I have found that I can go to my husband with most of my personal struggles but it is so much different to be able to have another woman, mom and wife to be able to share with. It is easier for some to find that person that they trust but when you do, it is very rewarding.


You can’t send enough prayers my way so feel free to pray for me as often as you would like.


"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." 1 Thes. 5:11


Jamie

It's Progress.....

So after having my little pitty party this week I came home tonight after stopping off to get some fruit and a few other low cal necessities for this weekend and had a crash everything. Well, ok not really but I did have a delicious low cal dinner, which my whole family wanted some of and then I did my Shred. Maddy did it with me and since she doesn't have her own weights yet she used 2 cans of beans. The whole time saying "I feel like a dork with these beans". I love that little dork even more for that. I told my husband, Jon, that if he looked close he would be able to see that I was starting to get "abs"...well its more like a half a bowl of Jello instead of a full bowl but its progress.

It just reminds me that I have so much to be thankful for and I need to count my blessings every day. Thanks to all my friends that have encouraged me this week and nudged me out of the funk I was in.

"I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow" MB

Jamie

Teach by Example

This blog is somewhat my thought process of a blog that I read this week.

Do you ever find yourself thinking about doing something that you know you shouldn’t or that you wouldn’t do if you were with a group of friends? Well I surely don’t. Yeah right.  

This week has been a bit of a downer for me. I am certain that it is just hormonal but man it is a kick in the butt. I find myself thinking about having an extra serving of something or maybe just a little bit more than what I accounted for in my calorie count for that meal. Then I start thinking, well I didn’t eat that much today so why can’t I have another small snack? The answer is because I don’t need it. This is a life style change. I am not doing this because I have to fit into some dress or really awesome outfit that I had to buy even though it didn’t fit me.

If I am going to give up on myself that easily then I am not the person I thought I was. So I do the logical thing and turn to God and ask for guidance and strength to overcome the issue at hand that I am not handling very well. My God can handle anything I bring to him.  

This is my life for better or worse, which completely affects my children and my husband. I have been an awful example for my girls. I mean, I say to myself, I don’t want them to go through the struggles with weight and self-esteem that I did, yet I haven’t taught them to have a healthy relationship with food. I am setting them up for failure and they don’t even know it. 

Most of my family is now or has at some point in life had weight issues. Growing up I wasn’t taught how to have a healthy relationship with food. I am not laying blame for this but I will make this change for the next generation of women in my family.

Little girls look up to their mommy’s and want to be just like her. Well to be honest, I would not want my little girls to be just like the person I have been for the last 28 years. I am only now learning how much of me was not where it needed to be but I am taking the steps daily to make the changes that God wants for me.

Have you challenged yourself to teach your kids to live better or have you been a weight tied to them that will drag them down with you?

"Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning." Proverbs 9:9

Jamie

Loosing the Luggage with the Pounds

In the last few days I have thought a lot about how much luggage we all travel with daily. I am not talking actual luggage but I am talking about the emotional and spiritual luggage we all have. Do you eat when you are stressed, bored, lonely or have anxiety? Most people do, which is why so many of us are overweight. We are always trying to take care of things our self, when we could have given it directly God and let him worry about it and fix it. Just think, if you never experienced any of the "luggage" that made you eat on impulse how many "pounds" lighter would your body and your heart be?

There are days that seem almost impossible to get through and all I can think about is making it to bed when it’s all over. This isn’t how God wants me to spend my days, is it? Well of course not! God wants me to have a joyful heart and be with him. Well I guess it’s safe to say that on these impossible days I wasn’t with Him. I’m sure that the day started out somewhat lumpy and just got rockier as it went. Being the selfish person I am didn’t bother to really just stop, breathe, focus and realize that I just needed to turn to God. I would bet that a lot of it was Satan trying to get to me. I am reminded of Job as I write this. I am not even close to what Job was but it reminds me that no matter what Satan or this world takes or gives me I have to always be faithful to God. He wants me to come to him with the "big" things and the "little" things. Because if it’s important to me, then it is just as important to my Father.

I challenge you to take the time to make a list of the "luggage" that you carry around with you daily and give it over to God. It is not always fun to look at our self and make an assessment of things but sometimes it is the best way to free yourself.

"Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”^"  Hebrews 10:22

Jamie

Eat, Pray & Live

It's great to see others get excited about changing the way they eat, pray & live and knowing that your lifestyle change has influenced that in some way. I am not perfect and I so do not have this whole new life thing down but I am doing my best and being faithful to myself and God. It kind of reminds me of a yawn or a good laugh, once it starts it becomes contagious.

I don’t know if God wants me to lead others or if he wants me to be a support system for others or what else he has in store for me on this new road so many of us are journeying down but I do know that I am 100% committed to being his faithful servant.

My husband asked me this morning if I noticed a physical difference from the changes that God has been making in my life. At first I wasn’t sure how to answer because it’s more than that. So my answer was "Yeah, I feel like a new person but it’s more spiritual than physical." I can’t explain how I feel on the inside but I am hoping that in time the outside will match what I have found on the inside.

"Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me." Psalm 51:12

Jamie

Patience is a virtue from God

Ok, so I had my physical scheduled for 9:00 am this morning. My boss, Jerry, was completely aware of this, yet he still calls me at 10:00 am while I am sitting on an exam table waiting on my doctor to come in. If you know my work situation at all then you know this was not out of character for him. I had to fast after midnight last night to do my blood work, so when I got out of there at 11:30 and headed straight for the office I was starving. By the time I got there I wasn’t all that hungry after all. Ok, well actually I was still starving but I was thrown to the wolves so to speak with Jerry.

The point of that little ray of sunshine knowledge is that on my way to work I prayed that God would give me patience and deliver me from being super hungry until I could eat. Any person with the 5 meal a day motto knows its just cruel to have to go 12 hours. Well I went 13 hours and guess what, I was fine and then when I did eat, I actually ate and not inhaled my food. Oh yeah and I still have a job and Jerry didn’t yell today.

"Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully" Colossians 1:11

Jamie

Mission Accomplished

Its 2:03 am and I am just now getting my chili cooking (which has to simmer for 3 hours) for our annual family get together tomorrow at noon. I know, "Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail". BUT I did have a plan, it just got changed without me noticing. We were invited to have dinner tonight with two other couples from church and just kind of lost track of time. With this being said, let me also just say that my goal for today was no soda and portion control...mission accomplished. However, since I just came to realize this plan through God's Grace for me on Thursday at like 9:00 pm, I havent been to the grocery store yet. So, today I was kind of winging it.

I had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast, a grilled chicken sandwich from Sonic for lunch, a banana for snack and good old water all day. Now, Sonya which is who we had dinner with has recently started attending culinary school (big uh oh for dieters) and she was not aware of this madness going on with Mom's @ Central so she had a yummy meal planned of creamy tacos for us. Im sure that you all no what those are. I will say that I still stuck to my goals for today even though I did have creamy tacos.

I visited pyramid.gov today and got the nasty little message they display once you enter your stats.I then found all the information I needed for my daily intake levels and how to go about it. Tomorrow we have our family chili cookoff and I will not be eating any chili but I will find suitable replacements. Even if that means I have to take my own salad in a gladware bowl. After that you can find me at the local Wal-Mart buying my meals for the next 10 days along with The Shred video.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Mark 12:30

Jamie

***News Flash***

I am not sure where to start but I will give it my best. God has been working on me for several weeks on a few different aspects of my life. I am in the middle of conquering the first battle and gearing up for two others. I am on fire to serve God and it is because of God's Grace. It is amazing to have the feeling that you are making awesome changes that you never thought were possible and all along knowing it is God who is making it possible. So that is an overview of where I am now.

If you are wondering where all this started from let me tell you.....An awesome group of women that I associate myself with share one of the same struggles in life. WEIGHT LOSS! So, for our monthly Mom's @ Central this month we had a guest speaker to address this particular evil. Let me just say in the words of a fellow mom from last night she was a "Rockstar". Keelie Ferguson(http://www.wearelosingitblog.blogspot.com/) shared her testimony with us and it literally lit a fire under lots of our big rear ends. She gave the illustration that when we see a picture of ourselves from the holidays or a birthday party, our first reaction is always to snag it up and immediately insist that that picture be destroyed. HA!! ***NEWS FLASH*** That picture is what you really look like.

So here is where I come in. I will not tell you that I am going to throw out all of my "good" food or have those times when I want it so I have it, but I will tell you that I believe that God has also lit a fire under me and this time it is to serve him and better myself for Him. My Pastor made the statement on Sunday that you cannot share your Faith if your life is not reflecting that Faith. Seems to really fit the bill on this one. Over the next year I will work daily to better myself and my life so that when I share my Faith others will see it in my life and have the desire to seek after God. My goal is to lose 65 pounds on the outside and have a complete makeover on the inside. I have already got an accountability partner and together we will push each other physically, mentally and spiritually.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32

Jamie