Off to a good start

Yesterday I cut my blog a little short, but my daughter suggested we watch a scary movie together. Since I am usually persona non grata in her eyes these days I jumped at the chance. Due to her love of all things scary, I knew it would not be the last time I jumped. We settled in and watched The Invisable. I was relieved it was more thriller than horror, and was glad for our time together.

I began describing one part of my miracle morning, affirmations. The five I choose to memorize are:

I am forgiven and I will not be tormented by my past errors. 1 John 5:4

I am healed and sickness will not lord over my body. 1 Peter 2:24

I do not worry about everyday life. God knows my needs and meets them because I make His Kingdom my primary concern. Matthew 6:25

I forgive those whom I have anything against so that my prayers are not hindered. Mark 11:25

The Holy Spirit is my helper; I am never alone and I have the peace of God. Philippians 4:7

This ought to give me a good start.

Five out of six parts should be easy to incorporate. Prayer, reading my Bible, affirmations, visualizing, and writing. In fact these five can all be done in a half hour. It's the exercising and meal planning that will be the most challenging. For me it always has been.

The most important part of my success is taking some time each week to plan and prepare. It took me about three hours yesterday to cook, measure, chop and pack meals for the week. There is plenty of food, so no risk of starving. There is also plenty of variety, including carbs. But carbs are only consumed during the first three of the five meals. I bought some gluten free pretzels and one loaf of gluten free bread. As I transition I won't need these, but did not want to stop cold turkey.

Today is a day off from work for me so there is a little more flexibility in getting all of my workouts in. And staying on task with food. So here's to success.

Stacking the deck

As this year comes to a close, and as I was taking down the Christmas ornaments, I was reminded of all of the great memories we have made as a family as represented by what we hang on our tree. Whether its Kat's 17 month old handprint from 2002, or the paper moose made from tracing Ry's hands and feet, or the plethora of Disney ornaments, I was left with the satisfying feeling of being very blessed. We were healthy and safe this year and all together. I know not every family can say that.

Like Karen, I reread some of my past posts. I discovered that I wrote a lot about starting and failing. Why did i mostly focus on the negative? I read a statistic this morning that 80 percent of self talk is negative. And negative self talk leads to negative results. I'm living proof of that. Therefore it seemed fitting that one of the songs we sung this morning was "Jesus, my only hope." One of the lines states "when satan's accusations make my poor heart afraid, I hear my King declaring Father, that debt is paid!!" I was reminded that I do not need to speak negatively. I am forgiven and am a new creature in Christ.

One of the parts of the miracle morning includes affirmations, which I admit caused me to be a little skeptical. I wondered if Christians should be using affirmations. Turns out there are a host of websites, CDs and books on the topic. One such website is written by Maurice Lindsey. His article "15 Affirmations that will change your life (if you believe)" has just the right amount of affirmations I was looking for. So I quickly bookmarked it, but not before speaking them....twice.

Choices choices choices

It's been about two weeks since I have met with the weight loss coach and I've received the breakdown of meal plan. It's been over a month since I've read the Miracle morning. Yet I haven't implemented anything constructive or helpful. I have however finished several bottles of wine, dozens of levels in Candy Crush and eaten more crap than I care to admit. So why do I choose one thing and not the other? Paul writes in Romans that what he wants to do, he does not do, but he does what he hate to do. (Romans 7:15) In other words I'm not the only one.

One thing my coach suggested was to write down my meals the night before I plan to eat them, when the ability to succeed is still present instead of confessing what I actually ate that day. He also suggested spending a few hours on the weekend cooking all of my food for the week, slicing vegetables, and fruit and cooking chicken and turkey so I can just grab and go. It is also helpful to get my exercise done early in the day. This particular suggestion falls in line with the miracle morning, which involves six things to do first thing in the morning.

Because I do not want to violate the authors copyright and because part of his practice and my spiritual beliefs are not necessarily in sync, I've made a few adjustments. My six things include prayer, listening, affirmation, Bible reading, blog writing and exercise. It should take approximately 75 minutes to complete. So waking up at 5:00 am should do it. The biggest obstacle is not waking up at 5:00.in fact I am awake most mornings by 4:30 and capable of getting up and staying up. I take the dog out and attend personal business, make a cup of coffee and by 5:00 am I've crawled back to bed to watch an hour of TV. So it shouldn't be difficult to make other choices.

I just have to choose to do it every day for the next thirty days and then I will make it a habit. This will require willpower and a really good incentive. I'm back to my goal of ten pounds per month. So, I'm choosing to start right now...and will get my exercise over with for today. Stay tuned.

My miracle morning

Honestly, the word miracle doesn't seem right, but that's what author Hal Elrod chose to describe his morning routine. I completed his book "The Miracle Morning" but have yet to implement it. Perhaps I wanted to write it down, analyze it and then, when I am really sure of what needs to be done, then get up and do it. But, as the saying goes, if you continuing doing what you've always done you will continue to get what you've always gotten.

So I'm prepared to give it a thirty day try.

Where oh where has my willpower gone?

I went to bed early last night with the goal of getting up early and beginning my new ideal morning routine and gluten free lifestyle. But when Kat woke up at 3:00 and couldn't fall back to sleep I climbed out of bed and went to lay down with her. Needless to say I didn't hear my alarm and when hers went off at 6:00 it was too late do anything but get ready to start the day.

I didn't eat gluten free either. In fact a trip to the drive thru for a bagel, chips and a sandwich and then  another sandwich for dinner made my day just wonderful. Can you hear the sarcasm? I have a very important meeting tomorrow which requires me to wear a suit. I don't fit into any that I own. Some are too big...most are too small. So I ran out at lunch to buy one. After some self loathing and overall yucky feelings, I'm calling it a night.

Gluten free?!?

I will spare you the I've found a new program, starting over, and this time I'll do it bullshit. The bottom line is I'm fat again, sad and discouraged. I've had pretty good stamina when it's come to exercising and eating well, but then I get in these three week gorge fests that undo weeks of hard work. The ten pounds that takes a month to get off goes back on in a matter of days. Then the who cares attitude sets in and then another five pounds goes on. My clothes don't fit I get sad and stop exercising until I finally muster up a day or two of sheer willpower and I'm back on track. But with another fifteen pounds to lose.

I've read the book Grain Brain and learned the dangers of gluten. In fact a month ago I went gluten free for two weeks. I felt great, slept better and was not sad at all. Then i had a large turkey panini sandwich, some chips and peppermint patties and the three week  sabotage began.

The same is true for my reading and prayer time. I haven't done squat. As we head into the Christmas season I was reminded again how important it is to be thankful for God's blessings. I know will his guidance I can finally shed this extra weight.

I am using the T25 videos and returning to my gluten free lifestyle. Lets see what I can do with this.