I've never practiced the sacrifice of Lent before. In some ways I never understood the concept of giving up something. I'll be completely honest: I'm selfish. Why should I give anything up? And really what's the point--I'll just start again after 40 days is up? Last year I remember trying to give up soda, but in one particular situation I had sat down to eat a meal with my family and halfway through dinner, and halfway through my can of pop being empty I realized I had made a commitment to not drink pop till Easter. Well, that promise obviously wasn't taken seriously. So I was pretty leery of trying anything this year.
BUT....
A nutrition plan was presented to the Ginghamsburg staff and also anyone that wanted to join for the Lenten season. I listened intently....pondered it for about a week, and then I thought: "I don't really like what I see in the mirror, I don't like the extra weight that I carry around my midsection" "I don't feel very energetic throughout the day and into the evening, why not give it a try." The new nutrition plan is called "The Paleo Diet". I particularly don't like calling it a diet, it's more of a change of eating patterns.
Basically the gist of Paleo is:
Meat, Nuts, Seeds, Green Vegetables, little fruit, No Starch, Sugar or Dairy.
One of my goals is to strive to eat in complete meals: protein, fat and green with a 20 oz bottle of water and one fish oil supplement. I should eat no less than 5 times per day, and not go longer than 3 hours in between meals. I also get a variety day, which will be for me MONDAYS, where I can eat the thing that I've been craving all week. For me, this will be a Boston Stoker ghirardelli caramel mocha...for Grounds for Pleasure this will be a chocolate monkey (banana and chocolate steamed with milk into pure loveliness!--only place in town that has it, besides Grounds for Thought in good ole' Bowling Green). I'm also going to add weight training to my normal routine. For me, my week will hopefully look like this--
Monday-fitness bootcamp at the Avenue for 60 minutes, then 10 minutes on the treadmill.
Tuesday--weight training on gym floor, 10 minutes treadmill
Wednesday--fitness bootcamp for 60 minutes, then in the afternoon during my long work day, hit the tennis ball around for 30 minutes.
Thursday--weight training on gym floor, 10 minutes treadmill
Friday--day off
Saturday--elliptical in basement and light weights in living room, unless over by Avenue
Sunday--day off
Each week Chastity, our fitness coordinator for this Ginghamsburg plan, will take all of our measurements, record them and then also take our individual picture. I'm just going to throw my measurements out there--I'm not going to be ashamed like I usually would be. I want to achieve weight loss and body fat loss, and this is who I am now. Hopefully by the end I'll have some different results. (but I'm not posting my pictures online! gasp!) And yes, you are reading those last few numbers correctly. I do weight 129 lbs and 37.5 % of my body is fat. (healthy for women is about 22%) I felt like having a barfing contest right then and there.Yesterday evening, I had to run to Kroger to pick up a few items and unintentionally went down the candy aisle (I was trying to pick out a new flavored drink powder! I Swear!) Right when I got to the candy I LOVE, any gummy item with sugar ALL OVER IT, I wanted some so badly. I even hunted for some bags that said "sugar free". I found some....picked then up, flipped them over and read the contents: all I can say about that is BOLONEY! it contains sugar alcohol -still a form of sugar but handled in the body of a diabetic easier, and it contains Milk. ??? Not even going to go there on that one. But I wanted to purchase that candy so bad it hurt, but then I resorted back to why I was doing this in the first place. So I kept repeating " Jesus---I really want this one little piece of candy right now, but I need you MORE." .....and I walked away.
The other commitment I'm making for this Lenten season is to not log into facebook for a full 46 days. For the week before Ash Wednesday, I tried to count up in my head how many times I would get online to log into facebook. The one night alone I logged in 3 different times from the couch just looking at other people's pages. I realized that I was becoming disconnected to my husband and my little guy Moey. I wasn't paying any attention to them, during the time that I could. What was I doing? What kind of use is this with my time? So I've made the decision....soo long facebook. I'll catch back up with you in 46 days. I believe this will make a big change in my life. I'm going to trust Jesus that it will.
see ya'll back in a week with hopefully lighter calculations!
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