Feburary Challenge

Here's the February challenge if you'd like to join in with Faith Fitness Nutrition. I absolutely love her stuff!

New favorite

Lately I've been in a smoothie/shake kind of mood. Generally I do it for breakfast on Sunday because its easy before church.

This week I did:

1 frozen banana
3 strawberries
Handful of frozen blueberries
Enough milk to make it drinkable - I didn't measure. :)

I didn't add any extra sugar. Sometimes I do peanut butter, it depends. I loved this combination with no sugar because it brought out the flavors of each fruit.

I haven't gotten brave enough to put veggies in my shakes. Do you?

In other news, yesterday I tried Nutella for the first time.

Can I just say. Oh. My. Goodness!!!! Someone should NOT have introduced this to me!

Inspiration

I think I'm going to start a weekly post, called Inspiration Tuesday. Why Tuesday? I have no idea. I just picked it out of thin air.

Like you, I love people telling me I'm doing good when I don't think I am. So I'll be sharing quotes, stories, or pictures that can inspire all of us in this journey called life.

Continuing the battle... to lose me.

Cross It Off!!

I completed a goal!!! *in my BEST singing voice*

Do the happy dance!!! :) I have crossed off book #1 for year - Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo. You can read what I thought HERE. It also has the complete list of books I'm reading for the year.

I'm not very good at crossing goals off my list - obviously. I haven't done one of my monthly health goals, so I need to revamp and think about the ones I'm choosing.

I'm feeling super accomplished after this one. Especially since I read the book in one morning. Seriously. Something like three hours. Another one of my goals is was to blog more. I've already surpassed what I did in December AND November -- almost combined if I finish this month strong. Ha!!

I also need to do my 5k schedule. The first one I was going to do was in February. I might should sign up if I'm still doing that one. :)

Love you guys so much. Thanks for the continued support and encouragement! I couldn't do it without you!

Argh!!!!!

I suck. Plain and simple.

I did NONE of the workouts I scheduled for last week. I'm in a funk. Stuck.

I've actually been contemplating quitting the gym. Then do working out at home or at the track. Plus side it would save me $600 a year.

Do you guys do gym or your own home workouts?

Right now I'm not scheduling anything for this week except eating right.

Frustrating.

Monday Planning

Here's my schedule for the week:

Monday - I'm restarting couch to 5k. Week 1, day 1

Tuesday - Two Class Tuesday!! Ab/Core with my trainer, then Zumba

Wednesday - Week 1, day 2 (c25k)

Thursday - Day off (will do the 50-50-50 challenge with sit-ups)

Friday - Week 1, day 3 (c25k)

Saturday - Zumba

That will be give me 7 days for 30 minutes. I need to figure out to get my fitbit tallies for the week to post so you guys can see what I do in a day. Having a desk job, it's not very much, but I try. You're supposed to get 10,000 steps in ("they" say), but my goal is usually 5,000 and I'm lucky to make that some days.

I've also realized it's pointless for me to cut things out of my diet -- dessert and bread, etc. It's about moderation, not giving up. I don't know about you, but if I give something up, I want it even more!!! :) So - my new goal is to eat nothing processed, and bread/pasta is going to be whole wheat. My friend Marybeth makes bread ALL the time, so she sent me some whole wheat pita bread, sandwich wheat, and multi-grain. I'm super excited to try them and have FRESH bread!! Kind of an oxymoron after all the cutting out of bread lately, huh? HA!

That's all for Monday, people! Get MOVING!

Honk

Yesterday I promised I would tell you more about Honk Ministries.

It's a ministry that I'm starting with my roommate and two of our children's pastor friends. We are a mentoring program for children's leaders, helping small to medium sized churches with their programs. If they need curriculum, decorating ideas, set ideas, etc. That's what we'll be doing. For now, we're trying to get into conferences in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, and Nebraska. As we develop more (aka have more money) we'll be going wherever God takes us.

We're speaking at a Conference in Wichita in February, so right now we're getting ready for that. We're doing two sessions, both involving media and teaching kids. One is using social media, the other is not HAVING media. Not every church has projectors, etc. for their kids program.

Everything we're doing is just getting rolling, including a website. Once that's up, I'll share so my faithful followers can spread the word!! This is something we felt like God was calling us to do because so many churches have little to no resources for kids.

Happy Sunday -- make it a healthy one!

Saturday Weigh In

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I posted. Yikes! I thought I was going to get better at this?! :)

I'm going to be honest and say that this week was absolutely horrible. I ate everything in sight and didn't go to the gym AT ALL. I'm doing a weight loss challenge with Children's Ministry Deals with other children's workers across the country. Weigh in for that is every Saturday. Despite my horrible week, from last Saturday to today I lost 2.8 lbs.

Hold up. Don't get excited. :) I tend to not, because it fluctuates so much and so often. Next week I could gain three. You never know.

My goal for today is to plan my week of workouts and perhaps make it to the gym later. I plan what I'm doing each day, and track how far I go (part of the 365 miles). Today I'm also working on Honk Ministry stuff and other stuff for church. I'll post more about Honk tomorrow.

For now, I must get busy.

Sunday's Random Thoughts

I've changed the blog up a bit. You like? (Be honest and let me know if it looks horrible). I have several things flowing in my brain right  now so I'm not sure where to go today. Today I did a lesson about newness and how God creates in us a new heart, if we pray and desire that change. So many places in the Bible show us, requesting prayer "create in me a clean heart.." We all have our thing. Whether it's drinking, smoking, or even gluttony. A sin is a sin is a sin. I follow a page on Facebook called Feeding my face Faith. She has some really great stuff -- the other day she said this:

Before pointing a finger at someone who drinks...someone who smokes...someone of a different political party...someone who's had an abortion...someone who identifies as homosexual...be sure you're not part of the huge population of overweight or obese Christians who clearly struggles with the sin of gluttony. Ouch, I know. Grace is for ALL; not just the sins we personally battle against. Let's get mad at OUR OWN sins.

WOW!!! Yup, guilty as charged. Even if I have to go minute by minute, I want to honor God with my choices, treating this temple that He gave me in the right way. If you've been curious about going "clean" but don't know where to start in your diet, I came across this earlier today and loved it. It gives you five weeks, so you aren't doing it all at once!

Also - tonight is the premiere of Biggest Loser, Season 14! It seems like it's been forever, so I'm super excited! I'm also excited that they're having teens on the show to help them! Jessica Limpert from Season 12 posted a challenge of how many calories you can burn during a 2-hour show. I'll be at the gym at 8pm with my tush on the treadmill to accept this challenge. Will you be watching?

13 in '13!

Courtney Crozier from Biggest Loser has challenged her followers to set 13 goals in 2013. Check out her blog for more info, but I thought I'd share my list for the entire year. Some of them I've already shared with you, but that's ok.

1. Read 12 books -- I have 12 picked out, but if you have more suggestions, I can add them. 
2. Forgiveness
3. Completed couch to 5k
4. 365 miles (1 mile a day)
5. 6 5k races (last year I did 4)
6. Focus on ME!
7. Less time with technology – tv, phone, etc.
8. More time in the Word
9. More random acts of kindness
10. Try new things – boxing, dancing, etc.
11. More trips to see my family
12. Travel somewhere I’ve never been
13. Blog more

How are we doing five days into the New Year?? I'm not doing terrible, even keeping up with 50-50-50. Trying to help my body adjust to the new medicine - that's making me sick (much like the old one). Ugh. Frustrating, but I'm giving it a chance to see if I get used to it. My other medicine (the shot) is going really well! I still get nervous doing it, but it's going a lot better than I expected. One of my friends that saw me over the weekend said I made it look really easy. I was glad to hear it, considering I shake. :)

Have a fabulous Sunday, peeps! Love you all!

One Word

For the last three years I've chosen one word as a goal. My word for 2012 was BELIEVE. I was believing for the desires of my heart. Alas it didn't come, but I'm still hopeful.

My word for 2013 is ACHIEVE. There's so many things I want to achieve physically and spiritually. I'm stronger than I ever have been before, but it's time for the scale to move!!!

Do you guys pick a word? What's yours for the year?