How Did You Lose All That Weight? Answered

Ah, to be 17 and a size 3 again.....circa 1987, Biology Class. Can you believe I thought I was fat back then too? Women are weird. We always think we are fat.

Present day, age 40. I'm not telling you my size either ha ha. But, I am shrinking and that's the good news.

That's my treadmill in the background. I love my Gold's Gym treadmill. I never photograph well, I swear it irritates me to death. I was thinking my face looked skinner when I was cleaning the mirror behind me so I thought I'd take a new profile pic. The previous one was me at 15 lbs lost. Now I have lost 30. YAY!!! I wish I was at my goal but I'm not so I keep moving forward with my fitness goals.

I think I am finally at that point where the weight loss has become significantly noticeable because people keep asking me what I am doing to lose the weight. Well, okay women are asking me. I always tell them and they look at me like I am crazy. Yesterday I was asked again and I told her and she gave me the same crazy look. Why the crazy looks? I am losing the weight because of Jesus and God first and the treadmill second. That is why.

Since I was a teenager I was thin. I thought I was fat most of the time but I was very thin. Mostly a size 2-4 until I had my first kid. Then I was a size 4-6. I think I stayed around 113-115 lbs until I had my third child. OY VEY. Then I spent 30-40 being over weight. I didn't want to be over weight but it just seemed like I could not get in gym time or time to do anything at home. If I did put my foot down the family or my job would just end up not cooperating with me and I could not do it regularly enough to do anything. So, nothing worked.

The life of many women.....get up & make coffee, get kids up & ready for school, get yourself ready, go to work, come home from work if you are lucky enough not to have to stop by the grocery store first for dinner stuff, and/or stop by the daycare and pick up kids then go home. Wrangle kids into the house, start dinner & cook dinner, get kids to do homework, watch husband walk in the door and ask you what's for dinner as he strolls past the kitchen to park himself on the couch and turn on the TV, throw in a load of laundry in between stirring something cooking or check on homework, eat, clear dinner mess, put away leftovers, try to spend a bit of quality time with your kids, and yep, it's around 8-8:30 now. Time to get the kids in the showers and into bed. Exhausted, we hit our own bed. Wake up and repeat. Um, when do you exercise? Please do tell.

So, I stayed fat. At 36 I decided to do Weight Watchers and lost 18 lbs. My husband decided he wanted another kid, I didn't but guess who ended up pregnant anyway? Not him, that's for sure. I had Braxton a month and a day before I turned 37. Then I was just busy all over again. I joined a gym 2 more times from 37 to 40. It never worked because the family just kept finding reasons for me to do things for them and they needed things from me or my presence so I couldn't go enough to do any good. I gave up again. I blamed my husband mostly and I can be honest enough to admit that I hated him a little for it. He could find every reason under the sun not to watch our four kids. Somebody always needed something and Braxton hated the daycare at the gym and they would always come and get me and tell me I had to take him home. I tried working out at home but the kids would constantly interrupt me while doing a video or anything else I did. I wanted to pull my hair out! It was too frustrating, so I stayed fat.

Then Lysa TerKeurst (oh how I love that woman!) began a sugar fast and actually sustained her battle with food by doing it with God. She used scriptures like Lamentations 3:24 The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him to help her overcome cravings. She said she asked the Lord to be her portion of strength to overcome a craving. She would ask him to be the portion she needed instead of food. She used scriptures involving "overcoming" to overcome this battle with food and exercise she had to go through. I watched her do it for a year with a skeptical eye. I mean seriously....could the Lord really be my "portion" instead of a delicious chocolate chip cookie from the Bakery? Huh, could He really? She turned her food/exercise battle into a spiritual battle and the Lord and Jesus were her biggest weapons. You know what, it worked. I was inspired.

I turned 40 and I got slightly depressed. I was hoping Edward (Twilight) would come and bite me so I could stay 39 forever but he never showed up. Dang. Then I got mad when I realized I just spent my entire 30's unhappy with myself and overweight. I still see myself as that skinny girl until I would look in the mirror. Very depressing. So, I said if Lysa can do it, I can do it.

I told the family that I was going to get on the treadmill every day. No matter what. They interrupted me of course but I would yell at them to get out of my room. I was mad. I started to pray the entire time I was on the treadmill. I fully involved God in this weight loss battle. I made Him chief dietitian and fitness trainer. I spoke scriptures concerning who I am in Christ over myself. I would want something sweet and I would ask God to be my portion. And you know what? It worked. In less than a week I didn't crave sweets anymore and I was eating probably half of what I ate before. In fact, many times I didn't want to eat at all. I felt stronger and more confident in my ability to accomplish my goal with God in control of the battle. Huh, who knew? Then one day I was praying on the treadmill as to how I was going to be able to keep this up and also add free weights to the workout and such. I honestly am constantly pressed for time to accomplish what I have to do every single day. How do I fit in working out too Lord I asked? Well, as soon as I got off the treadmill the Lord answered my prayer immediately and I have never been the same since. Thank you Jesus for visiting Mary and Martha on this particular occasion and including it in your Holy Word for us!!!! What did God show me? Please click here to read.

Mostly I learned that my weight was my fault and my fault only. I was wrong to have ever blamed my husband. He may have been wrong to not be helpful or supportive but he never stopped me from doing anything. I stopped myself, I gave up, I didn't fight hard enough for myself. I made the choice to go about making all the preparations like Martha was and getting angry and bitter like Martha and just when Martha goes to Jesus (and wouldn't you just think Martha is entitled to complain and say she needed Mary to get up and help her! Can't we sympathize with poor Martha?) Jesus tells her that Mary is the one doing the right thing. Excuse me Jesus but what?

Modern day.....wives play out as Martha & husbands play out as Mary. I am generalizing of course. I know some lazy dog women who expect their man to do everything and are awful wives. I also acknowledge there are plenty of good men out there who do things around the house and are superb husbands. But generalizing, this is the big picture. When many women look at this scripture they are imagining themselves as Martha at home doing all the work or most certainly the vast majority of it and feeling very upset about it and resentful of their Mary/husband who clearly can't see for himself all the work to be done around the house and is quite content to sit around taking care of his own needs whilst us Martha's work ourselves from dawn to dusk. That was a run on sentence if ever there was one. So what do us Martha's do? We go to Jesus in prayer and ask the Lord to change our husbands. Yes, we do. Oh some of us hear the sermon about praying for God to change you both and to change you first and we pray that but in our hearts we still think that we are fine and our Mary/husbands are the ones with the issues and could you please hurry up Jesus and fix him before I kill him? Hello conviction.

But alas, Jesus says the Mary/husband is making the right choice. I sum it up in the link but it all comes down to choices. We as women get caught up in the "what has to be done" and because our Mary is not going to help get it done because Mary is taking care of Mary's needs we just assume we have to do it all and we do. So we do not take care of our needs as we should and we go about making all the preparations like Martha getting upset, angry, tired and maybe a little over weight? And men, let me tell you this carries over into your sex life. A tired woman does not want to have sex with you. Especially if she has been on the go all day and then continued to go all night too while you watched TV or just did as you please. Um, you're not getting any, okay?

So we should learn from our Mary's. We should learn from the real Mary. We need to make the right choice to put God first. Jesus makes it very clear to Martha that He should have come before the cooking and cleaning. His word pouring into your soul is more important than vacuuming, cooking and cleaning? Yes, it is. If you made your domestic to do's a priority you are wrong if you didn't get your Lord time in. But it has to be done you say? Yes, it does and Jesus knew that too and still He told Martha/us wives that she was wrong and so are we if we do not have our spirits fed and take care of our bodies. We should learn from Mary and we should learn from men in general who are much more happier than women. Although men, you're still not getting any if you aren't helping out some or giving your wife time to unwind okay? yeah.

So that is what God showed me and the result? 30 pounds lost, the kids don't bother me anymore when I workout, the kids exercise now too, my husband likes me a whole lot better now that I am happier, my husband helps me protect my work out time now, the house has not fallen apart, things get done still but not as perfect as they used to be but I am getting skinnier and I am much happier so it must be working!

It all comes down to choice. What choice am I going to make today? And that is how I am losing the weight. Plus 90 minutes 7 days a week on my treadmill. Amen.

Jenn