A 5K and Not Giving Up!

Good Day Pudgy Girl Followers!

  How are you? Have ya'll been well? I pray that is so. This last Saturday, I ran the SHHS Early Bird 5k, 2015 for the sixth time. I've lost track, but I believe since I began this journey of physical and spiritual fitness that makes my 13th or 14th 5k race. I run to push myself and stay active. I do not race competitively, I simply sign up to do 5k's so I keep running every week with a goal in mind, oh and for the t-shirt of course!
  For any new readers I'll recap, In September of 2009 I embarked on a mission to lose weight and find fitness. At that time I weighed 260 lbs and was 273 lbs. (pregnant with my son) at my heaviest. I went from 260 lbs down to 163 lbs in the next year. Losing 97 lbs has been a wonderful struggle of self discovery, and I will always struggle with food and weight issues. I know that. I have used no magic program, I just count my calories faithfully, staying between 1200-1400 per day and try to exercise 3 or more times a week. Since my weight loss, I've had a third baby, and gained about 60 lbs with that pregnancy, That caused a lot of stress and concern. After having the baby, I lost 20 lbs and have been struggling up and down with the last 40 lbs for three years now. Ugggg! It's been a lot harder to lose the weight since I'm getting older, however, I am still working at it. I took a break from running for awhile, and now I'm finding I am enjoying it again. My 5k times are terrible, and it feels like starting over, but the key here is I'm not giving up I will keep putting in the miles and counting the calories all the way back down to 160 lbs. (my goal weight)! I won't give up because the prize is worth the effort!
  As I put time and effort into my physical fitness, I am constantly working on staying spiritually fit. My prayer life is a daily and sometimes constant source of encouragement from my Heavenly Father. After all, prayer is our communication and conversation with the Savior. It also holds in it such power as we can not humanly understand. I have different facets to my prayer life, and one of the most important privileges I have as a Mother, is praying for my children. Not just a privilege, but a responsibility to pray for their very souls, lives, health, spiritual growth, protection, understanding, etc. It is our jobs as parents to be the proponents of prayer for our children. It is also our job as parents to lead by example.
  You can't give away what you don't possess. If you don't know the Savior in a personal relationship, you can't effectively witness for Him and pray for others. Your prayers will not be effective for a couple of reasons:
1. Unconfessed sin separates us from God, so that He will not hear.
“Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities (sins) have separated you from God; your sins have hidden his face from you so that He will not hear” Isaiah 59:1-2

2. We don't really believe God can answer them.
“But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does” James 1:6-8

  I don't want to get too theological or "deep", I just want us to arm ourselves with the truth. The truth is we need to pray daily for our kids. The truth is in order for our prayers to be effective, we must be right with the Lord ourselves. Let's go to battle friends, and use prayer as our weapon against the enemy. Let's be in the Word of God daily so we are filling our minds and hearts with the power that comes from the Bible.
  Like we must work to stay fit physically, we must work to stay spiritually fit as well. Let us not give up on reaching our goals. The goal is always worth the effort! Lord, bless you friends as you strive toward health!

In His Service,
Pudgy Girl

Request Granted

Good Day Pudgy Girl Followers,

   First order of business today, physical fitness accountability. I've notice how hard losing weight has become since having my third baby.  Nearly two years after having her, I'm still staring down my last 40 lbs to lose.  I'm also older, maybe that is a contributing factor.  I've messed with my calorie intake and I think I'll carefully cut an extra 300 calories out of each day for a couple weeks to see how that goes.  I'll keep you informed on my progress.  Training has become a little bit slower with the return of the high temperatures and humidity.  However, we're still getting it done.  It's been wonderful having my sweet Terry running with me.  He is such an encouragement. Now, on to the spiritual fitness accountability.
   Have you ever really considered if you were granted any request of your choosing, what would you choose?  Of course you've thought about it, we all have.  I have often felt and said, if I could have anything, I'd want to have my house paid off, be completely debt free, take an exotic family vacation, have a new Prevost bus to travel in.  How about you?  In 2 Chronicles 1:1-3  King Solomon pleased the Lord in his obedience and offerings and the Lord said to him, 7..."Ask for whatever you want me to give you."  Do you know what that king asked for?  He asked for wisdom and knowledge to lead his great people.  Wow! How very unselfish and kind.  The Lord of all the universe was impressed, in fact He was so please with Solomon that he granted his request. Because Solomon was so unselfish in his request, the Lord chose to grant him wealth, riches and fame as well as wisdom and knowledge.  I read that chapter today and I felt conviction of selfishness.  I want to be like Solomon, eager to be a good leader and steward over what God has entrusted me.  The job He's called me to do.  I pray the Lord helps me be the best servant that I can be, and not a selfish wish maker.  Now, after hearing about Solomon, what request would you ask God to grant you today?  

Serving til Jesus Comes,
Pudgy Girl