A Time for Everything

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

In January, I entered a new season in my life that I call healthier living for today and tomorrow. I entered the season knowing fully well that the decisions I make today impacts my life in the future.

Prior to January, I wasn't sowing good seeds with respect to my eating habits. I would eat anything that I wanted and as much as I wanted to. I began to realize that continuing to eat this way was having negative impacts on my spiritual, emotional, and physical health. I also came to a place of brokeness before God and asked Him to help me control my eating. This is when the healthier living for today and tomorrow season began for me.

The first part of the season was focused on weight loss. One of the first things I learned was that metabolism is the way my body uses calories from the food that I eat. If I eat more than my body needs, those extra calories get stored as fat. Eating less than my body needs causes weight loss.

Now that I had the basic understanding about metabolism, I began to learn about eating smaller more frequent meals while measuring the portions of food that I was eating. I bought measuring cups and a balance so that I could weigh my portion sizes. Measuring and weighing my food was a new concept for me, but it taught me about portion control and the importance of eating only what my body needed.

I also learned that eating breads, crackers, and pasta made from whole wheat has more fiber and nutrients and causes my body to use more energy to digest this type of food; the more energy needed means more calories are burned that helps lead to weight loss.

Eating whole grains in combination with the right amounts of proteins and fats also caused my body to loose weight. My body needs food from all the food groups in order to fire up my metabolism, which led to my weight loss.

Combining my new healthier eating with working out five times per week (3 days of strenth training, 2 days of aerobics) allowed me to loose between 1-3 pounds per week.

I reached my goal weight a few weeks ago and I'm now in the maintaining part of the season. This means that I have to eat more food in order to maintain my weight.

I thought eating more food would be great and easy to do, but I'm finding that it is a challenge. My stomach has shrunk and is very content with me eating at the level that I've been accustomed to. Nevertheless, I either need to eat more or reduce my active level in order to maintain my weight. I don't see my active level changing so eating more is the only option that I have.

Eating more is an unusual challenge for me to experience since I've never had a problem packing the food down. Matter of fact, there were periods in my life where eating was a favorite pass time and stuffing myself beyond the point of comfort was normal for me. I'm so glad that I don't do this anymore and I love eating in moderation now.

I've loss a total of 42 pounds since January 1. I sometimes pinch myself to see if it is really true. I've always heard about other people loosing this much weight and never thought that I could do it. Nevertheless, here I am 42 pounds lighter and with God's grace I was able to achieve my goal. Thank you Lord!!

Many people have asked me if I found it hard to do. Overall, I haven't found it hard. I've had God's grace. Another key for my success was realizing that what I reap in the future depends on what I sow today. I began to look at older members of my family and began asking myself “do I want to look and have the health problems that they do when I’m their age?” My answer was no and I realized that I needed to sow good eating and exercise habits today in order to be healthy in the future.

I am also successful since I had two wonderful people (Theresa & Blanche Smith) to help me stay on course and share in the fun of experiencing weight loss together. Blanche and Theresa have been a great support and inspiration to me and I probably wouldn’t have been able to accomplish my goal weight without them. I’m every so thankful for them and their support and love.

I'm glad that the weight loss season is behind me and I know that God's grace will be with me as I continue to eat more in the maintaining part of the season.