I’m usually very opinioned, but you’d never know it. I’ve learned to keep my opinions to myself
and I usually only share them if I feel pretty strongly about something. I guess maybe my mother made me write
Proverbs 21:23 a few too many times when I was younger for saying something I
probably should have kept to myself. “To
watch over mouth and tongue is to keep out of trouble.” Or maybe now that I’m a mommy I’m finding
myself more likely to “spew” out what I’m thinking… I’m not sure why, but I
thought and thought and thought about it… and here goes. I’m sure I’m bound to offend a few people,
but I don’t care. So you’ve been
forewarned… if you don’t want to be offended, you might want to quit
reading. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I guess my thoughts about writing this post started when I
kept getting asked, “What are you taking?” in response to me losing weight… And
people just wouldn’t settle for the answer I gave them, “nothing”. Then came the constant posts from people
pushing weight loss/health suppliments such as Advocare, Body by Vi, Herbalife,
etc. Apparently it’s the new trend in
our country… Fork out some money—or better yet, convince a whole bunch of other
people to fork out some money so that you can get your products for free… and
you’re on your way to the fountain of
youth—beauty and wealth and *gasp* WEIGHTLOSS!
I’d like to point out that I have never taken any of these
products, so yes, they may work, and there may be plenty of people who love
them, but I am very against them… and here’s why.
#1—You are a child of God and you are wonderful. We all sin, we all make mistakes, we all have
things we wish we could change. But you
were fearfully and wonderfully made and the Lord thinks you are perfect. Psalms 139:13-14 states, “For it was you who
formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works that I know very
well.” Did you hear that? You are fearfully and wonderfully made. No amount of weight loss or “inches lost”
will make you a better person in God’s eyes.
I have been flooded with facebook posts about “losing inches, and losing
pounds, and 24 or 90 day challenges” These posts are highly aimed at people to
make them feel bad about themselves…
lose your baby weight fast, real moms stay at home—you can too if you
sell our product, have enough energy to be “super-mom” with all the energy you’ll
have from our products… Doesn’t sound very “faith based” to me. Faith to me means living like Christ did--accepting
all people—fat, thin, black, white, young and all, loving all people—stay at home
moms or working moms and not judging others—as hard as it may be at times.
#2—Whatever happened to good old fashioned eating healthy and
being active? It’s too hard? You’re too busy? I don’t know the reason, but there is no
quick fix. And anything that promises to
be a quick fix is a lie. Maintaining a
healthy weight is a life change. Let me
give you a little bit of backstory… not
because I want to brag, but because I think it’s important for people to know
that YOU DON’T NEED this stuff. I am 5’4”. I’ve never been “super skinny” and I never
will be. I have a large bone
structure. I left high school weighing
about 130 lbs. The heaviest I’d ever
been came in 2010 when I reached 155 lbs. This may not seem like a lot to most people,
but it’s not a healthy weight for someone who is 5’4”. In fact, based on my BMI, I was considered
overweight. I decided I needed to do
something about it and started exercising and eating right. I got myself down to a much healthier weight
of about 135 lbs just in time to get pregnant.
I’ve always wanted to be a mommy.
Always. It’s always been the one
thing I dreamed about. I stopped looking
at the scale during the last few weeks of pregnancy. I do know that was somewhere around 175 lbs
right before I had my son. YIKES! That was WELL over the recommended weight
gain. I wanted to get my baby weight off
as fast as possible but more importantly, I wanted to breastfeed-because I knew
it was best for my baby and formula happens to be something else I’m strongly
opinionated about. (I guess that’s for
another post). Everything I read on
breastfeeding said not to diet because you needed the extra calories to make
milk and if you didn’t get enough calories, you didn’t make enough milk… And I
didn’t want to have to give my baby formula.
So I ate, and I ate healthy. I quit
drinking (or maybe I should say I never resumed drinking since I’d given it up
when we started ‘trying’ to get pregnant).
I drank LOTS of water. I ate a
well-rounded diet with lots of fruits and vegetables because I knew it was
healthy for my baby. I cooked most food
from scratch with REAL ingredients instead of going for processed, boxed,
canned, bagged foods. I reached for
healthier choices because I loved my baby, I knew he was eating what I ate, and
I wanted to do what was best for him. I
also got ACTIVE—not really on purpose, but out of necessity. And if you’re a mom—I’m sure you are ACTIVE
too! I wake up, I play with my baby, I
go to work, I come home, I cram as much fun and play into my evening as I can,
I catch up on housework. From 6:00-11:00
I go, go, go… I rarely sit down.
Sometimes I get so busy that I forget to take care of ME rather than
everybody else. I fall into bed at night
completely exhausted, but usually fulfilled that I am being the best mother,
wife, housewife, and teacher that I can possibly be. This is my new motto: Colossians 3:23 “whatever your task, put yourselves
into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that
from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the
Lord Christ.” Do I get tired? Yes. Do
I get overwhelmed? Yes. But I remember I was wonderfully and
fearfully made, my Father loves me, and I have many wonderful friends and
family who also care about me. And I
remember, I am doing the best I can.. And I go on. Anyway, to get back to the point, I made some
major life changes, and I made them for my son Kaiden… because I love him more
than I’ve ever loved myself. I did it so
that he could be healthy, and as I started to see changes, I did it because I
want to stay healthy and be around for him for a long time. It took me awhile to see changes in my body—and
remember I wasn’t really trying to lose weight--but these major changes, paired
with the extra calorie output from breastfeeding were making the weight come
off. By the time Kaiden was a year old,
I was as thin as I had been leaving high school. And 2 months after quitting breastfeeding I
am smaller than I have ever been in my adult life. I weighed in this week at 124 lbs. I feel great must mostly because I have more
energy to play with my son that I used to.
Am I trying to lose weight?
No. Do I care about my
weight? Not really. I guess maybe this is where I’m different for
most people. I am comfortable in my
skin. I find my body amazing—it created
the most wonderful thing I’ve ever had in my whole life—my son. Long story short—you don’t need products to
help you lose weight—you just need something to drive you, I mean REALLY drive
you and keep you focused. Don’t do it
for you—do it for the Lord, do it for someone you love… but get healthy. It’s worth it!
