Why don't we do what we know to do?

I have been a leader in First Place 4 Health now for 3 years. I have had several people quit, and I have had several people join. My question is, if we don't need to be in a health class and we know how to do it, and we want to do it, why don't we do it?

If we know that eating two pieces of chocolate pie is worse than eating one piece, than why do we do it? If we exercise for one hour and burn 530 calories, why do we put 1500 calories back in our bodies of rotten junk food?

Well, I don't have the answer to this, but I do know that if you begin something that you know is good for you, than quitting is not the answer. Because if you quit you will obviously never achieve your goal that you set out to accomplish in the first place. Begin this year with a new attitude and a new outlook on life. Give God a year......it may just work!!!

Wow...yes it is official. My husband has fallen off the deep end (44 tomorrow) and instead of flowers he has bought me a new elliptical, weight bench and several pieces of exercise equipment for Valentines Day. Wow...now I don't have an excuse to exercise at the YMCA anymore. I am asking for a racket ball court for Christmas. I will see if he will get me that.....

Exercise Addict

Yes, I have figured out the key to successful weight loss while maintaining it. It is to become an exercise addict. You have to want exercise so badly that you toss and turn in your bed at night if you haven't gone to the gym yet. I have found several different exercises to do, and not all of them require the YMCA. My pond is finally frozen over and my dog Jack loves to chase sticks. I love to ice skate so Jack and I go out on the pond 1 hour per day and I skate while he chases the sticks I throw him. This way we both get exercise. I have found out that if you exercise before you eat, you will burn calories while chewing your food! Awesome, huh? You will also burn calories cleaning your house if you exercise before hand. So you can get a clean house and benefit two ways from it. One more tip, if you drink cold, ice water you can burn up to 80 more calories! The only problem with this is that you tend to drink less water if it is ice water.
I am glad the new year is here. I am thankful that I still have my good health at 44 which enables me to continue exercising. Become an exercise addict. Maybe you will see me in exercisers anonymous some day. Oh well........

We are on our way!

I have begun the new bible study with the Junior High Schools on health issues they face every day. The first week I only had 2 girls in the class. Needless to say my bubble was burst, but I remembered the purpose behind this program. If only one girl came it would definitely be worth it. But the next week I had 7 more girls so now a total of 8 girls are in the program. It is so rewarding to see the awe on these girls faces when I bring in nutritional information from McDonald's and Taco Bell, and have them tell me the contents of the food they had been eating. They have NO IDEA what they are putting in their mouths. It saddens me that children all around the Country are literally being fed lies!! I can only help a small group at this point, but I urge everyone to open up their eyes and see the toxic crap we are putting into our mouths. The portion sizes at any restaurant alone are, at least, double if not triple to what we should be eating. The evidence is overwhelming, making the food industry a guilty party to killing us. We are guilty by association. We are addicted to the ingredients they put into this food. How can we say that smoking is bad for us if we are eating, in gigantic proportions, the fat and sugar content that is added to all of this food?

Well to get back to the subject, I believe that I can help these girls to begin thinking about what they are doing to their bodies. I am not worried about bulimia or anorexia tendencies because I have come to realize it isn't about your weight, but about living healthy habits. Fat or thin, we all need to begin making healthier choices for ourselves and our families. The First Place 4 Health program that I lead at our Church has helped me along this journey and has made me fully aware of the bad habits that I was forming for the past 24 years. I feel like I am in full combat uniform over the fight of big and small food chains around the Country who are misleading our people into a deep, deep foxhole. We need to take control today....... we need to get informed and start making better decisions.

Teen Health Group

I am so excited. Today I was able to talk to our JH principle about starting a teens health and fitness group after school on Wednesdays! I know that God has been urging me in this direction for several months. The only way I was going to do it was to jump in and commit to do it. This is how exercise and diet work. Just do it! Wow...I am beginning a new First Place Group at the Bryan First Brethren Church and now the Wednesday night teens group. I am pumped and now I need to start writing the program for the teens.

My daughter and I continue to exercise every day and will be going back to the YMCA to swim and play racquetball soon. The weather is getting cooler in the evenings and I am sure it won't stay this nice too much longer. Kristen is still very skeptical about exercising, but I am catching her saying things to her friends about how important it is. If I only live 30 more years, teaching my children healthy principles will truly give my life a purpose. I know that I will remain passionate about this subject and hope that I will live longer than 30 more years!

Playing Dead

My parents have a dog named Frodo. We call him the dog from "hell". He was tied up around a very big tree in the back yard one time when one of there chickens tried to play tag with him. This particular time the chicken was running around the tree and came a little to close to Frodo. With a giant leap and open jaw Frodo took one bite, the chicken went up in the air and fell several feet away from Frodo. He was one dead chicken. Or they thought.....my father came towards the chicken with an axe and right before the axe came down, you guessed it....up hopped one very anxious chicken and ran as fast as he could!!

This is a funny story, but think about it. We are like that chicken running around dangerous things in life until we get caught, whether it is our physical, mental or spiritual well being. We play with "fire" or with "frodo" then we give up, play dead, until someone comes along with the axe and wants to break our spirit or "axe our head off". We don't have to live like this. As Max Lucado's title of his book reads, "EveryDay Deserves A Chance". If you messed up in a certain area of your life today, you have tomorrow to begin again. It is when we play dead for too long that our resolve will be broken down and we will begin to believe that we are not capable of being the person that God created us to be.

Remember, don't ever give up. If you didn't exercise yesterday, do it today. Don't let anyone break your spirit. Don't let anyone leave you for dead and most importantly, don't give Satan a stronghold in your life.

His Wonderful Majesty

Hi guys....I am back from the foothills of Lost Creek Kentucky. The girls and I went on a week long mission trip with our Church group. What an awesome experience serving God at a Christian School named Riverside. We painted locker rooms, cleaned toilets, constructed a picnic table and I was blessed to help with the landscape. I wish you were all there, because normally I am good with words, but I know that I cannot explain the feeling of going on a mission trip like this and being the hands and feet of Christ. Now I know what giving Christ First Place really means. Serving others who need help is a feeling that I will never forget and I pray that I can continue to go on a trip like this for the rest of my life. I spent $20.00 on this trip!! That was for me and the girls. Our Church is very blessed to have a group of people who truly serve Christ through tithes and gifts for those who can go on mission trips. I will always be grateful to this wonderful body of believers. We have gone on several fancy trips with our family that has cost us up to $3,000. Colorado was beautiful, Tennessee was fun, and my favorite place to go, Virginia Beach, has been put on hold. (Even though I believe I can find a mission on Virginia Beach). This trip was the best I have ever been on. We worked from 9 - 5 every day. NO TV!!

In the evening we hiked, yes exercised, up the back woods of the mountains. This is truly a different kind of exercise as my legs were very sore afterwards. We hiked approx. 4 - 5 miles and didn't see one snake!! But I did get a few ticks. A teacher in the school named Sally took me to her home in the foothills and was beautiful. It was simple, but beautiful. Her house was painted white and her husband had built a bedroom overlooking a river and horse ranch. The bedroom had windows all around it. It looked like a house out of the Better Homes and Garden book.

But you know, putting all of this aside, I got closer to the 11 other people in our group and what fun they all were! I got to supervise 4 kids throughout the week but had time to work and talk to several adults. Again, I can't put this mission trip into words that justify it all, but I can encourage each one of you to take at least one trip where you serve all week. On Thursday evening we were treated to a ride high up into the mountains by a local person. We were able to see 12 elk roaming and several wild horses. I wish I would have had my four wheeler with me because riding with the wind in my face on top of a mountain is something that I would like to experience in my lifetime. I have been truly blessed this past week and am looking forward to teaching First Place to whoever would like to have a full body, heart and soul workout. I believe that God brought First Place into my life so I can share the love of Christ with others through exercising the heart, body and mind. I am looking forward to this Fall and seeing what work will be done in my life and those of you who choose to come along with me. Take care and love you all. Becki