The Big Event!

Dear Readers,
A little over a year ago my now son-in-law proposed to my daughter.  In December of 2009 they went to Wisconsin to visit his family for Christmas and he proposed!  When my daughter called with the great news we were very excited and happy for them.  After we hung up the phone a feeling of dread set in...and I thought, "How much time do I have to loose enough weight to look good for my daughter's big day?"  I wanted to look beautiful, well, thin and I wanted her to be proud of me because I looked good.  Sort of shallow I know, but that is how I felt.

As soon as they arrived home from their trip the planning began and they set a date, November 5th.  I thought, "Oh good, that gives me 10 months to loose 80 pounds."  Definitely doable, right? WRONG!

I kept counting the months that I had left before the wedding and re-calculating how much I had to loose in a shorter amount of time.  Can you relate?  The months just kept flying by and I had not lost a single pound, nor was I doing anything to loose the pounds either.  At the beginning of each month I would go through the process of re-calculating again.  Finally, it got to the point where I accepted that I wasn't going to loose 80 pounds in time for the wedding but I wanted to loose something.  When there were only a couple of months remaining I changed the amount of weight I was going to loose to fit into the amount of time I had left.  In other words I was saying, "I've got 8 weeks left, if I loose 5 pounds a week I can still loose 40 pounds before the wedding."  The 8 weeks turned into 6 weeks, 4 weeks,  and then 2 weeks.  Believe it or not, I was still planning to loose a few pounds before November 5th.  I know so many out there have experienced the same struggles.  Some big event comes up, such as weddings, high school reunions, family reunions, vacations, etc...and we make ourselves crazy trying to loose weight so we can look good for the big event.  When really we should be trying to get rid of those extra pounds for our health!!!  Looking good is the icing on the cake!  Pardon the use of the words icing and cake in a blog about loosing weight : )

I was so convinced that I was going to loose weight before her wedding that I refused to look for mother-of-bride dresses.  I remained so confident that even a month before the wedding I hadn't purchased a dress yet!  I thought that it would somehow make a difference even if I only lost 10 pounds : (  Finally, my daughters convinced me that we had to get a dress and we did, and as you can probably guess I didn't not even loose a single pound before the wedding day.

I am hoping to accomplish several things by writing this blog.

#1  Most importantly, I want to honor God in the process.  The wonderful God who created me wants me to be healthy and happy. 

Check out 1 Corinthians 6:19 in your Bible.  It states, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your body."

#2.  I hope to encourage my readers who are also struggling with weight loss and good health.

#3.  I am using the readers of this blog as my accountability partners!  So, I pormise to be honest about my sruggles and my accomplishments.

#4.  I read that journaling your thoughts and tracking progress is extremly helpful in loosing weight, so I will be journaling to you guys and tracking my progress in this blog.

As we go through this together I will include healthy recipes, healthy eating, and exercise tips.  I will also include Bible verses from God's word to encourage us along the way.  So here it goes, I am on my way to loosing weight and being the healthiest me I can be!