Thursday’s Thought: August 18, 2011

Yesterday when I was out on my Wednesday run, the trainer who talks in my ear as I run along said something that got me thinking. He says these types of things on a regular basis as he talks in my ear as I run along. See here’s the deal… Monday, Wednesday and Friday, my exercise of choice is run/walk/run for 3-5 miles. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, I walk 4-5 miles. On the days at include running, I workout with an app that has a trainer talking in my ear, plays motivating music to tempo and sets a mileage goal for that day. The other days that I do a long walk, I listen to the Bible being read aloud. Now on the run days, my music of choice is uptempo worship music. It’s the best part of that experience. On the walk days, I’m fed the word and both experiences are part of my daily spiritual journey.

But back to what the trainer said yesterday… He said something like, “Say this to yourself. ‘I can do this.’ Repeating mantras like to to yourself will motivate you and keep you going. There are a list of these helpful mantras in my book.” Now yes, I’m sure that’s true. Repeating mantras like that might be motivating to some. But to me, they just put pressure on me to succeed in my own power. I have failed so many times before that I know that failure is an easy choice given my own strength as my fuel or consistent motivation. On the other hand, when I turned this journey over to God and asked Him to be my strength and supply, I no longer had to tell myself mantras or even feel strong. My strength isn’t coming from me and when I feel weak, that’s ok. God says, “In your weaknesses, my strength is made perfect.” He also says, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

So today, when I walked and turned on the audio Bible, I prayed for God to fill me with the power of His word. He is always faithful and delivers on His promises. Lean on Him today. Let Him be your strength in whatever you’re facing. He will never let you down.

Love you so much!
Traci

Monday’s Music

So it is barely still Monday. I intended to get this done this morning. I apologize for the delay.

As I ran along the streets of town this morning, I was delighted to be joined, well sort-of, by my buddy, Travis Cottrell. He really wasn’t with me including his sneakers, but he was along for the trip in my headphones. I am so proud of my old college friend and the ministry our sweet Lord has given him. He recently finished yet another wonderful recording project that I am enjoying so much that I thought I would recommend it to you.

One track in particular is my current season’s theme song. It is “I’m Changed.” I sing it out loud as I trek along. I especially love the part where the lyrics are “This is the life that I now live!” That is so true! God has completely changed me and this is the life that I now live! I LOVE it!

Run out and buy the cd, “When The Stars Burn Down.” You’ll love it too! http://traviscottrell.com/music

Love y’all!

Same thing. New day.

Well, here it is another Saturday morning. My day looks a lot like any other Saturday that has come before. We have family stuff all day today… My son has opening ceremonies for his football league… My husband is off until church later this evening… The yard needs to be mowed… The house needs to be cleaned… Groceries need to be bought… I need to get in a workout. For me, sometimes the monotony of the day can lull me into a lack of desire to get moving. It is SO easy to sleep a little longer and put off my appointment with my sneakers and my dog (who is most certain that we should not miss a single run or walk together!)

Someone asked me today what makes me get out there every day. Well, the answer is actually quite a few things.
1. My sweet puppy eagerly awaits every morning for my feet to hit the floor. She lies there pretending to be asleep as the sun rises. As soon as I roll over, she starts her slow stretch routine followed by relentless tail wagging until finally I get on my sneakers laced up and her leash in my hand. She is a wonderful motivator.
2. I look forward to seeing the people around town that I’ve grown accustomed to seeing every morning. I see the same faces almost every day and when I don’t see them, I wonder how they are.
3. When I exercise, I get to eat more. And don’t get me wrong, I need a t-shirt that says, “I run for ice cream!” I LOVE to eat. I ate myself into a weight problem and my love of food has not gone away. Exercise affords more eating!
4. I don’t get my motivation or will power from inside myself. I dedicated this journey to the Lord from the beginning. I have certainly relied on God’s promises to get me through. I don’t rely on my own strength and I pray a lot.

Most recently, on the days that my exercise includes a long walk, I have added The Daily Audio Bible to my walk. DAB is a free podcast. The daily reading is a meal-sized reading of old testament, new testament, psalms and proverbs. I have fallen in love with the DAB community and the time walking that I get to hear God’s word as I walk along. To find out more about the Daily Audio Bible, visit their website, http://dailyaudiobible.com/.

Love you!
Traci and Macy (my walking buddy)

It’s turning out to be one of those days!

It is turning out to be one of those days. Really it’s been like this for several days. I am sitting in the car right now at one of the three places I am supposed to be at the same time this evening. Life is pretty stressful. Our schedules are out of control. Some unexpected expenses came down this week and we are now facing some financial pressure. When I turn on the news, it would seem that the world is coming to an end. No one has jobs. The markets are crashing. Our government cannot seem to get itself together. It’s one of those doom and gloom seasons. You know what I mean?

So today, with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, I just turn to the Lord who says,

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6, 7 NLT)

I have been reading again about pits and getting stuck in the mire. I feel like so many times, over and over, I tiptoe around the same pits and just dive in. I do not wait on being pushed in, I just dive on in. Well, Lord, I am standing with you today. I believe You. I will not let the pressure cause me to doubt You. Thank you that you are a promise keeper!

Get by with a little help from my friends

So many of you have responded that you relate to my journey and desire to also get control of your weight. I would love to partner together with as many as would be interested in getting together to walk or run.

Here is my routine:
Monday & Wednesday: run/walk 3-3.5 miles (45 minutes)
Tuesday & Thursday: walk 3.5-4 miles (60 minutes)
Friday: run/walk 4-4.5 miles (60 minutes)
Saturday: walk 4-6 miles (60-90 minutes)
There are also some random evenings that I squeeze in
an extra 2-3 mile walk.

If anyone in this area would like to meet for a group walk or run/walk, please let me know. I’d enjoy having you with me. I would like to meet at the NC Research Campus at 7:00 AM.

Come on!! Let’s get moving!

A little fun on Saturday night! 80s flashback!

Calling all my 80s peeps!

If you were a child in the 80s, then you will remember some of the finest technology that the 80s had to offer. Do you remember????

…when your family got its first answering machine? Wasn’t it such a big deal to record the outgoing message?

…when your family got its first VCR? Was it a beta or VHS? Did it load the tape from the top of the machine? (Why was it so hard to program the VCR to tape a show?)

…the dial up electronic antenna?

…Cassingles? (My first car an eight-track adapter that played my favorite Whitney Houston national anthem cassingle!)

…the kitchen phone had a super long cord that was always curling up because it was stretched too far?

…when you got cable?

…if you had a Sony Walkman or later the Discman, you were it?! If you had one of these you hooked it on your belt loop!

…the boombox? (I still have my Sony jambox that I bought for $119.00 on my 17th birthday.)

…when your tv had knobs to adjust the color?

The 80s provided some great memories for me! What about you?

 

Fitness Friday Tip – Where Do I Start?

Hi friends,

Between You & Me will be dedicated to fitness on Friday. Today is the first of those posts. And today, I would like to share a little of my story and some tips for you if you’re looking to get started on the path to losing weight and better fitness.

I would like to start by being the most transparent I have ever been publicly. I am going to share my weight with you. I have NEVER done that before and am struggling to type it even now. However, I believe that there is power in things that we keep secret. The enemy seeks to devour us and when we keep our struggles in the dark, he is the only one in there with you. So here we go…

In October 2009, I weighed in at a whopping 226 lbs. I felt badly about myself every single day. I felt like I was wearing a billboard that said, BIG FAT FAILURE. I wanted out of defeat and decided to do something about it. Over the following year, I cut sugar out of my diet and dropped about 40 lbs. Then in October 2010, I had been at a plateau for a few months and added exercise to my routine in hopes to get the scales moving again. Today, I am another 25 lbs. lighter and hope that my journey will encourage you. I would like to lose another 15-20 lbs and hopefully, I am on the right path to do that.

So how am I doing it? What’s the formula? It’s pretty simple really. I’ll lay it out for you.

First and most important, I have devoted this journey to The LORD. My devotion to growing in my faith through this physical journey is a better motivator than my personal will power could ever be. Bringing God into the dark space that used to be just me and the lies of the enemy blew down the doors of defeat.

Second, I am very practical in my approach. There are a lot of diet ideas out there. The simplest and most straight forward has been counting calories. I use a free iPhone app that provides a daily net calorie goal based on your current weight and goals. You simply input what you eat and your daily fitness activity and it calculates how many calories you have to eat as the day goes on. The app is My Fitness Pal Calorie Counter. It is so easy. You can even scan the barcode of what you eat and it will already have all the nutrition info. They also have a website that does all the same things for you if you don’t have a smart phone with the app. The website is MyFitnessPal

Lastly, I exercise every single day except for Sunday. Seeing the net caloric gain is great motivation to keep going. I follow the training of Jeff Galloway, a marathon trainer whose method is run/walk/run. I am out on the street 3 days a week doing my run/walk/run and another 3 days a week, I walk. The longer you go, the more calories you burn, so I am always out there 45-90 minutes in a clip. Think about this… I usually burn about 100 calories per mile walked. If I walk 3-4 miles, that represents another 300-400 calories that I can put in my mouth guilt free! Some days, I add another walk at night to burn some extra calories. Then I celebrate with ice cream or brownies!! For more information on Jeff Galloway’s training, visit his website www.jeffgalloway.com

I have given up excuses and lies. This is the only body I’m going to get on this earth. I plan to never go back to the girl I used to be. I’ll share some pics as motivation! I found some old fat pics and some recent pics where I have fewer chins!

Are you with me? Share your comments with me!

Quick thought. Abundant life vs. Captivity

“A Christian is held captive by anything that hinders the abundant and effective Spirit-filled life God planned for him or her.” ~ Beth Moore, Breaking Free

Between You & Me…

I’ve been giving this blog a lot of thought lately. Why is it here? What purpose does it serve? Is anybody reading it? Is it of any real value?

I have come to the conclusion that I don’t want it to just take up “cyber-space”. Rather, I’d like for it to be of some use to you the reader and to me as I write it. I’ve decided to give it a major overhaul and start updating more frequently. In the coming days and weeks, I will begin to share with you some posts that I hope will be helpful to you including spiritual encouragement, weight loss and fitness tips, shopping savings, household tips and website fun stuff.

The first step in this process is a visual facelift. I have redesigned the blog and changed the name. The new name is: Between You & Me. Practical Encouragement On Living Life to the Full.  

Jesus said that He came that we would have life to the full. That is exactly what we are supposed to enjoy, life to the full. Would you not agree with me though that sometimes the muck of this life seems like anything but? Well, my hope is to provide you encouragement with practical suggestions and spiritual hope. If there’s a good idea that helps ease the load, then I want to share that with you. If there is a verse that is especially meaningful in the moment, then I want to share that too.

This thought process started because I am constantly searching for stuff on the internet. I follow different blogs that provide help with shopping savings… others that help with my fitness goals… others yet for schooling the kids and household helps. I hope to help you by pulling some of that into one place. In the coming days and weeks, please check back for the blog to be updated and organized to be more useful to you. It’s still a work in progress right now.

Well, that’s it for today. Thanks for checking in. Between You & Me, I am really excited to see how this all comes together.

Have a great day!

Love you bunches,
Traci

THANKS FOR SUPPORTING THE EXTRAMILEPODCAST-GALLOWAY EDITION

As those who know me know, 8 months ago, I could not have run across the street. In October 2010, I became interested in running because I had reached a weightloss plateau and figured exercise was the next logical step. So I started a running program as a means to an end. I did not like running. I had never run before. I have no idea what possessed me that day to download a running app and put on running shoes. But, as my family slept one morning, I did just that. I was surprised that I liked it right away. It was really difficult, but was over quickly. Over the following weeks, my training got longer and harder and harder and harder. I began to dread running days. I found it too difficult and really boring. But, I pressed on because I knew I needed to get in better physical shape.

Then came a NEW day when I discovered the Jeff Galloway Run/Walk/Run Training Method. This method was mentioned to me by a friend who is a runner and I dismissed the idea thinking it was just like other similar training plans. Boy! Was I wrong! The Galloway method is revolutionary for me! I look forward with great anticipation every day that I get out on the street and chase the pavement!

There is a podcast that brought it all together for me. I listened to the first one just because I was looking for more information on Galloway one day. Just by chance of what iTunes suggested when I entered “Galloway”, I found the Extra Mile Podcast – Galloway Edition. It gave me a ton of information about the training method as well as loads of inspiration. As a result of what I am learning from the podcast, I bought three Galloway books and am now happily training using the Galloway method for a 10k in the future.  I hope you’ll check it out and that it will help you too!

You can check it out and get more information at www.thegallowayextramile.com.

Happy running!