Had a bit of a challenging day today, food wise that is. I started off great drinking my meal replacement shake and taking a long walk. However, my day went down hill from there. Now that I have hit the end of the day and was looking over my food diary, I realize that I didn't get enough veggies today and had too many carbs : (. My husband was not home tonight for supper, I never do very well when I don't have to cook a full meal. I did manage to get a couple of good walks in and hit over 14,000 steps so hoping my not so good food day will be balanced out by the amount of exercise I fit in. I realize that this is a process and I will have some good and bad days, but it is a bummer when you get to the end of the day and realize that you have messed up.
I think I have mentioned before that I really like the ministry called Intentional Living. The focus of this ministry is to live your life in a very intentional way. I decided to look up the actual definition of what intentional really means. Here is what I came up with: "done on purpose; deliberate". In order to live in an intentional way we really have to do things on purpose. While walking today, I was thinking a lot about how I can apply this in my life. When it comes to living a healthy life, I have to intentionally make good decisions; both on what I put into my body, as well as making sure that I am getting the exercise I need. In my spiritual life, that means I have to intentionally carve out the time every single day to read and study my Bible. In my marriage, that means being honest and in tune with my husbands needs, hopes, and even his frustrations. In my professional life, this means making sure I am doing everything possible to help each and every student while still doing the things that my superiors ask of me. All of those things sound great and easy in theory....but in the real world that can be hard. We have to be intentional not just once, but time and time and time again. I think that when we mess up, that is not grounds to give up. We (and by we I mean me) have to really take those occasions and use them as a springboard to do better the next time.
The verses that come to my mind come from Matthew 18:21-22 where Peter is asking Jesus how many times you should forgive someone who sins against you. Peter thought 7 times was a good number. Jesus replies to him "Not seven times, but seventy times seven." Although these verses are referring to forgiving others, I think they apply perfectly to the weight loss process. "How many times Lord should I try to get healthy? Seven Times?" I imaging that the answer would not be "Yeah seven sounds good, you can give up and grab the bag of Cheetos after that" ; ) What do you think?
Since you posted about being intentional awhile back in these series, I have really been thinking about that a lot. I have been struggling under the weight of debt and extra pounds for nearly 7 years and it has really taken an awful toll on me and my kids. I feel defeated, but I know part of the problem is that I haven't been intentional about fixing the problems. I am going to try harder to live in each moment and be intentional about making decisions that will help me reach my goals.
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