Fit Friday!

Shockingly, I still haven't gotten on the scale. I didn't even pay attention at the doctor's office when they weighed me. I know I should eventually weigh in, but I'm not ready yet. I still feel like everything is fitting the same so I don't feel like I'll see any change on the scale. That is frustrating. Also frustrating? I was supposed to know results of my blood test at the latest Wednesday and I didn't find out until Thursday. By then I had let myself go into the crazy cycle. Do I have cancer? Am I dying and they don't want to call me back and tell me? I just wanted answers!

I finally got a call back Thursday afternoon while I was out walking with Garth. Everything came back normal. No diabetes. No thyroid issues. Healthy. I should be happy. I am happy. Thankful to be healthy, but it just means I have to REALLY watch what I eat. It just means I'm getting older. My metabolism is slowing down.

Then I read this blog post and it was JUST what I needed to hear. It was very convicting, but also comforting at the same time:

Dear Daughter of Eve,

You carry the seed of life in you. You are muscle and mind and heart. You walk with the calm of the hills. There is beauty in your gait, in the way you hold your shoulders, in your bending to hold a child close, in your rising for those who are mistreated.

You are womb-an. Woman. You create with every breath, and there is no shame in your sexuality, in your curves, in the way your heart beats for home and I long for you to be set free.

Free to love yourself the way your Creator does, the way your children do, the way your man does – the one who vowed till death do us part – and I long for you to embrace your wounds and your pain and then, let it all fly. Like one of those sparrows whom the Lord sees, let it fly.

You gave birth to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Leah and Rachel and Mary; you gave birth to Billy Graham and Shane Claiborne and Philip Yancey, to Mother Theresa and Madeleine L’Engle and Margaret Thatcher. You are She whose body gave way so another could run and dance. Whose voice was silenced so another could speak and sing.

We are more than our mistakes and you’ve been carrying yours since the days of creation when the first of us took that fruit and disobeyed her Maker. When she tried to take control because she was convinced God didn’t love her.

And since then we’ve been hurting because we don’t believe we are loved. Or lovable. Or loving enough.

All we do is feel guilty and then we take it out on our bodies. We eat Twinkies and over-exercise and then, pints of ice cream and hang over a toilet and we drink too much wine and we don’t laugh nearly enough.

And we’re always doubting the way our loved ones look at us because we can’t believe they would find beauty there. We think they’re looking at our faults, and “Remember that I love you,” my husband is always saying. “Everything I do and say is out of my love for you.”

We would die for others, though. We are up all hours of the night nursing our children and giving love to our husbands and rising early to pack lunches and do load after load of laundry. We are martyrs who hate themselves and it’s time, daughter.

It’s time to awaken your soul. It’s time to put on some lipstick and go dancing.

You are the right shape, the right size, the right build because you are YOU. Your hair is perfect because it is yours and your waist and your thighs, too.

I commission you, then, to rise and be a woman. Be all that a woman can be. Take joy in your femininity, in your uniqueness. God created male and female and you, friend, have a specific job to do.

So go on and love yourself so that you can love others with an everlasting, full-hearted, spirited kind of love that laughs long and cries hard and wraps its arms tight around the world."

I hope this encouraged you as much as it did me. I pray we as women (myself included) stop being so hard on ourselves. It's hard. I get it. But God loves us no matter what size or shape we are. Our husbands love us. I have to find joy in the journey to losing weight because there will still be problems even at my goal weight. There will still be disappointments. It's just realizing the truth of who I am in Christ and embracing who God made me to be.

In other news, I bought these Edamame Lentil chips at Costco. I'm not even sure why I bought them. I guess they sounded good and they were low in calorie. They were also $7 which I didn't realize at the time. But oh my gosh. They are so amazing. I'm obsessed with them.

So that's my update. It's pretty negative. Hopefully next week I'll have answers and be more optimistic and more motivated to start seeing results.