Bibles and Running

God must have more in store for me this year. As I said in my previous post, I had no ambitions for 2012, other than survival with the two kids. But right off the bat our church began Spiritual Growth Month. Basically we take the month of January to encourage good Bible reading habits and growth in various ways. This year Greg had the idea to do a "Read Through the Bible in a Year" program so I jumped on board. I wizzed through Genesis and plugged through Job and am about to tackle Exodus, and I'm excited to finally read the entire Bible. I know I've read a lot of it, growing up in church but it will be great to say at the end of the year that I have read the entire Bible.

My fitness and health goals were also non-existent at the start of the year. I was preoccupied with post delivery recovery and surviving on muffins and coffee, so needless to say I hadn't even thought about how I would lose the baby weight this time and get into shape. After I had Liam it took me over a year to get motivated to work out. I finally started a blog back then called, "My Blubber Blog" where I thought I could be candid and accountable for a weight loss journey. But after 5 months and only losing 10 pounds I became discouraged and stopped blogging. I did eventually make it down to my pre-pregnancy weight (to the pound) but failed to regain a healthy weight and BMI. That journey was so trying and exhausting that I gave up on my goal weight pretty easily.

Since then I've gained a better knowledge of healthy eating and come to recognize some of my weak points. For instance, my insane addiction to sugar and anything baked. If there is a cookie or a cupcake within a 5 mile radius...I will eat it. I often eat cookies in the evening or bake a cake and eat it with Greg in a few days, so part of my new goals is to conquer my sugar addiction and be able to eat just one cookie once a week or so. After confessing this addiction I noticed how severe it is. On day 3 or 4 of our "no baking diet" I was almost sick to my stomach I wanted sugar so bad. I dug in the freezer and found some old gross cookies and began to bite off hard frozen chunks. I looked at myself doing that and knew this addiction is far greater than I thought. Luckily I have Greg and my sister for support, so with the exception of Wednesdays I'm going baking free and cutting that stuff out cold turkey.

The other opportunity presented to me was the chance to do a half marathon in September. My sister has done one before and I've always admired people who were disciplined enough to train for one and finish it. I dabbled in running on and off over the years, but of all the ways to work out I would say running and walking are my favorite (or should I say, least hated). I had not even considered doing one this year until my sister said she was registered for one in California taking place in September. When I was at my parent's house one Saturday afternoon, I stepped on their scale to see how much I weighed. When the scale showed 10 pounds more than my scale at home I almost had a heart attack. I thought I was doing alright for post-pregnancy, but it turns out our old crappy scale sucks, and our digital one had no battery. So off we went that very day to get a new battery for our scale, and sure enough: 10 pounds bigger!!!

I was of course discouraged and feeling self conscious, so Greg offered to support me and encourage me if I wanted to train for the half marathon. Then my reward for all the hard work would be a trip to California and the chance to run a marathon in Disneyland with the people I love. So I spent a few days doing some research on training programs and routes to run around my house and decided to go for it.

I have two 2 mile runs down and am feeling pretty good. No weight lost yet but that's why I want to blog about it. If I'm really going to immerse myself into scripture and running and living life more fully then I want to remember where I started and the bumps I had along the way.