HIS Radio

I am a 21 year old college student at Converse College in Spartanburg. I am studying to become a teacher for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. God put this calling on my life and now I am doing the work necessary to carry out His calling.

I will graduate next May and am excited about where God is leading my life. But, you might ask, where does my weight loss story come into play? Well it might be best if I start at the beginning. When I began college four years ago, I was told to watch what I eat and avoid the "freshman 15". Well, being already overweight, I really did not start taking notice until my junior year, that I was becoming obese.

I was slowly not being able to fit into my size 16 jeans anymore and was forced to start shopping for sizes 18 and mostly sizes 18 wide! This should have horrified me more than it did. I have been so used to being "chubby" or a little bit bigger than other girls my age, that I really did not take it seriously. I was however, having some guilty feelings about my weight.

I knew that God had given me this body and I was supposed to take care of it. If I don’t, how am I to do his work and what he has called me to do, if I don’t have the energy to do it? Later in the beginning of my junior year I started having some health problems.

Things were "out –of- wack" with my system and I was having some other problems that became a constant problem. When finishing up my fall semester of my junior year, I had made over ten visits to doctors and specialist within five months. During on of my visits, my doctor asked if I knew how much I weighed in high school. I told her I knew I had weighed 186 near the end of my senior year. Her mouth dropped. Forget the “freshman 15”, we both realized at that moment, I had gained “the freshman 50 “.

In four years, I had managed to pack on 53 pounds. She encouraged me to start right away with watching what I ate and moving more; she also encouraged me to start some sort of weight loss program. She warned me that if I did not, I would continue to have the same problems and even more would arise in the near future. If that wasn’t enough to wake me up, the next big problem did. Not having ins urance through my parents, I was relying on my personal student insurance to cover the majority of the bills.

Being unaware of how much each visit with the doctor and specialist cost, I was almost in tears when I opened a bill totaling $4,000 in my name; and it wasn’t a student loan! Now, I have one more year left of school.

I graduate next May. I want to be healthy by the time I walk across that stage! I want to have a body that glorifies the Lord inside and out! I want to encourage the kids I will be teaching years from now, to treat their bodies as the temple of God that it is and to keep it holy by being aware of what they are putting in it.( Music, movies, T.V., conversations with friends, and FOOD!)

I also do not want to bring this into my children’s lives (if God wills me to have any) later in life. I know that it takes time, but I am ready to do this. 2009 is gone, I can’t undo all the late night runs to Taco Bell with my roommate, I can’t undo the summers spent on the couch watching T.V., but I can do this! I can change my life and prayfully in the future, change the lives of others!

2/11/10

I have struggled one day in the "eating right" area this week, but it has felt sooo good to workout this week. I am no longer sore when I come home from working out.  I have love the circuit system Carole at Golden Strip has me on. I can become very bored with doing one thing over and over, this way I am walking, lifting weights, doing leg curls, or my favorite, using the big ball to do crunches, so I never stop! I am so happy I am able to do this and am so appreciative of all the encouragement.

2/6/10

I lost 2lbs this week. I got my workout finally with Carole at Golden Strip. It's tough, a lot of weight training, but I know it will be worth it. I ran into a few other Big Losers this morning too. That was really nice. I have steamed brocolli today, yummy. Thanks for this opportunity.

BLOG - 1/28/10