Another Year Older… Another Year Wiser…

My birthday was shared with Jesus’ resurrection day this year.  Awesome!  Another year of my life has come to an end, but I certainly do feel wiser in the health department after my 45th year. I have figured out a few things (that’s the wiser part) that should contribute to living another 46 years (at least!)  Hey, I obeyed my parents and the Bible promises a long life for obedience.  :o)  That’s what I keep telling my kids anyway!  Six small meals a day really does keep the doctor away.  I know I switched that up a bit from the original prose, but it works for me. 

Allow me to share the joy in a photo essay…. then and now.  This coming Sunday I will have been eating six small meals per day for A YEAR!  A whole stinkin’ year!  I can’t hardly believe it either!  Here is my 45th birthday picture….. please refrain from snorting coffee through your nose when you behold my loveliness seventy-seven pounds ago. At least I was sporting a cool jacket and coordinating jewelry.

Here is this year’s birthday picture…. and “the difference?” you ask.  I ate the cake last year… I didn’t this year.  My mom made a darling peeps cake that was reported to be delicious.  I didn’t feel deprived.  It was a major victory in the weight-loss journey I’m traveling.  Next year, I’ll taste the cake, but for right now I didn’t need to.  My new mantra is “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.”  So true.

So as my next year begins, my plans include finishing writing a book of our adoption journey, getting into a regular fitness routine and daily praying diligently and intentionally for each of my children.  Not that I haven’t prayed for them up until now, but I got the book The Power of a Praying Parent and realized that I needed to up the ante.  Fighting in the heavenlies is where the action is.  I’m all over it!  Feel free to join me!

Ghetto Circuit Training

Yesterday we started the new Crosby Fitness Program, otherwise known as “Just shoot me now.”  On the clearly displayed, nice muscly picture above…. if the muscle changes color… that means it is hurting on my body right now.  This program is designed to impress those with an activity level of a snail, couch potato or lamp post.  You pick, if this applies to you.

In our loft we have an elliptical machine, so that became the work-out room of choice.  There is also an overstuffed reading chair and a cushy loveseat, but those are to be avoided during the allocated regime times unless used to hold your feet for crunches.  Close by and handy is the staircase.  Not that I don’t go up and down enough already…..   We also introduced into the mix some dumb-bells…. in ever increasing weights of 1,2 and 10 pound varieties.

So we have five stations: legs, arms, cardio, abs and the death climb, where you run the stairs.  This is so ghetto it cracks me up.  Rocky Balboa worked out in slums nicer than this.  Anyway, we do 2 minutes at each station and rest and drink water in between.  We do the whole thing twice around, and can I just say, I’m out of shape.  Getting down to lie on the floor for ab exertion should count for something, but it doesn’t.   However, I do count getting back up as part of a leg work out. 

I’m wondering why I need to work muscles that only hurt when I work them?  I obviously don’t use them for daily tasks, or they wouldn’t be aching.  Why do they need to be worked? I breathe in and the area where other people’s six-pack is hurts.  I lift my arms to dry my hair and my arms cry out.  And let me just say, I’ve been asking the kids to run up the stairs if I need something that is still there after I have descended once for the day.

Family togetherness is a beautiful thing.  Sweaty, whiny, flabby and beautiful.