Being healthy is a journey in and of itself. When I was in my late teens/early 20’s, I was not healthy. I ate way too much – my friends called me “The Human Garbage Disposal”, and what I ate was so far removed from health food it wasn’t even funny. I went through periods of “dieting” and would lose those few extra pounds of padding that usually hung around. But I’d always fall back into my old eating habits, and back came the padding. I don’t want to say I was a yo-yo dieter – I just didn’t ever figure out how to balance my life in that area.

In the past month or so, though, things have dramatically changed for me. Something clicked. I made friends with the word “diet” again. But I call it a “quasi-diet”. I’ve been exercising more, and my body is responding. And it’s working. It’s working way better than I thought it would.

I have to admit, I caved this week and weighed myself on Thursday. I wasn’t feeling like I’d made any progress and was getting discouraged, so I hopped on the scale to take a peek at the reality. Shock! I HAD made progress! So something I’m doing is working.

What am I doing, you ask?

First, the “quasi-diet”. For me, this “diet” is not first and foremost about losing weight. It is about putting good fuel into my body, and not overstuffing my stomach. Whole grains, brown rice, more beans and less meat, fruit and vegetables as much as I can. By making my meals with these types of satisfying ingredients, I never feel deprived or starved an hour later. Because it’s about fueling my body, not depriving it of calories in a desperate effort to shed pounds. That switch in mindset makes a big difference.

And portion control, portion control, portion control! This is a HUGE problem in America! Restaurants serve us two or three times more food than our bodies need, and we eat the whole plate. And we do it to ourselves at home too. Especially with meat. But I learned a trick from another blog – only serve yourself half the amount of meat you’d normally eat, and mix it with something else. I’ll shred up half a chicken breast and mix it with a small serving of brown rice. And it’s still filling!

Another trick I use for portion control is to fix my plate completely before I go to the table. No extra food on the table for me to mindlessly put seconds on my plate. If I want a little more of something, I have to get up and go get it. But if the whole dish is sitting in front of me, I’ll pick and pick and pick at it until I’ve eaten twice as much as I actually need to.

And, of course, there’s the age-old dilemma of dessert. I love dessert. I’d eat it every day. But I needed to get through my head that excessive sugar is not good fuel for my body. I don’t never eat dessert – I just don’t keep it in my house. I enjoy reasonable amounts of dessert at parties or when I’m at someone else’s house for dinner. It’s okay to have a treat sometimes! But on a day to day basis, what I eat is about what is good fuel for my body. That switch in mindset has been a huge help to me.

Okay, I’ll get off my soap box on that topic for now…ahem…

Second, my exercise routine. For exercise to really start working for me, I needed to find something I loved doing that didn’t feel like a chore. I’ve never really liked going to the gym – 30 minutes of cardio on a machine is torture to me. I get so bored! It was very difficult for me to feel like I was getting any kind of results when I was just going to the gym, because I didn’t enjoy myself, so I didn’t push myself – I just kind of got through it so I could get out of there and go home.

Then I found Jazzercise. Oh, glorious Jazzercise! I love it. Cardio, strength training, calisthenics, all wrapped into a one-hour workout that flies by because I’m having fun. I’m surrounded by other women who aren’t dance professionals either, so I got over feeling self-conscious really fast. When I do Jazzercise, I feel strong and confident. I leave class feeling energized and fit. And my body has responded very positively to it! I supplement my two-to-three times per week Jazzercise class with Pilates for my lower body at home, and a couple other moves for my arms and abs I can easily do while I’m playing with the baby on the family room floor.

I think one of the primary keys to getting results from a workout is finding something you genuinely enjoy doing. For some people that’s running, for some biking, for some kickboxing, and for some (like my husband) doing the traditional gym thing. There are myriads of ways out there to get moving and strengthen your body – everyone can find something they enjoy.

So that’s kind of what I’ve been doing. But none of that would work if I hadn’t changed my mind about it, if I hadn’t gotten over the obsession with losing weight and focused first on being good to my body. Feeding it, nourishing it, fueling it, strengthening it. There are two Biblical principals here:

Romans 12: 1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

If I am to present my body as a sacrifice to God, I need to take care of it. He gave me this body as a gift, and it is the least I can do to keep it healthy and strong.

And we are to not give in to the world’s impossible standards of what “healthy” and “beauty” look like. We can renew our minds to dwell on God’s truth and drown out the voices of the world.

Ah, Romans 12! What a great chapter. I’m working on a post – which might become a series of posts – about it. Look for that soon!