A busy couple of months!

Here it is...the end of March and I haven't posted in a long time. Nothing new, huh? I have, however, been busy running and working out! Yay! I ran my first 5k of the year on January 3. It was a PR, but I am not sure I believe it....my GPS was acting up and I don't think that it was accurate. Never the less, one done. 

Marlee and Me

I attempted to do a run, Run FUR Fun, on January 27 with our dog, Marlee. Well, it was a total flop! She hasn't had enough training to run with me...or I haven't had enough training to run with her. I can't count it as a completed 5k for the year, but it was a learning experience.

My girls, 14 year old twins, want to run in a fun run or two with me this year. In February, I took them to our local YMCA and together, we joined the couch potato to 5k class. We have class once a week and homework to complete during the week. They are doing great! We plan on running in a glow run and/or a color run in April and we have been BLESSED with gifts of PAID REGISTRATION to the Dirty Girl mud run in June. Very exciting!

I've also been doing weight training a few times a week. I use the Activ Trax program at the YMCA. Activ Trax provides customized strength training workouts. It is a web-based program that creates a new workout each time I go, based on my goals and abilities.  

FOOD! I love food. I am learning to relate to food in terms of fuel to keep me going, medicine to keep me healthy, and it is a GIFT - not the enemy.

Here is a new recipe I am going to try this week...maybe this morning!

Cottage Cheese Cupcakes
Ingredients:
1 egg
4 egg whites
1 cup cottage cheese
1 apple, peeled and grated
cinnamon to taste
sweetener to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350
Mix all ingredients together in a mixing bowl
Divide into 10 cupcakes
Bake for 30 minutes.

Nutritional facts:
45 calories
5 grams protein
2.5 carbs
1.4 grams fat
a bit of fiber :)
 

13 in 2013

I am looking forward to this year. I ran my first 5k a few years ago, when I weighed nearly 200 pounds. It was tough, but I did it...and then I didn't run again! A year later, after running had been a lingering thought in the back of my head and I had lost a significant amount of weight, I decided to run again. I'd go out once in a while, sometimes fairly regularly, but I wasn't really diligent. My girls and I ran a powerpuff 5k together and then I ran the Joplin Memorial run. It was great, but again...I quit. I had this, almost constant, internal conversation;

'I wanna be a runner. I am a runner. I can't be a runner. What run shall I do next? I can't, I'm not diligent enough. Good grief, I'm always thinking about running. If I am always thinking about it, I must really want to do it. Why don't I?'

I know, right? Crazy! Well, it is time to get diligent about this running thing that I am diligently pondering. I have officially joined 13 in 2013! I am excited to have made this commitment. I am going to run a variety of 5k races this year...13 of them! I do wish I had gone out on January 1 to break the new year in with a race, but I didn't.  It isn't too late for you to join and it doesn't have to be a 5k. Whatever race you prefer, how about doing 13 of them this year!?

A look back; 2012. A look ahead; 2013.

I smashed 2012, literally! My smash book is nearly complete. I need to get a bunch of pictures printed and added to the book and then it will be done! Yay! 

 

Ahava Genevieve Sheafer

Reflections ~ 2012: girlfriends and Florida (Keegans Grille, Ghirardelli, 4-seater surrey, hot tub hairy-man, Landry's,.....amazing!), I turned 40 and found out that I was going to be a granny (awesome!), I almost lost my husband (so thankful for paramedics and LIFE), HCM Gala, Pennel family vacation at Monkey Island, Grace and Hannah ran their first 5k with me, I ran the Joplin Memorial, my kids went to prom for the first time (thanks to the 'Toddards' :) for their friendship!), we had chickens, summer Olympics, many motorcycle adventures...a NEW motorcycle...caught in a rainstorm on our first ride on the new bike!!!, WHOLE conference, cousins White Cloud weekend, swing dance social with my kids, green smoothies, Rangers football....John broke his hand, Brie threw an amazing shower for Trevor and baby girl, Ahava, Eureka Springs adventure with my man, we celebrated our 18th anniversary....Grammie and Grampie celebrated their 70th!!! I held my firstborn grand-baby, Ahava. I learned to love me, simply for me.

A new year ~ 2013. 
**#13in2013....13 5ks of various kinds - mud runs, memorial run, foam 
   run, color run, night runs, etc. I am excited and I look forward to each of them. 
**Yay for kettlebell workouts! I just received my first kb for Christmas and now I am 
  working to purchase more! I am going to work  hard to firm up using kb and tabata workouts! 
**I'm going to support my disc golfers. Chris and John are both playing in the PDGA World 
  Championship tournament as well as others. Fun excitement!
**Read more, mostly non-fiction books that will encourage and challenge me. 
**Capture our life with pictures. I haven't taken many in the past year or so.
**Listen to the "little" things more diligently, because they are really the big things in life.
**Organize my grocery shopping and be more frugal! 
**Family dinner table more often
** I am going to love me. I am a pretty, cool woman. 2012 was a great year of realizing that 
  and I want it to continue in 2013 

  

tonic Tuesday: "want to"

Tonic: anything invigorating physically, mentally, or morally. Something that lifts the spirits or makes somebody feel better generally.

Something new: tonic Tuesday.

This is my medicine.

I am currently reading Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst. It is a wonderful book, given to me by my mama, about satisfying your deepest desire with God, not food. Food has been a source of struggle for as long as I can remember. When I was in jr. high, I went in for my sports physical and I was told, "Jennifer, you have got to lose weight." I weighed 140. I was a bit chubby and I took it serious. By my freshman year in high school I weighed 128. When I became pregnant with my first baby, at 18, I still weighed 128, but that quickly changed. Baby weight piled on...and piled on. I've been obese since the beginning of my baby days, 21 years ago. My weight has ranged from 185 to 215 for most of these years. I am only 5' 4".

In my mind, I always fall back to the must-weigh-less-than-140, but it has been so far away...an impossible task.

I get sad because I'm fat. I eat. I cry because I eat. I get sad because I'm fat. I eat. I cry because I eat.

The cycle goes on and on.

I've been on one diet or another for most of my 17 year marriage to Faithful Husband. In the past year, I've been able to shed over 40 pounds, yet food is still a source of struggle. I eat in secret...can't let Faithful Husband see my unfaithfulness (yet, my body sees and shows it!). I have a few great days and then a binge day. I still cry because I eat.

I am made for more!

I don't need to find my worth in my jeans size or the numbers on the scale!

I am Jennifer Sheafer...I am "that girl" ~ the girl God created me to be. Yes, I am!

The introduction in the book, Made to Crave, is called Finding Your "Want To" and I have found it! I want my soul to be free from the bondage of food and numbers. Do you? Join me in this journey. Each week, I will post a new tonic Tuesday, working through all the chapters of this book. It is blessing me and I know it will bless you, too. May I suggest that you purchase the book for yourself? Mine is like a journal...the pages are written all over, sentences are underlined, paragraphs are in brackets. Lysa TerKeurst, thank you for sharing your journey. God, help me to share mine and find healing in my sharing.

Here is a powerful segment taken from the intro.

'I am made for more than a vicious cycle of eating, gaining, stressing ~ eating, gaining, stressing...I am made to rise up, do battle with my issues and, using the Lord's strength in me, defeat them ~ spiritually, physically, and mentally.'

It is a battle. I am in the fight. I will defeat this cycle...these issues. God bless you as you find your "want to" and join the fight.

Grace for Self

I love to listen to K-Love Christian Radio, 90.7 in Neosho, MO. Early in January, I heard Dr. Meier talking about loving self. Mark 12:31 tells me to ' love God with all that I am and love my neighbor as myself' - there is no commandment greater than these (paraphrase). How easy it is to love God, it is usually pretty easy to love those around me, but oh the struggle of loving self.

We all make mistakes. We are all imperfect.

Most of the time, I am quick to offer grace to those around me when they mess up; when they live imperfectly.

Most of the time, I am quick to offer condemnation to self when I mess up; when I live imperfectly.

How is your relationship with self?

I am determined to love me. I am worth the same grace and mercy I offer to others; the grace and mercy offered to me by God.

You are worth it, too.

You

What if you could see yourself
through another pair of eyes?
And what if you could hear the truth,
instead of old familiar lies?
Big Daddy Weave

What truth do you need to hear today? What truth can YOU tell YOURSELF today?

Go to the mirror. Look at your reflection. Repeat these words:

You are important.
You are valuable.
You are the best!
You are beautiful.

Smile at yourself. You are worth it! Replace the self-condemnation, old familiar lies, with positive and encouraging truth.

Now...go to the mirror!

Smile!

I dare you to smile at everyone you come in contact with today. I would love to hear the reactions you get from your smiles.

How are you?

"I'm not answering that question today."

What a great, bold answer to an all too common question.


Married for 35 years and in the midst of a divorce...

"How are you?"



A best friend dies...

"How are you?"


It is completely understandable to "not answer" that question OR to get frustrated. Is it society...have we all just trained each other that we really don't care? Is it that we just don't want to share our heart...possibly cry or say something "wrong?" Do we want others to "have a brain" and realize how we are without asking?

What's up with "how are you?" Do you really want to know? Do I really want to know?

Yes, I do.

Hey...how are you?