Guided By Grace Life Coaching

Today I feel like talking about health. Not spiritual or emotional health, but physical well-being. How "well" do you feel? On a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being feeling completely horrible and having no energy, and 10 being feeling incredible)...where do you fall? If you're being honest, are you in the top 50% or the bottom? I'll be honest. The more weight I lose, the better I feel...and the more I realize just how "un-well" I felt before. It got me to thinking: how many people are out there saying "I feel fine" when in actuality they have NO idea how good they COULD feel?! Maybe they feel as well as they know how to feel...but on the scale of 1-10 it's really only a 5 or 6. This is a topic that I'm very passionate about. I hate seeing people settling for less when it comes to their health (or the health of their children). My heart breaks when I see people stuck in an unhealthy cycle...particularly when they don't even know they'...

Have you ever watched the show "Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition"? It's very similar to "The Biggest Loser" except that you see one person's full year journey in each episode. Last night's episode really struck a chord with me. It was a young father/husband (in his late twenties) who weighed 490 pounds. He struggled with extreme food addiction. And he was NOT a success story. Rather than finishing the hour seeing this amazing transformation...we finished the hour seeing him (still weighing over 400 pounds) checking himself into rehab. My heart broke for him. I felt his shame. I felt his condemnation. I felt his fear. No, I have never weighed over 400 pounds (nor anywhere close to that, praise the Lord). But I have struggled with food addiction. I have struggled with self-hatred and shame. I have struggled with the fear that I would forever be stuck inside a fat exterior. But then: God introduced me to Lysa TerKeurst and brought me smack dab ...

Apparently, I'm still a little girl inside. Sometimes things happen in life that make the internal struggles of growing up feel like they just happened yesterday. Didn't we all have those struggles? Wanting to fit in. Wondering who liked you and who didn't. Wanting to be accepted and loved by our peers. Yep. I'm sure we all had those feelings growing up. And we probably all still have them now. What I'm kind of surprised at is how easily I can still get my feelings hurt. I've only worked two shifts at my new part-time job at the mall. (Just saying that makes me sound like I'm back in high school, doesn't it?) Well, I don't know whether it was how tired I got hustling around the store for four hours, or the fact that I was a bit under the weather, or if I really did just have the whole "I want my new co-workers to like me but I don't think they do" scenario running through my head...but I was kind of an emotional mess when I got ho...

I'm getting very close to reaching the half-way point of my long weight loss journey. So, in light of that (and to help me keep my focus and determination as I continue working towards the goal), I thought I'd share some of what God has taught me so far on this journey. First a brief recap of how the journey even began... Last summer I was thrilled to be chosen as part of the studio audience for the filming of Lysa TerKeurst's "Made to Crave" Bible study series. The very funny - and very God - thing about that, is that when I got chosen to be part of the filming I had ZERO idea what the Bible study was going to be about. I just knew it was Lysa TerKeurst...and it was going to be good. Imagine my surprise when I find out the title is "Made to Crave" and it's all about: "finding your satisfaction in God, not food." Still makes me laugh about it today. God knew EXACTLY what I needed to hear. He had some BIG things in store. But I didn...

Time is just flying by, isn't it?! It is just mind blowing to me that it's already June 26th. Now that the weather is starting to feel more like summer here, I wish we could somehow press the pause button for a while. The speed of which life flies by truly does make me sad. So many reasons and recent reminders to make every day count, and just treasure those we love. I'm looking ahead to my youngest nephew's upcoming wedding and thinking back on the last big wedding our family had: mine & Dave's. It was almost 11 years ago! I still get teary-eyed thinking of how God changed my life when He brought Dave into it. Those post-college years (and pre-Dave years) were some of the most depressing years of my life. I graduated from college in December of 1993 and didn't meet Dave until August of 1999. During those years, I was kind of a lonely, single mess. Looking back, I can see the foothold that Satan had on my thought life. In this last year (thanks largely t...

God has been speaking to me lately about my propensity to do "just enough." Just enough housework to feel like it looks good. Just enough Shaklee to say I tried. Just enough Bible study to keep from spiritually starving. Just enough exercise to not lose progress. Just enough eating right to...well, see the scale go at a snail's pace. I suppose if I were OK with the results of doing "just enough", this wouldn't be an issue. I mean, I'm sure there are times where doing just enough housework to get by is certainly better than doing none and living in filthy chaos. Sometimes life is just so busy that "just enough" HAS to be good enough. No, I'm not talking about those times. I'm talking about living a life where I seem to do "just enough" all the time. In my weight loss journey, it seems that my "just enoughs" are more productive this time than anytime in past weight loss attempts. BUT, that doesn't mean they...

Things are happening. My nerves are on overload. My mind is spinning a thousand miles an hour. My heart is overflowing. I'm sitting at the computer searching for some calm to my chaos. Anyone looking at me right now would not characterize my current state as "chaotic." But inside my heart & mind...chaos is in overdrive. For the most part, all of the things sending my nerves and brain cells into overdrive are good things. So, don't be alarmed that there's something wrong. There's really not. I mean, there's always some struggles in the midst of life. But I don't think it's those things that are causing these feelings. I think my chaos has ensued this time just because of change. Unknowns. Variables. And I'm not talking the kinds of unknown variables that can be solved with a math problem. You know, the kind with one right answer. That's the only type of unknown variables I am a fan of. Math problems have ONE right answer. If you kn...