Losing It!

I orginally wasn’t going to blog about this as at first I thought it was rather personal and wasn’t really “ministry related” but after thinking about it more …. I have determined that your health is very important to the ministry. Especially those involved in children’s ministry.

Over the last 6 years I have really allowed myself to get unhealthy. Often you will hear me blame it on a depression I went through about 6 years ago … although I believe that’s when a lot of my unhealthy decisions were first made … I don’t blame the depression. I blame myself for not having the will power to keep healthy.

Now, I am at a point that I can’t allow this to continue any longer. I have to change some things to get back in shape. When working children’s ministry you have to be able to jump around and get a little crazy and believe it or not … that’s not easy when you are in the 200′s.

With all that in mind I have been doing some research and have found out some really interesting stuff.

For instance, do you know you are suppose to drink a minunum of one gallon of water a day? (for you Ausies that’s 3785.41178 ml) That’s a lot of water. Normally when I drink a lot of water I feel bloated. I found out why …. If your body isn’t getting enough water, it does everything it can to hold on to the water it does have. The problem with this, is the way it holds onto the water. You see, over 70% of your muscle is made up of water. It helps to give your muscles that full, pumped look (along with glycogen).

However, if your body is not taking in enough water, that water is used for other things, leaving you bloated (uggg). And the way to get rid of that excess water, believe it or not, is to take in enough water.

This will rid you of that excess water weigh that bloats you, and begin to help your body run more efficiently and priming it to begin dropping body fat.

Once you begin taking in enough water, your body starts dropping weight, possibly 4 or 5 pounds in the first week. Now, this is mostly water weight. However, doing so does optimizes your bodily functions, allowing it to run more efficiently and start burning stored body fat for energy.

Wanna help burn even more fat …. Instead of just drinking water, begin drinking ice cold water. There is a metabolic cost to eating. In other words, the digestion of food takes calories. So does drinking ice cold water. The body needs to heat up this water in order to be able to use it properly and doing so takes energy, i.e., calories. You can burn another 50 to 100 calories a day by drinking one half gallon to a gallon of ice cold water per day. It doesn’t seem like much. However, in addition to all the other benefits of taking in enough water, by drinking ice cold water, you can drop almost a full pound of fat each month, or 12 pounds per year. That rocks my face off!!

Also, I have never understood why they tell you to eat six meals a day. I do now though. Sometimes I work 11pm to 7am without eating anything … then I come home … eat some cereal or something … go to bed … and then get up and eat a large meal. This is a no no!! Eating one large meal like that throws your body into starvation mode because it thinks you are eating a lot because you aren’t getting any food for a while. This is a bad thing … second of all … going hours upon hours between meals also puts our bodies into starvation mode. STARVATION MODE IS BAD!!! When your body is in starvation mode it stores as much as it can. THIS IS SOMETHING I REALLY HAVE TO WORK ON.

Anyways .. I am going to make some changes here … drinking a bunch more Ice Cold Water and eating six meals a day now vs two.

Over in the right had column I am going to place a weight loss counter. My goal is to lose 95 pounds over the course of the next six months. That’s only 15 pounds a month. I know that’s steep but I believe I can do it and will do it.

Going from being a person who looked “anorexic” to someone that looks like “Porkies Brother” has had it’s experiences. Now it’s time to find a middle ground and enjoy it.

Are you happy with your weight? Does your weight hinder you in ministry? Do you wish you could lose or gain weight?