exercise Archives - Page 14 of 15 - Beauty In Christ

Why Fitness is No Longer My Life.

July 28, 2015 By beautyinchrist 5 Comments

Fitness. It’s a buzz word, a cool word, especially in the state in which I live. Anybody have a guess which state that is?

Being in shape is placed at a premium here. Therefore you always find the gym full of runners, walkers, weight-lifters, dancers, etcetra, and I love it. I love the community. I love the activity. I love the sweat, tears, and sore muscles that comes out of it. But, today I want to share with you why fitness is no longer my life.

There was a point where fitness was my life. Fitness drove me. It made me. It chained me. My day centered around my workout. If the schedule changed so I couldn’t get a workout, I went into a state of mental agitation. I would mentally calculate in my mind, whether or not I could get back home and still get the workout in, despite it being 10 or 11 pm at night.

The next day the cycle would start all over again. Fitness was an obligatory duty, something that I could boast about, because barely anybody else I knew, ‘ran’ or ‘lifted weights’ like I did.

I was excited about being stronger, about becoming a better athlete, a more well-rounded person, because of my new found passion for fitness. Yet, it didn’t. It wore down my body, because I didn’t know my body. It wore me down, because I didn’t know the amount of fitness that would actually enhance my energy, rather than make me feel slow, tired, and sore all the time.

The thing that I’ve learned is that one size certainly does ‘not fit all.’ Sure, there are those Olympic athletes that train ALL DAY every day. I honestly can not even imagine that. I think I would fall to pieces, emotionally, physically, and mentally. I enjoy activity. I wasn’t made for a permanent desk job, but I’ve learned to enjoy the value of just chillin’ with my family, enjoying the physical rest that God gives, especially when I need it. I love doing laundry, walking dogs, and reading books.

Don’t get me wrong. I like fitness. I like being active, but my life no longer centers around the races I’m training for or the max weight reps I want to do. My life no longer centers around which workout I’m going to do, and because of that, my life is so much more free. I’m free to go on a run or not go on a run. I’m free to eat a cookie or eat a salad or both.

Idols are not kind. Idols destroy you, but Jesus makes you new. Jesus has made me new, and He is my life!

I saw this flower this morning, and this reminded me of my journey. While still in the depths of wrestling with my idols, I felt like a flower, closed up to the sunlight, hungry for sunshine for rain.

This is what Jesus did for me. Jesus put His righteousness, His blood on me, so that I could be saved, so that I could be FREE to bloom for His glory and for His purposes.

Monday Motivation Mad Lib!

July 27, 2015 By beautyinchrist 4 Comments

Good morning! I <3 Mondays. I also love Sundays. However, Mondays are an amazing day of physical rest, because Sunday is always a fast paced day for our family. We go to an assisted living home in the morning to be with some SWEET ladies. Then we usually have 1 or 2 worship services and good fellowship with church family. We come home. Sometimes we have friends over to eat dinner. Other times we all eat dinner and lay around the house, too exhausted to even do the dishes. 🙂 It’s a wonderful day, but it’s very exhausting physically. And so that is why I am very thankful for Monday and the physical rest it brings.

However, I usually do some sort of fun workout on Mondays, and it’s usually a workout video, a couple walks, or a bit of weight lifting. It’s nothing extreme, just something to get my muscles shaken out a bit and to begin my strength training for the week.

That also means that I want to share something, a bit on the lighter side of things. 🙂 It’s a MAD LIB!!! 😉 I love ‘Mad Libs,’ as we first discovered them on a road trip a couple years ago. We would fill them in, and they would provide hours of laughter and entertainment. Yes, I’m 22. And I still love laughing at the silliest of things including mad libs.

I’m participating in a Mad Lib contest from Sweat Pink and all my sweat pink sisters, so if you want to read more Mad Libs go to the website, and you can find them under the tab, ‘1 Million Minutes.’

Here goes!

Grokker Mad Lib – Why I LOVE my Video Workouts.

I’m so excited to rack up more minutes using video workouts from Grokker! There’s everything from HIIT workouts to Kickboxing for everyone from beginners to advanced, and I’m especially pumped to try the HIIT videos because it will make me extra um… strong?

I plan to do my video workout in my house before dinner and after being on the computer. My favorite thing about video workouts is their flexibility (You can do them anywhere!) , and they’re a super convenient way to get sweaty when I’m traveling, especially.

My goal is to hit 180 minutes this week!. I’ll do HIIT on one of my more intense workout days, and Pilates, on a rest or lower intensity day. I challenge Ivanna Marie to beat my # of minutes or to do a Weights video (virtually) with me!

Do you love or hate video workouts?

What is your favorite type of video workout? Do you have a favorite Youtuber that does workout videos?

How my Period Finally Returned.

July 25, 2015 By beautyinchrist 12 Comments

Welcome to the last of my series on my struggle with hypothalamic amenorrhea. Through my journey of struggling with my body, eating, exercise, and period, I learned one especially amazing thing. Our bodies are incredibly complex and wonderfully designed.

The body is such a sensitive instrument. My body knew that it wasn’t used to extreme exercise and severe undereating, and it reacted to my obsessive idols by shutting down one of the parts of my body that I took for granted.

It wasn’t until last year, in about October or November, that I really realized just how sensitive that balance is.

My period would come and go every 4-5 months, and I knew that a 21 year old girl like me doesn’t normally have irregular periods. There was something more than my weight that was affecting my cycle. At the time I was most definitely at a healthy, happy weight for my size, so I decided to dig a bit deeper.

Enter… Exercise. I love to move y’all. I absolutely love it. I love to stand while I work at my computer. I love to fidget even when I’m sitting in a chair, just because I like to move. Yet, after reading many blogs and personal experiences with hypothalamic amenorrhea, I concluded that the thing that was affecting my cycle the most was my regular exercise.

Now, I wasn’t even exercising 1 hour a day, most of the time. However, I did exercise 5-6 days a week, consistently, pretty much without fail. And I saw that it was time to give it up for a while, time to give my body the rest and more reparation that it needed in order to get back to my happy spot.

So, I sent an email to a couple of my closest friends to ask them that they would keep me accountable. I told them that I would make my exercise, more organic. I wasn’t going to run for at least a couple of months. Running (though fun) can be hard on the body. And I was going to do a bit of weight lifting combined with just enjoying the great outdoors with my family.

I admit. It was tough for the first few months, avoiding the running shoes, when that incredible itch came to slip them on and go out the door. Yet, for the most part, it was freeing. I didn’t feel like working out was a duty. I didn’t feel like I had to work out for at least 45″ or it wasn’t adequate. I did as much as was enjoyable, and then I stopped and went to enjoy time with my family.

Those few months were AMAZING. And in January, while I was on one of the most memorable vacations of my life in Alaska, relaxing, eating cereal, trail mix, salads, hotdogs, and all sorts of other food with my family while enjoying skiing, sledding, and hiking, my period came back!

It was amazing. I realized just how much exercise and stress combine to affect my body. To this day, I really have to temper the amount of exercise I do. I’ve realized my body can’t handle being a serial marathoner or an Ironman triathlete. Right now, it’s still healing from the damage I did to it. Yet, I am so grateful, that God truly does restore the ‘years the locust have eaten.’

His Mercies are new every morning!

To finish out I want to share some of the ‘Hypothalamic Amenorrhea’ posts and videos that were an encouragement to my journey! Keep in mind that most of these ladies aren’t medical professionals, so don’t substitute their advice for that of a doctor, but I do hope they are encouraging to you.

Julia @ Lord Still Loves Me – ‘Vlog, My Journey with Hypothalamic Amenorrhea.’ (Ok, I just love Julia and her vlogs. She’s natural, graceful, sweet, and honest. Julia has an intense story of struggle and recovery.)

Ashley @ My Food n’ Fitness Diaries – ‘Hypothalamic Amenorrhea.’ (Ashley details her whole journey, and it’s so full of grace, contentment, and trust, I think her series on it would be one of the best that I’ve read.)

Claire @ Fitting it All In – ‘I Got it Back’ (Yup. This is exactly what I felt like. Claire puts it so perfectly.)

Sam @ Better with Sprinkles – ‘HA UPdate: Six Months Later.’ – Check out Sam’s entire series on ED recovery. Sam is really honest, straightforward, and transparent. She really gets to the heart of the matter with each post on ED recovery, and I love her for it!

Tori @ Life of the Landos – ‘Listening to My Body.’

I hope this was an encouragement my lovely friends! Have a blessed weekend. <3

How God has Grown Me through My Struggles

July 15, 2015 By beautyinchrist 3 Comments

This is going to sound weird, but I am thankful for everything I learned during my most intense years of struggling with my idols of eating and exercise. Would I have chosen to go through it? No. Would I wish it on anyone else? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Yet, as a child of God, who knows that God is sovereign, I know that my struggles were not pointless. They happened for a reason. I wanted to share some of the lessons I learned from my struggles, and how God has grown me through this journey.

1. Comparison. Before I struggled so much with eating and exercise, I would often compare body types. I compared styles of eating, explored different diets, and was obsessed with doing things like sugar fasts, fasting for the sake of not eating calories, trying to be the best athlete of anyone I knew. All of this stemmed from a deep insecure, prideful desire to be better, the best, ‘healthy’ person anyone knew. Yet, it always left me wanting more, and I’ve began to increasingly appreciate the different body types, diets, and athletes. I now see the beauty in variety so much more than I ever have before.

2. Diets. I realized the pressure of American society for the ‘perfect body’, the ‘perfect diet’, and ‘perfect health.’ I realized that none of those are achievable on this earth, and striving for perfection with a body that won’t last forever just isn’t worth it. This leads me to my next lesson.

3. Jesus. I was reminded of just how satisfying Jesus is, far above and beyond 5 cookies or a big bowl of salad. John 6:50-71 says, “This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. …”

4. Fitness. I don’t want to do exercise anymore for ‘burning calories’ or even for the sake of ‘exercising.’ I do it to now, because I love to move, to be outside in God’s creation, to explore, to make memories, and to be with God and spend time alone with Him. Of course, my motivation is not always perfect, but God has worked on me SO much in this area, and I am grateful that it is no longer an imprisoning obsession, but an enjoyable activity. I’ve realized how amazing the human body is, and even more, I’ve seen just how God sustains my body day by day.

Acts 17:28 says, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

5. Last but not least, my perspective has changed on FOOD. Food isn’t just calories in vs. calories out for me, but it’s time to spend with family, enjoying God’s gifts. It’s a good, undeserved amazing gift from God. Genesis 9:3, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”

Thankful for these lessons. I would not have chosen to learn them this way, but I am so grateful that I can now take these and share them with others, and ask for other’s prayer and encouragement as I continue to walk this journey, following our amazing Savior and Creator.

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