Mar 25

Planning for Health

No kids next Tuesday. My intention is using the opportunity to set up my workout plan. Painfree, Yoga, Aftershock, Posture fix, and my stationary bike. Just not sure yet, exactly in what order or how often for each.  That’s what I’ll be deciding on Tuesday.  Then I will implement the plan.  I really want to get into better shape by this fall. I feel fine most of the time, but I have little stamina and our annual roadtrip always requires walking and sometimes climbing.  I’m more interested in that than in losing weight, although that is a secondary goal.
 
I have been working on the diet thing as well. I was eating from about 9am til nearly midnite. Not constantly, of course, I’d be big as the house if I did that. However, between meals and snacks, I was eating every 3 or 4 hours for a total of 12-15 hours a day. I know some diets recommend that kind of schedule, but what I’ve been reading lately indicates it’s not only not necessary, but also a bad idea.
 
I’m trying to cut my eating back to 8 hours a day. The plan I’m using as my basis, says to wait until you’ve been up for a few hours to eat because that forces your body to burn fat for energy. I never used to eat sooner than that and only weighed 105 lbs. Of course, there were other factors involved in that weight and I really don’t want to go that low again.  The other half of the plan is to stop eating about 2 hours before I go to bed, that’s the hard part for me.  I usually compromise with a healthy snack, like an apple, or a small piece of hard candy.  I’ve been dropping about 1/2 pound a week for the past month or so.  I figure, if I can maintain that from now until the end of September, I should drop about 15 more pounds.  My current weight is 163 so that would put me just below 150, which would bring my BMI into the normal weight range.  
 
The hardest part will be finding time to do the workouts.  I’m too busy in the mornings, too tired in the evenings and usually have kids in the afternoon.  However, most of my exercise routines can be broken into 15 minute segments so, hopefully, I”ll be able to make room for them.  To assist in the will power department, I’m using a devotional book I purchased as a Lenten exercise, Made to Crave Devotional: 60 Days to Craving God, Not Food by Lysa TerKeurst.  100th birthday, here I come.
 
 
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Mar 19

Struggling to Manage Time

So, since my last post, I have added 3 more toddlers to my daily activities.  My granddaughter, Tracy, and her husband have moved here from Richmond, Kentucky.  They both work and I take care of their three little ones, along with the two who live with me, when their schedules coincide.  The days and times vary greatly.  Damion and Elaina love having them here and, after a period of adjustment, they love being here.  I am glad to have the opportunity to build a closer relationship with them, but it does make managing time to write or exercise more of a challenge.  

One which I was already having trouble accomplishing.  So, once more, I am exploring ways to assure I make time to do both.  As when I eliminated gaming from my life, I think the only thing that will work is to design a plan and then go at it “cold turkey.”  I have tried since the first of the year to find a way to do it in steps or start small and gradually increase efforts, but those ways haven’t worked out.

I’ve recently bought several diet and exercise packages.  I’ve made a few small posts.  But, it always falls apart before long.  So, I am looking at the packages and making a workout schedule to begin with.  It cannot depend on time slots because my free time varies too much.  So, I am making a commitment to a certain kind of workout on certain days for, at least, 15 minutes.   The time of day will vary with my other responsibilities, but I will do it sometime even it it winds up being right before I go to bed at night.  The goal is not just to lose weight, but to be stronger and have more stamina.  The diet part will not be as difficult, once I make the key decisions, because I eat pretty healthy anyway.  

As to writing, I am simply making a promise to myself to find moments of quiet, like now, to put words together.  I’m not waiting for inspiration or scheduling a time slot because those things haven’t worked. I am doing religious research because I want to use this blog to explore the Bible and Christianity’s relationship to other religions.  However, there is so much information out there that the research could take a lifetime.  I need to begin the work while I search.  So, I’ll be starting, not as an expert, but as a student searching for answers.  

I’m not sure what timeframes will work, but I am making a promise to myself, to you, and to God that I will begin.  I feel His call to be a small voice crying for common ground in the wilderness of suspicion and conflict that is our current state of affairs.  As a Christian I must answer that call. At the moment, I think that answer will consist of an exploration of the Bible.  When and how it came to be.  A historical background of each book.  A look at what real “experts” say about the meaning of key passages and, sometimes, a personal interpretation of how it relates to my faith.  

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Jul 02

Lost Time

I knew that I was neglecting my writing, but I lost track of how long I’d been doing it.  I can’t believe it’s been more than a year since my last post here.  So much for my promise of updates once a month.  I apologize for the neglect.  If you are personally acquainted with me, you know that part of the reason is my preoccupation with toddlers.  I am currently keeping two of my great grandchildren while their mother works.  They are about to have birthdays and will be 2 and 3. They have required a lot of attention, but there was free time, I simply didn’t use it here.

I also had two online classes last fall, so that took up more time.  I really didn’t have much to spare then, but I could have done the once a month thing.  I simply didn’t.  Since December, I’ve just been…..well, not exactly vegetating, I haven’t slid into the abyss of daytime TV.  But, over the past couple of months, I did relapse into a former addiction.  I downloaded a farming game onto my tablet.  Progress required access to Facebook & the installation of a companion version on my computer.  The addiction hooked itself into old connections and soon it was sucking up all my spare time plus eating into time when I should have been doing other things.  

I’d been there before, so I knew the only answer was a “cold turkey” cutoff and filling all spare time with more productive activities.  Since I’m not currently taking classes, it seemed getting back to my independent studies and writing was my methadone.  I was shocked to discover how much time had passed while I just drifted along the flow.  This blog had 16 updates waiting.  I’ve cleaned up all that and this post is my apology for the neglect.  

I’ve also started reading a book that I bought several years ago as a reference tool: Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch. 9780670021260_p0_v2_s460x700 At the time, all I did was scan through the index and start the introduction.  Yesterday, I finished the intro and started the first chapter.  I will make a better effort this time to share my readings.  MacCulloch says that Christianity must trace its roots beyond the birth of Jesus to the ancient Jewish and Greek culture that fed into His life here on earth.  

I am here.  I am 72 years old and I am still searching for a better understanding of my religion and my faith.  Don’t misunderstand me, I do not doubt.  I simply feel a need to integrate the spiritual with the physical and understand the history behind it all.

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Jun 17

Learning How Little I Know

study_5932cWhen I decided to register for the Religious Studies program at WKU, I was looking for classes on other religions.  In my somewhat arrogant opinion, I knew all I needed to about Christianity.  I did register for a class called Christianity last semester, thinking it would be an easy A.  When the main subject matter turned out to be about the writings of the early church and the format mostly group discussion, I dropped it.  The readings were difficult and time consuming.  I have a strong dislike for group projects.  I decided I wasn’t going to get enough new or important information from it to be worth the time it was taking.  I am 70 years old.  I’ve attended church all my life.  As a child, our family didn’t just offer thanks at the dinner table.  We had a daily devotional time before we ate every evening.  When my children were growing up, I taught Sunday School and Bible School.  I haven’t memorized the Book.  I cannot quote chapter and verse for random scriptures, but I know what Christianity is all about.  Do you see where this is going?  

Recently I decided that I wanted to make this blog about my spiritual journey.  Not exactly a theological thing.   Not a preachy thing or a missionary thing….more like a witness to the world kind of thing.  I feel I have something to say.  You can agree or disagree, I won’t get upset.  I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone else to see God the same way I do.  I do feel called to try and explain my own experience and where it has led me.  

As a part of the process, I had begun reading Bishop Spong’s, Sins of Scripture, but I got sidetracked.  I began to research the differences between the mainline denominations.  As a result, I have come to the humbling conclusion that I know very little about Christianity.  I know about my own denomination, the church where I grew up.  I know what I’ve come to believe over the years through various study groups and my own personal Bible study, but I know very little about other churches and what they preach.  I know a little bit of the history of the church.  Maybe more than the average person, but not all that I should.  

So, this summer, I am doing independent research and study.  I have purchased several books and I’ve been doing a lot of reading.  At the moment, I’m working on The Dovekeepers, a fictional story about Masada that I borrowed from the library.  I had heard about the refugees from Jerusalem who barricaded themselves into Herod’s stronghold and held off the Roman Army for three years.  Who chose, at the end, to die rather than surrender.  It’s usually thought of as a Jewish story.  The thing is, in 70 BC, Christianity was considered a minor Jewish sect.  So some of the people at Masada were probably Christians, they just weren’t answering to that name yet.   In any case, those early Christians definitely lived through the destruction of Jerusalem and fled as refugees into the surrounding deserts.  To understand ourselves, we need to understand the founding fathers.  Understanding them, requires learning about their history. ( Read more )

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Jun 07

Searching for the Past

daddyduringWWII-1It’s the anniversary of D-Day and everyone seems to be putting it front and center.  I don’t remember them doing this last year or the year before….I’m not sure I remember it ever being such a high priority.  Maybe it started because of old men with brittle bones indulging is past memories like the one who convinced officials to let him do a re-creation of the jump he made 70 years ago.   Maybe it’s because someone realized those heroes are almost all gone.  I’m not saying it isn’t that important or that we shouldn’t honor those who fought there, just that people seem more involved this year than previously.  Maybe it’s a nostalgia thing.  WWII was definitively “good against evil,” a situation that isn’t always as clear in today’s wars.

All the hullabaloo, plus Father’s Day coming up, got me to thinking about Daddy.  He would have been 101 on the 16th of this month.  He passed away in November of 1979 from lung cancer.  There are times when I miss him still.  Today is one of those times.  I want to talk to him about his service.  He never spoke about that time and I never asked him about it.  Now, I wonder what it was like for him.  Since he never talked about it, I can’t be sure where he was stationed or how involved he was in the fighting.   I do remember one thing he said about the war, “Don’t move when you can be still, don’t stand if you can sit, sleep and eat whenever you get the chance.  You never know how long it will be before you have the opportunity again.” ( Read more )

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