Fearfully and wonderfully made

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139: 14-16

On this last day of March, and in honor of my new goal list that I set out for April, I wanted to share another one of my favorite scriptures. Starting next month I am focusing on several non-scale goals that I've set out for myself. Among those, I want to re-wire the negative thinking that I tend to fall into at times concering my body image by focusing on what God has to say about me in His word.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am not my size 18-20 pants. The numbers on the scale do not define who I am nor do they categorize my self-worth. God created me in His image, and He loves me for who I am. I love God and I love His creation. Since He made me, I love me too. It's time for me to stop basing my self-image on what others say about me.

Considering my childhood and the constant struggles I've had with my weight, this lesson has been a hard one to grasp. It sounds like a beautiful idea, but in my case it's been difficult to put into practice. But I'm getting there.

My husband is such a great example for me in this regard. No, he doesn't run around proclaiming his love for himself. He's not vain, arrogant or conceited by any means. He is just comfortable in his own skin and doesn't let what others say about him affect his self-image. This weekend was a prime example of that.

Chechu's mom has been on him for a while now about losing weight. While both of us have put on some extra pounds since the wedding, he's the one constantly reminded about his weight gain. Like most men, when Chechu puts weight on it goes directly to his tummy. He makes jokes about it all the time, and I know it's not a façade to cover up the true insecurities he has about his weight. The man just doesn't have any.

Yesterday the three of us drove up to Granada for evening service. As we were walking toward the hotel, Charo began to remind Chechu about his belly and how much he needs to lose it:

Charo: Your stomach looks horrible. You look like a 40-yr-old instead of a 29-yr-old. You have to lose weight.

Chechu: Are you kidding?? With all the money I've invested in my belly to get it like this? (Proceeds to show off his side profile)

All laugh and immediately change subject.

I love Charo to death. She is such an amazing person, and so obviously a mom who cares about her son's well being like any mother does. However, her words can be somewhat harsh for my liking when it comes to Chechu. He insists that she sometimes exaggerates with her comments because she knows that since it's all going to go in one ear and out the other anyway, maybe something might stick. But no. Chechu genuinely laughs it off, showing her and everyone else that he's not going to change anything about himself until he makes that decision for himself. He gets the whole fearfully and wonderfully made concept and lives it.

Marianna, however, has struggled with that her entire life. As a child and adolescent, even the slightest comment about my weight would throw my world in an uproar, crushing every ounce of self-esteem I had. The vast majority of those comments came from the bullies at school. The remainder came from concerned family members who (usually) reinforced their words with love. I, however, didn't know to make the distinction between positive reinforcement and just plain cruelty. It was all the same to me, and it all lead me to my conclusion that being overweight was equivalent to having 0 worth.

Now that I think about it, every time- EVERY time I've ever lost weight in the past, it was always done in an attempt to please others. So that Fulanita will be my friend. So that Fulanito will think I'm pretty. So that I won't be charged double for public transportation. (Part of my whirlwind experience living abroad in the DR, which deserves an entire blog for itself). Even when I did lose the weight then, I was never content with the results, and I never managed to see myself any differently.

A few more ups and downs on the yo-yo cylce and several years later, I'm finally starting to get it. This time around, I'm not doing this for anyone else. Not for friends, not to keep up appearances. This is all about ME, and I'm going to bask in my success. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and yes, I AM worth it all.

"Be strong and courageous..."

In all honesty it's been a rough couple of weeks. In particular, over the past few days my raging hormones have made me quite emotional and hyper-sensitive. I'm already overly-sensitive as it is, and with my period my defensive radar goes a little haywire.

I've been through a lot of drastic changes this year. For the first time in my life I'm living on my own, away from Mom, Sis and everything else familiar. I've recently taken on my newest role as "wife," which is a huge learning process in itself. As I'm adjusting to life in another country, I'm learning to embrace my individuality and to appreciate the life lessons that come out of each difficult moment. Overcoming those hard days makes me stronger as a person, and they cause me to stand even more steadfast in my faith. I've grown so much spiritually and personally during this past year. In spite of the tears and the down days, which in the grand scheme of things are only momentary, I am so thrilled to be where I am. I'm so excited about all that God is doing in my life and where He's leading me.

One of my favorite Biblical passages that I've come across is the first chapter of Joshua. God calls Joshua to the forefront, out from behind Moses' shadow and into the spotlight. He reaffirms to Joshua the same promises that He gave to Moses- that He would be right there with him, through the challenges, the difficult moments and the hard decisions. However, he also required something of Joshua- that he be strong and courageous. Obviously that spoke to the fact that hard times would surely come up. But God gave Joshua a glimpse of the victory road ahead, telling him that by standing strong and holding fast to His promises, he and his people would come out on the winning side.

This passage has spoken volumes to me since I began to study it several months ago. I relate so much to Joshua in the sense that I too have been called out of my comfort zone, having to embrace a brand new reality and take on new challenges. I also know that like Joshua, I have the victory already won by standing tall in my faith, holding fast to all of the promises that God has given me and being strong and courageous every step of the way.

HYC Update: 223 lbs (-0)

As I mentioned in my previous post, this past week hasn't been my best, although certainly far from being the worst. With the Easter holiday, out-of-town traveling and an annoying case of back pain all wrapped up in seven days, it definitely wasn't a recipe for total success. And that was something I had already seen coming anyway. I cancelled my weigh-in yesterday morning because I just wasn't prepared to face the scale. This morning however, I had to know. I was somewhat surprised to see the same number as last week, 223.0, although I certainly wish it could have been lower.

It's been about a month or so since I started focusing on losing weight again after the wedding. I feel like I need to have a heart-to-heart with myself, to recap where I was, where I am and to remind myself of where I want to be and why I'm doing this in the first place.

Part One: The re-cap

Finishing grad school and planning a wedding simultaneously was a pretty tall order for me last year, in addition to facing all of the other changes that were about to take place in my life. I started grad school at about 215, ballooned up to 240 and then dieted and exercised my way back down to about 225. In March of last year, two months shy of graduation, I bought my wedding gown after several trips to the dress shop and trying on about a dozen differnt gowns. The day I bought the dress I got so motivated seeing my reflection in the mirror. It was a perfect fit, and the accessories that I was going to buy along with it went perfectly together. Not being satisfied with that, I decided to give myself an extra motivational push to lose weight by buying the dress in a 16 instead of the 16W I had tried on.

To make a long story short, I put myself through nothing short of hell that summer trying to get into my wedding gown. Since I had to bring the dress to Spain with me when I moved here, I no longer had access to the bridal shop's seamstress should I have needed to get any alterations done. (Nope, didn't think about that when I bought it.) Thankfully my MIL's best friend is a seamstress and has worked at a bridal shop for many years. As soon as I got here she offered to help me with the gown if I needed to have it taken in or out. For the longest time it looked as if the latter was going to be my reality. Finally, TWO WEEKS before my wedding, I tried the gown on again, and it zipped up perfectly. I still remember hearing the smooth, flawless ziiiiiiip. I cried that day.

On my wedding day I weighed 200 lbs. Since then I have managed to gain back all the hard work I put in over the summer months. That's frustrating..

Part 2: Coming to recognize need to lose
After knowingly gaining some "happy weight," getting through wedding celebration #2 and Christmas break at home, I came back to Almería feeling the need to get my act together weight-wise, for my health's sake. My family suffers from a plethora of weight-related health conditions, and I do not want to continue down that road. I choose my health and well-being over sweet, greasy indulgences that will only lead to illnesses and heart conditions. I want to be here to enjoy and cherish everything that God has given me and all that is to come in my future.

My health is seriously my main motivation to get this weight off. At one point I just wanted to look better in cute clothes and swim suits for summer. But, that isn't my sole motivator anymore. In fact, looking good is just another byproduct of being healthy. I'm not aiming for the byproducts anymore because I know they'll come as a result of me focusing on my health.

With that said, I plan to update my goals and plans with this whole thing. As I said in an earlier post, I need to make goals based on things I can control.

So here's to a new week of new beginnings and a new focus.

Back to work

I find it so difficult to get back into my normal routine after a long break. Getting out of bed this morning was a struggle but thankfully I was able to resist the urge to sleep in until the last possible minute, which allowed me to get a few things done around the house before heading out to work.

The past four days have been pretty intense and jam-packed (hence my lack of posting). Not too much of a restful vacation but a needed break from the office nonetheless. As of lately I haven't been too motivated to take pictures, and unfortunately this weekend was no exception. :P Anway, here's what I was up to:

Thursday: Chechu and I left out that morning to drive down to Almuñécar, a beach town located along the coast of the province of Granada. The drive down was quite pleasant, although halfway there it started pouring down raining, bringing traffic to a screeching hault. Aah!! We did stop in Torre Nueva for churros, but only bought a small order to go with our coffee (no chocolate this time around). We finally got to Almuñécar around noon to visit with Mª Angeles and Curro. We had lunch with them and then later that afternoon we went to another couple's house for coffee and pastries. After much prodding I did have a small slice of some kind of chocolate croissant that was absolutely amazing. Well worth the indulgence I have to say! After watching a little bit of The Color Purple we headed back to Almería since we both had group meetings at the church that we had to attend. We finally got home after 11pm and crashed.

Friday: We left out before 9am to pick up some of the girls from the church who asked if they could drive up to Granada with us. We ended up leaving Almería almost an hour late due to a few unforeseen circumstances but not to worry- since nothing ever starts on time here in Spain, the fact that we got to the church nearly a half hour late went completely unnoticed. Finally around noon we all began to organize ourselves in groups for the evangelism activities that afternoon. All the groups were assigned to different sections of the city to pass out leaflets and invite people to attend Easter Sunday service. I actually had a really good time walking around and talking with different people. Usually I get extremely nervous when approaching people spontaneously, but this time around I was able to come out of my shell and initiate very pleasant conversations with several people.
We reconvened at the church at 3pm for lunch, and afterward Chechu and I had to head back to Almería since he had to lead the teen Bible study which started at 7:30. Since we didn't have time to stop back at the house we immediately went to the church. While Chechu was leading the Bible study I went with Alejandra to Burger King of all places to have a diet soda with her before she began her shift there. She convinced me to nibble on some fries with her (BK has the best fries ever!) and before I left to head back to the church to meet Chechu she hooked us up with two #1 value meals.
However, what was initially going to be an evening at home with BK and movies ended all-together differently, as we both got home and went straight to bed.

Saturday: BK for breakfast! That held us over until 4pm that afternoon when we finally sat down to lunch after running some errands. I made pork chops at Chechu's request along with baked potatoes and salad. I had two small pork chops, one small baked potato and a pretty decent-sized serving of salad. I also cut up some strawberries and bananas for dessert.
After lunch Chechu went to the church since he had to lead worship for that evening's service while I stayed at home to clean and catch up on some laundry.
That night we were supposed to attend a birthday party for a friend of ours, but she ended up postponing it due to the fact that she wasn't feeling well. In light of that, we decided to go out anyway and have a date night of our own. The original idea was to go to the movies to see Horton Hears a Who, which looks adorable. We planned to catch the 11:45pm show, giving us time to have dinner first. We went to MacPapa's, splitting a chicken campero (huge sandwich) and a hot dog. Not the best choices, I know.. After dinner however we ended up coming back home instead of going to the movies. It was really late and we were both still pretty tired from the previous days' activities.

Sunday: Stayed home all morning to finally relax a bit. I finished some laundry and permed my hair while Chechu did his lesson planning for the week. At around 3pm we met up with Charo, Javi and Mariel to have lunch at this Chinese restaurant before heading out to Granada for church. At the restaurant I had a spring roll, fried rice and chicken with almonds. Flan for dessert.
After lunch, Chechu, Charo and I drove up to Granada for Sunday evening service. It was very nice, and there were several new people who came, presumably from the evangelism activies on Friday. I did miss celebrating Easter at home though, because here it really isn't the same. We ended up leaving Granada after 10pm, and on the way back we stopped for tapas. By that time I had a pretty bad headache, so I didn't eat very much. We finally got back home at around 12:30am.

I feel exhausted just having written about all of that!

I'm hoping that today will end up being low-key. I decided to cancel my weigh-in this morning since a) I have my period and b) I really didn't want to know. This past week, while my portions were okay, I really over-indulged in sweets and red meat. As I'm prone to high cholesterol, neither of those are good options. Now that things have returned back to normal I've jumped back on the weight-loss wagon again. This week I plan to keep my meat intake to a minimum, having only tuna or skinless chicken if I do decide to eat meat, and filling up on vegetables, salads and fruits. The back pain that I complained about last week has finally dissipated thank God, so I'll be getting back into my exercise routine as well.

Today's WI: 223.0 (-0.8)

Last night after work I did go home to a hot, soothing cup of tea, with every intention not to eat anything else for the rest of the evening. Nevertheless, Chechu got home late from his leader's bible study and I ended up having a bowl of cornflakes and bananas with him before bed. Not too bad considering that I lost .8 pounds, but it still irks me that I can't seem to stay away from the kitchen at night.

Work is somewhat slow-going today since it's the last day before the long weekend. This afternoon Rocío and I have our GOE and then later tonight I have bible study after work. Tomorrow we'll be heading to Almuñécar for the day to hang out with Curro and Mª Ángeles. Chechu is already talking about stopping for churros con chocolate tomorrow morning for breakfast on our way there. AAHH! I must maintain control, and I'm confident that I will. Last weekend at the retreat I definitely went overboard. I had my indulgences for the month, and I don't intend to repeat the experience.
We may be in Granada on Friday all day as well since our church has planned several evangelistic activities there. It'll certainly be exciting to go and participate, but it very possibly may mean another day of eating out.

I've still got this nagging back pain that doesn't seem to go away. I'm going to see if I can pick up a hot water bottle this afternoon and hopefully that will help.

The results..

Monday's WI: 224.2 (+1.4)

Today's WI: 223.8 (-0.4)

Results: GRRRRRRRRRR

As Monday's weigh in results clearly show, I didn't do as well as I had anticipated over the weekend. Instead of sticking solely to salads and fruit like I had planned, I indulged. At mealtime I managed to fill my plate with meat and potatoes as well, and of course I saved room for dessert after each meal. (Two words- rice pudding...) In spite of the short-comings however, I was able to maintain control: I only ate one plate of food at each meal, usually leaving a few morsels behind, and when I got full I stopped. I also made sure to eat vegetables and salad. All of that stands in stark contrast to my free-for-all, fried-meat-and-carbs-only M.O. for eating at buffets in the past. Therefore, what was a 1.4lb gain could have easily been 5-7 pounds had I reverted back to my old ways. So praise God for small miracles.

Our schedule at the retreat was jam-packed. Between workshops, devotionals and worship services we had almost no down-time. I didn't take a single picture! But I thoroughly enjoyed evey minute and I learned a great deal about myself and my walk with the Lord. It was great spending time with the other hermanas as well, several of whom shared that they're expecting!

I started noticing some back pain yesterday that hasn't gone away. I must've slept in a bad position or did something to strain a muscle back there. It's not an unbearable pain by any means, just dull and constant. Nonetheless I've decided to lay off the intense exercising until it goes away completely- the last thing I need is to do more damage. So this week I'll be focusing more on perfecting my eating habits. Maybe that's what I should have done in the first place.. So here's what I ate today:

Breakfast: Danacol

Bottle of orange juice

Coffee (skim milk, 1tsp. sugar)

Lunch: 1 1/2 c. beef stew (beef cubes, tomato, garlic, onion, zucchini, eggplant,

corn, peas)

1/2 c. white rice

1/2 c. diced strawberries and banana, 1 tbsp sugar

Snack: 1 slice white bread, 2 tbsp. chunky peanut butter

Since it's well after 7pm, my plan after work tonight is to take a hot shower and enjoy a cup of green tea (sounds sooo soothing right now). I'm confident that if I can stick to that plan, I'll be able to chart another loss for tomorrow. My goal of 210 by the end of the month is still in sight.

Thursday and Friday of this week will pose a challenge for me, however. Since it'll be Easter break, Chechu and I will be out of town visiting friends on Thursday, and we'll surely do something else on Friday as well. Knowing that I may be eating out on a few occasions will allow me to get a plan of action together before things have the chance to go awry.

I also joined the Healthy You challenge last week, and I'm excited to see new comments on here! Many thanks to those of you who've offered words of encouragement-- it truly is nice to know that we can support one another as we all work together towards reaching our fitness goals.

It's the weekend!!

Random thoughts at 10:22am on this gorgeous morning:

1. I'm so glad it's Friday. This week has gone by fast, but nonetheless it has been a bit tiresome, both physically and emotionally. On Monday I managed to roll into a funk- just feeling frustrated and irritated about everything- mainly things with work and the lack of results displayed on the scale. As I was coming out of my mood around Wednesday, Riss informed me that she had been diagnosed with tonsilitis. This came almost immediately after a bout with pnuemonia (a mild case, thank God), so that obviously perked up everyone's concern including her doctor, who did a blood test on her to check on her immune system. As of yet the results still haven't come back. While we all know that she's perfectly fine, there's still a twinge of anxiety in waiting for the doctor to confirm that. I spoke with her yesterday and she said she felt a lot better after having taken the antibiotics that the doctor prescribed for her. Surely by tomorrow she'll be feeling back to normal.
2. Marissa's wedding!! It's my twin sister's turn to get married! I can't even believe I'm writing that. Chechu and I got married on October 20th of last year, and then we celebrated another wedding with my family on December 22nd. Marissa's wedding is set for December 20th of this year, just about nine months from now. I'm really excited for her and Carlos and I know that the two of them are going to have a wonderful life together. Now I get to start thinking about my matron-of-honor dress. I definitely want to be at my goal weight of 145-150 by the wedding, and I'm looking forward to trying on dresses over the summer.
3. It's hot outside. Speaking of summer, it's right around the corner! It's really warm this morning, making me think of those wonderfully hot, lazy beach-bum days that I will be spending with my husband in just a few short months! I don't foresee a bikini just yet (although I don't know if I'd ever feel comfortable going to the beach in a bikini), but I will definitely be looking better in the new beachwear that I intend to buy for myself!
4. RETREAT! This evening we will be heading to Almuñécar for the annual women's retreat, and I'm really excited about it. I have a feeling that we'll be receiving A LOT from the Lord there, and I'm anxious to take it all in. Since we'll be staying at a hotel, I've been debating on taking my laptop with me. I guess I'll make up my mind at some point before we leave. I do intend to take lots of pictures!
5. Met my exercise goals for the week!! I worked out consistently Mon-Thurs of this week. This morning I had planned to exercise too, but Chechu needed to take the laptop to school with him. I thought about working out this afternoon after lunch, but I don't think that'd be very realistic, seeing that I still have to pack, straighten my hair, and spend time with Chechu since he'll be staying home for the afternoon. I found my mp3 player this morning (YAY!) so I'll be taking that with me on the retreat. I'm sure the weather will be gorgeous in Almuñécar this weekend, so I'm looking forward to getting out and walking.
6. Pre-weekend weigh-in. I got on the scale this morning and I'm currently at 221.6, which I'm pretty excited about. I'm even more excited about the fact that I feel motivated going into the retreat weekend. I WILL take on the buffet and WIN! This coming Monday is WI for me, and I want to see the numbers continue to go down.
7. Looking forward to next week. Next week is Semana Santa, or Holy Week, as it leads up to Easter Sunday. Easter is probably my favorite holiday, as it celebrates the inconceivably immense love that Jesus has for all of us. He took our place on the cross at Calvary, conquering sin and death and reconciling us back to the Father. Through Christ we have the gift of salvation and eternal life!

I'm not sure if I'll have time (or the resources) to post this weekend. I'll definitely be back on Monday though with all the stuff I learned on the retreat!