Wisdom from my walk

Last May I set a goal to lose 70 lbs before I walk across stage at my college graduation on May 17, 2014.  I thought it was a huge goal but also knew  I could do it if I tried.  This morning, a little less than 2 months earlier than I originally intended, I reached my goal!  Along the way there have been many amazing benefits to losing weight and getting healthy. For example I no longer struggle with the pain and fatigue of fibromylagia and as of this week I’m stopping my blood pressure medicine. I have the energy I need to keep up with and enjoy my 3 amazing sons.

I feel better and look better than I have ever have. I am eager to see what is next on the horizon in my life. So what does someone do who finally reaches their weight goal? Well I got up this morning, put on my workout clothes and exercised. I will continue to keep track of what I eat as well as my weight. I will do the same tomorrow, the next day, and the next day. For me losing weight has been a journey, and that journey doesn’t end with a number on a scale. Because it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. I will be on this journey every day for the rest of my life because I know it helps me be a healthier and happier mom, wife, student, volunteer, and friend.

I look forward to celebrating with all of you in May after I graduate. This last year has been full of ups and downs, but every single moment has been worth it.  I thought I’d be ecstatic when I saw that number on the scale, but it’s been such an overwhelming week of milestones that I have been crying more than anything as I look back from where I am to where I was.  I thank you all for your encouragement and support but most of all I know God deserves all the praise. I couldn’t have gotten here without the daily answered prayers for health, strength and energy. Each day is a gift from God, and I intend to continue to be a good steward of the body He gave me so that I can do what He’s called me to do.

Want results like these?  Then join me in a 60 day health and fitness journey!  On March 24th I’ll be starting a 60 day workout program called Les Mills Combat from Beachbody. This month the challenge pack includes the Les Mills workout, a 30 day supply of healthy meal replacement shakes, and a free online Beachbody account plus me as your FREE personal coach!

I was doing T25 at the time I ordered this program but I knew I wanted to try it out.  I have tried the first workouts from Combat and fell in love with it!  I’ve done it several times a week in addition to T25. I work up a sweat and am able to punch and kick my way to a healthy body!  I am looking forward to doing this entire program once I’m done T25 next week.  I’d love to have others join me!

This sale price is good until the end of March but if you order soon you will get it in time to join me on March 24th! With this offer you can save $70 with the promotion compared to buying separately! If you don’t want to do the meal replacement shakes the base program is just $59.85 which is a great deal for a 60 day program! That’s less than $1 a day to get healthy! Let me know if you want more information. I’ll be forming an online Facebook accountability group for those who will doing the program with me.  What are you waiting for? Now is the time to get started on your Beachbody! Before you know it we’ll be sitting poolside, so why not work on getting fit now so you can look fabulous this summer!

My next goal is to complete Combat before I graduate from college on May 17th, 2014. I’d love to have some fellow travelers on this journey, so message me now if you want more info!

I admit I’m a people-pleaser. I want to help others and always do what I can for them. This may sound noble, but sometimes it’s one of my biggest weaknesses.  In anticipation for this month of grueling classwork due to doubling up college courses I started setting boundaries.  What seems silly to some is necessary for my mental sanity.  I warned the leaders at church that I would not be serving all month in March.  Why can’t I give a couple of hours of my Sunday you ask? Well I probably can, but if I do that then I can’t use those hours for homework, or my family or catching up on much needed sleep after working late nights doing homework.  It’s more about lessening stress than anything else.  The less obligations I have the lower my stress level. Less stress = healthier me!

This week there have been many interruptions in my well-planned schedule.  I have a limited amount of hours to use to do homework without dealing with family obligations.  In order to maximize that time I need to say no to others, a lot.  I have had to ignore FB messages and stop checking emails. I’ve even resorted to leaving my phone in the van so I can’t hear when a new message, text, or email arrives.

Stress is evil. For me it manifests itself in hives and I often get sick because my immune system goes crazy when I’m stressed out. It’s a built in indicator of when I’m getting in too deep.  So this week as challenges have arisen please don’t get offended if I didn’t respond to your messages or if I flat out reject your request for help. I feel horrible saying no but I know that I’m already sick this week from the stress.

While I typically spend countless hours a day helping others, I know right now I have other priorities. So when I say no or tell you I will need more time to work on something please be patient. I’m doing it for my health and sanity.  It’s going to be a rough few weeks and while I hate secluding myself from community during times of chaos, I know for me it’s needed.  It’s a short season of time and it’s a very important time for me. Once I finish these two classes I’ll be just one course away from my diploma. I want to finish strong and do the best I can to stay on track. In addition to nearing the end of college I’m also nearing a huge success on my weight loss journey.  So right now my priorities are my family, my health, and my schoolwork.

Forgive me for setting boundaries, but don’t take it personally and please know I hate doing it.  So bear with me for a few weeks then I’ll be back to doing all I can to meet your needs!  It’s unbelievably hard for me to say no when someone needs my help.  So this is me, apologizing in advance for being a jerk for the next few weeks.

A long, long time ago, I met a boy and fell in love. I celebrated my 18th birthday with him as my boyfriend, my 19th with him as my husband.  The year I turned 21 we had our first son. Years have passed and he’s still the best boyfriend ever!   Last year the love of my life turned 35.  The last year has been a whirlwind of ups and downs.  We’ve overcome a few obstacles but most importantly we refocused our priorities. In the last year we have fought hard to keep our marriage together.

We went on countless dates together.

We played a lot of games together, with others and with each other.

We celebrated life with friends new and old.

I supported Dean’s dreams….

while he was beside me as I pursued mine.

We got healthy together and as a family.

We celebrated Dean’s role in a new movie.

We conquered our weight together.

We served together.

We celebrated our 15th year anniversary and the amazing family we’ve grown.

Our family grew again this year.

Dean spent a lot of time working hard to be an amazing dad to our three sons!

We climbed a mountain together, figuratively and literally this year.

There’s a key theme to the last year in the McKenzie family: togetherness!

Today as I celebrate the love of my life’s 36th birthday, more than anything I want to celebrate that word.

We’ve come a long way in the last year and even the last 15+ years that we’ve been together.

I look forward to seeing what this next year holds for us, as individuals, a couple, and  family.

Here’s to another wonderful year by your side Dean!

Happy Birthday!

I’ve been married for 15 years, of those years I’ve suffered from chronic pain and fatigue for at least 14 years.  Over the years I’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, arthritis (back, knees, feet), hashimoto’s thyroiditis, gout, and pseudotumor cerebri.  Either because of these conditions or as a result of the impact of them, my weight has always been an issue.  When I graduated high school I was at my thinnest at 140 lbs.  My heaviest weight was 226 lbs. Today I weigh 160 lbs and am healthier than I’ve ever been in my entire life! Let’s recap how I got from there to here! (May 2014 update: I have lost a total of 83 lbs! Lowest weight is now 143 lbs!)

At the beginning of 2013 I was going through another round of neurological testing to check for MS.  When those tests came back with inconclusive results the doctor said we may never know what’s wrong with me.  After suffering years of pain, fatigue and other disabling symptoms I felt hopeless. Over and over again doctors said the only thing that might help me was losing weight.

When suffering constant pain it’s often easy to get depressed. I was very unhappy with my life.  I felt like my family would be better off without me around. I couldn’t be a good mom or wife because most days just getting out of bed was difficult.  I was fed up with feeling the way I did. The thought of working out was intimidating because just moving hurt.  Sometimes I hurt even when I did nothing at all.

Determined to reclaim my health I set out to lose weight. I decided I would start by walking every day. I started out with one mile Leslie Sansone walk at home dvds. In time I moved on to 2 mile dvds. As I advanced to the 3 mile dvds I thought about taking my workouts outdoors. I decided to train to run/walk my first 5k. It wasn’t pretty but I did it!  Along the way I’d lost some weight.

In September after my 5k, I decided to try some different workouts. I did my first Beachbody workout, Slim in 6.  I got stronger and lost more weight. I followed this up with the Slim Series express workout program and continued to lose weight and get stronger.

Now that I was seeing results I was determined to keep pressing on. I did another beachbody workout called Body Gospel. I lost even more weight and found I was able to do advanced workout moves because I was no longer in pain!

In November I did my second 5k of the year with an amazing group of friends.  I love that my husband and friends joined me in this race. Two years prior to this we had walked this same race and I was so out of shape I nearly didn’t finish walking the course. This year I ran/walked it in record time for me!

When I went to the rheaumatologist in December 2013, all of the symptoms of fibromyalgia were gone! I had been healed from it through eating healthier, being active, and losing weight! My doctor was amazed at the progress I’d made in just a few months time.

Knowing I was getting stronger every day, I decided to push myself a little harder. I recently started doing a very advanced workout program called T25. It’s hard and some days I dread it, but I’m now able to do lunges and squats. For a long time these movements were impossible due to the pain it caused me.

I’m also drinking daily meal replacement shakes called Shakeology. These are nutrition packed shakes that help me take better control of my eating. I love the taste and it has really helped curb my cravings for unhealthy foods.

This month my doctor and I decided that I’ve lost so much weight and become so healthy that I can wean off of my blood pressure medicine. I’ve

been taking blood pressure medicine for 12 years!  I’m through my first week of half doses and at the end of the week after the doctor evaluates my daily blood pressure readings I may be able to go completely off of blood pressure medicine!

In the last year I’ve gone from being in daily pain, depressed, and miserable to being healthy, active, and overcoming major medical problems. For the first time in years I am no longer pre-diabetic!

There is hope and healing available, it might take a little hard work and determination but I do believe you can help your body heal when you feed it the right foods and take good care of it.  We are called to be good stewards of all God has given us, our bodies included. Are you taking good care of your body? If not, what’s preventing you from doing so? Don’t give up because you feel limited due to your current health,  because YOU have the power to change your future!

I’d love to help you reach your health goals!  Contact me if you want to start the process of reclaiming your health!

Here’s a little example of the changes I’ve seen in the last year:

 

# beachbody # overcoming fibromyalgia # weight loss #health # Slim in 6 # T25 # transformation

In January I bought a Les Mills Combat challenge pack from Beachbody. This challenge pack includes the Les Mills workout, a 30 day supply of healthy meal replacement shakes, and a free online Beachbody account.  I was doing T25 at the time I ordered it but I knew I wanted to try it out. Last week I tried the first workout from Combat called Kickstarter and fell in love with it!  I’ve done it several times a week in addition to T25. I work up a sweat and am able to punch and kick my way to a healthy body!  I am looking forward to doing this entire program once I’m done my current workout program in March.  I’d love to have others join me!

This sale price is good until the end of March so if you plan your budget now, you can join me and a group of people going through this program in March! With this offer you can save $70 with the promotion compared to buying separately! If you don’t want to do the meal replacement shakes the base program is just $59.85 which is a great deal for a 60 day program! That’s less than $1 a day to get healthy! Let me know if you want more information.

All week long we’ve been preparing to share our story at church.  The closer we got to today the harder the week got.  I had been requesting others to pray for us as soon as we found out we would be speaking because we tend to get a big target on us when we’re doing things that we feel like God has called us to do.  For the first part of the week things went surprisingly well.  Then slowly one thing after another started to throw us off track.  Instead of giving up, we surrendered. With every obstacle I became more convinced that we needed to share our story.

This morning I needed to lead the hospitality team and speak. Sounds easy right? Well one by one things came up to make it very challenging. People I was hoping would be there to be emotional support weren’t able to make it.  Volunteers I was hoping to rely on had to bail out as well. Little things here and there that on normal weekends would have made me lose my mind barely rattled me. I was covered in an amazing peace that I could have never experienced if I hadn’t surrendered the day, the message, and myself to God. I trusted Him to provide for every detail, from the most minute to the biggest. The result?  Dean and I were able to share our story publicly for the first time.

If you’ve followed our life for the last year you know we’ve been on a journey towards physical health. This journey was propelled by the hidden journey we’d been on that caused us to take control of our health, our marriage, our family, and our faith. We had shared the details only with a few close friends whose support was pivotal to the restoration that has taken place in our life in the last year.

Click below to listen to our story. Our pastor speaks for a little bit then interviews us.

(warning not for little ears, or even medium sized ones unless you are willing to talk to them about it. PG-13 content)  It’s truly a miracle I got through it without crying, but I think I cried enough all week in thinking and preparing for it that I knew I was done with that side of it.  For me today was about breaking free from a secret that has changed my life.  A secret that my marriage isn’t perfect. The picture you see of me today is of a woman whose heart has been broken and put back together.I won’t say there aren’t days I don’t struggle with trusting my husband, but the truth is I love him regardless of the past. The truth is we are committed to making our marriage work even if it is hard and even if it hurts. If you hear nothing else today from this message, I hope you realize that there is always hope.  I want you to know that God can restore you if you surrender your brokenness to Him. “Tomorrow’s freedom is today’s surrender” (All Sons and Daughters)