Have you ever found yourself living each day and telling yourself, "Maybe when I" lose 10 pounds I’ll book that beach vacation or "Maybe when I" feel more confident I’ll schedule those family photos or "Maybe when I" lose five pounds I’ll get those jeans I’ve always wanted. Yea! Me too! There are so many moments we let slip away because we think the future will be better than where we are today. But as someone who let the "Maybe when I" control her life, knows that allowing those moments to...
For me, the ritual was always the same. I’d tap the scale and carefully climb on. With bated breath – I would wait. Then, I would repeat the process a second time to make sure everything was “accurate”.
The dictionary defines an idol as anything in the natural world that is given sacred value and power. My weight, that elusive number staring back at me on the scale would determine my mood, my joy or lack of joy, my worth – what it said about me held sacred value and power in my life. What is...
It took me many years and much spiritual growth to finally understand what makes us valuable. Contrary to the voice that shouts at us from the television, from movies, billboards and magazines, and sometimes those around us, we are not how we look. Oh, the freedom in the revelation that our “body” is not our “self.”
Yes, I exercise and eat right. Yes, I know that my body is the temple of God’s Holy Spirit and that my goal is to honor God with a lifestyle of progressive health and fitness....
As an adult I have always been considered physically fit, strong and healthy. I figured when I got pregnant I would be the woman who still attended all of her regular fitness classes, ate clean and healthy all the time and kept that same fit physic shortly after giving birth. But then the reality came screeching into my life when I realized that the postpartum body was going to take some time, prayer and work.
I always looked at women on social media who just had a baby and fit back into their...
Have you ever felt like a fake? If you said yes, I can emphatically say, me too. In fact, I felt this way more than I even realized — until recently.
About three months ago I was on a walk. The gift of the gorgeous day was a bit lost on me as I murmured grumbled prayers over a series of physical injuries that were plaguing me. I felt as though every form of exercise, even walking sometimes, was being taken from me. I simply couldn’t understand why the Lord seemed to be stripping away every...
It is National Eating Disorder Awareness week! I share my testimony every chance I can to shine Gods truth and light in the midst of darkness. As many of you may know, I struggled with eating disorders in my teen years; But I also want to point out that “eating disorders” are not only limited to anorexia and bulimia. I can say from experience that there are many forms of disordered eating, all of which steals the health our bodies, and robs us from the life that God designed for us. When it...
With the world at our fingertips (smart phones), we don't have to look very far to feel bombarded by all of the food "rules" and opinions about what to eat. If you are like me, you probably feel fed up with all of the contrary opinions and extremes that are being marketed as fact. The truth is, I have seen far to many women (including myself), hurt by diets, food “rules” and a culture that idolizes body and food. I believe we enjoy food in its place and care for our bodies without making it...
It was the summer of 1998. I was fourteen years old when my dad came to my two sisters and I and informed us that we would be moving from the only home we have ever known in suburban Michigan to a small town in Wisconsin. My dad worked as an administrator for a small health care agency which was experiencing layoffs, forcing him to find a new job. This kind of news would be shocking to any family, much less when you are a shy fourteen year old about to enter her first year of high school. My...
