Devotions

 In many ways people use "devotions" to get their Bible time in and connect with God. But as I sat and read my devotions, I realized I'm not really connecting with God, like really connecting. I'm reading someone else's thoughts about a particular situation, their take on it and a verse that goes along with it. Sure the devotion that day will speak to me but that doesn't help me connect with God. 

In order for me to connect with God, I need to dive deeper into His Word. How do I do that? I need to look at the pages of the devotion and see what words stick out at me. What word or words is God trying to focus my eyes on? Be still and listen. Think. Read it again. Suddenly a word pops out of the pages. Now it's time to dive deeper. So I pull out one of my Bibles. Yes, I said Bibles, as in many. There are different types of Bibles. Some are studying Bibles, these have history and maps and even foot notes to help you understand what is happening during that time period. Some have concordance, this a list of words with every verse in the Bible with that word. So if the word or words, such as, "suffering", "trials", "courage", or  "strength" jump out of the pages of the devotion, then you look up those words up in the concordance to see what God is trying to show you. And what is it He is trying to tell you.

Sometimes diving deeper can take awhile. You may find time has stood still. You may get lost in time. And the next thing you know, it's been an hour maybe two. It's important that you have the time to spend with God. Don't just check off a box on your to-do-list. Don't get me wrong, I have found myself doing that very thing. Check mark. Once you are aware, you can ask God for forgiveness.

That is one of the greatest feelings, knowing that you have been forgiven and that your wrong has been forgotten. That is a whole other topic. Anyways... as the various sayings go... "stop and smell the roses", "stop, look, and listen", be still my friend for God has something amazing to show and tell you.

"Faithfully"

    This morning I woke up with this song in my head as my husband heads out to sea to fish the deep waters and my daughter travels long distance with her boyfriend to uncharted territory for herself personally. This song is all too familiar to me, growing up it was a popular secular love song. But when your eyes and ears are open to hearing the Word of God speak, He will use various tools to reach you. He spoke to me in my dreams last night and this morning with this song- "Faithfully" by Journey.

   

    It starts out, "Highway run, into the midnight sun, wheels go round and round, you're on my mind...".

The first thing that spoke to me was the words- "midnight sun". At midnight it is usually pitch black but in this song, it references the sun during the midnight. God is the sun (son) who is ALWAYS with us, even in the darkest of night.

    Then it goes on to say, "restless hearts, sleep alone tonight, sending ALL MY LOVE along the wire...". God is telling you and me that we should not worry, we should not fear, for He loves us and we are NOT alone.

    "They say that the road ain't no place to start a family, right down the line it's been you and me and love in a music man ain't what it supposed to be, oh girl you stand by me, I'm forever yours....."- God doesn't want us to keep running to the things of this world but to stay focused on where He is taking us. As long as we stand by God, keeping Him close to us, He is FOREVER ours. "FAITHFULLY" ! 

    

    "Circus life, under the big top world.. we all need the clowns to make us smile....". Life right now is definitely a circus, people are all over the place with their thoughts and ideas of how this world is suppose to look and it's the ones who are close to us that keep us sane, make us smile, and take our minds off this craziness and make us laugh.

    "Through space and time, always another show... wondering where I am, lost without you". We definitely can get LOST WITHOUT GOD! "And being apart ain't easy on this love affair, two strangers learn to fall in love again". Being apart from God makes life more difficult. HE LOVES US SO MUCH! and seeks those who are lost in hopes that they will fall in love with Him again. Maybe you never have felt the love of God, He is waiting and wanting to have a relationship with you. It's like the time you were so attracted to someone and had such a desire and interest in them, and yet they didn't even know you existed. Or if they did, you were just a mere thought. GOD DESIRES YOU!

    "I get the joy of rediscovering you, oh girl, you stand by me, I'm forever yours...". "FAITHFULLY" ! It is PURE JOY when discovering God and rediscovering Him if you have fallen away from Him. He is FOREVER OURS! "Faithfully, I'm still yours".  

FAITHFULLY! HE IS WITH US!

Helen Keller said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

          There are many people who can see but actually walk around with blinders on and have no desire to have vision, vision for what is happening around them, vision for the future as in goals.  Without vision we would not be where we are today in this technological world.  Who would have thought as a little girl watching the cartoon "The Jetsons" we would actually have robot vacuum cleaners or talking refrigerators?  But we do and we wouldn't if it was not for the visionaries.  Without vision life would be boring, mundane, and just lifeless.  We need vision to see beyond, to set goals, to make dreams come true.


www.marveloptics.com 

Poor Me Day

Today is a "Poor Me Day"....

I hate that I have diabetes!!! I am stressed about an exam I have in Anatomy & Physiology II on Monday.  And I hate the fact I can't eat pizza, chips, and cupcakes; well I can but it would only cause my sugars to sky rocket.

Today was 2 birthday parties spread out with a few hours in between so I ate before and after each one but it is not the same.  I would love to enjoy eating what everyone else is eating along with eating with them.  Sure I could but then I am only harming my body.  And yes, everyone else is really not doing their body's any good either.  But they don't care.  It amazes me how people continue to eat the things that are slowly killing their insides.  A heart attack waiting to happen, Type 2 diabetes creeping up, I just don't understand the addiction.  Isn't it mind over matter?  Doesn't your life, your health and well being matter?  Aren't you tired of being tired all the time?  Don't blame the busyness of your life on your tiredness.  It's the foods you eat, the lack of exercise you get.  Don't you get it?

Yes, these are the things that depress me.  I don't want to care!!  I don't want to get it!!  I just want to eat whatever, whenever and as much as I want!!!

30 IN 45 Challenge

It has been a year since I've had true focus on fitness and eating right.  Things were going well the first 4 months and then a negative change began to take shape.  June of 2016 I started working out taking boot camp style classes at H2 Health & Fitness Center just 2 X week for the first month, incorporating some cardio at another gym.  Then in July I bumped up my boot camp classes to 3 X week.  Amazed by the change in just the first month only going 2 times a week, going 3 times a week I could only get better.  And then by the third month I started going 4-5 X week and dropping my other gym membership.  I was able to get enough cardio at H2 Health & Fitness; there were days where we had H.I.I.T. classes and sometimes I would even take 2 H.I.I.T. classes back to back.  October 2016 I went on a missions trip and I was in the last weeks of a fitness challenge at H2.  I brought along resistance bands to try and keep up somewhat of my workouts.  And I was able to eat pretty healthy because of my disease; I was given more low carb meals than they typically eat.  Coming back from the mission trip I had to do my final body analysis and turn in the results.  I was so excited and proud of all that I had accomplished over the last 4 months- gained 3 pounds of muscle and lost 4% body fat.  I continued to check my body composition each month to keep in check and make sure I was improving but somehow things started to shift and I began to put back on body fat.  Yes the holidays came and went but I still ate pretty well because of my disease.  I am very proactive when it comes to my disease.  That is why exercise and eating right is so important to me.  

I have always been active as a kid playing sports and then teaching fitness in my early 20's.  But of course when you get married and have a kid your focus tends to shift a little and exercise can fall short often.  I still ate well for the most part given my family history.  When I discovered I had diabetes my focus shifted back to exercise and eating even better than I was; I did my first 5k in Oct of 2011 and continued to run entering 5k's throughout the years.  October 2016 I ran my first 10k and finished 15 minutes earlier than my goal.  I was pumped and decided to set a goal of running a 1/2 marathon and 1 marathon by the time I was 50 years old.  Being 45 years old at that time, I had plenty of time to meet those goals.  I started running 4-5 times a week and doing boot camp classes, working out 7 days a week not giving my body any time to recover.  Most people would have lost weight doing all that exercise but not me.  My body got thicker including my midsection; my body % fat began to climb back up.  It didn't make sense to me because when you look at runners they are pretty slim.  The only conclusion I could come to was that I was putting my body under so much stress that cortisol was being released at a constant rate and that was causing fat to be stored in my body rather than fat being burned.  I started to back off on the running and just kept up my boot camp classes, pushing myself more and more.  I wanted change so bad and wanted to loose that body fat and get back down to where I was in the earlier part of November 2016.

As the year is quickly passing by us I had reached a year being at H2 and then a new season of life began.  I had stopped working out because we sold our house and had to move quickly; focusing all my attention on getting the house packed up, working out was no longer a priority.  My eating habits started to decline.  I hadn't eaten this bad for over 6 years, I felt depressed and frustrated.  I was determined to get back on track just as soon as we got settled into the new house.  I had set a date to get started and realized there was just too many things happening that month.  So I pushed it further out and setting a date for September 1st.  I began to seek out gyms in the area, H2 was no longer a convenience.  Looking for a gym similar to what I was doing wasn't too difficult but the cost of memberships seemed to be outrageous.  I was considering the YMCA since it was just down the street and has a variety of classes including boot camp.  But then I saw Pure Barre driving down the road.  I had seen them on the East Coast of Florida and in the Tampa area but nothing here before.  I always wondered what it was especially with the word Barre in it.  Ballet classes perhaps???  I looked them up online and found that I could get a FREE WEEK.  The video on Youtube looked pretty easy, after all I had been lifting weights for the past year and this involved very little weight.  It had been 3 months since I really worked out and thought this would be a good way to start- nice and easy.  Boy was I wrong!!!  This was pretty tough!!!  My arms and legs were on fire most of the class.  I didn't really sweat nor did my heart rate ever really get to high so I wasn't sure if this was really for me.  I wasn't really exhausted after class either and was wondering if I was really going to feel something the next morning.  Low and behold I did feel something the next morning.  I wasn't horribly sore but my muscles knew that they got a workout.  Sticking with it for that free week I went as many days as I could giving me the opportunity to receive a discount on my first full month.  I wasn't ready to commit to a full year contract just yet.  After all it was more money a month than I wanted to spend.  I wanted to see what changes if any would occur that first month.  

Noticing a small change in the area that mattered to me the most within just a short time I was really enjoying this new style of working out for me.  I cut back more on dairy and started trying to add more greens back into my daily diet.  My sugars do very well taking these classes and tend stay pretty level.  Typically if I do a lot of high intensity cardio my sugars come crashing down, often I would have to turn my insulin pump off while doing cardio.  If I did moderate to heavy weights my sugars would go skyrocketing up because my liver would spit out sugar for energy.  Not having my sugars crash or spike is another plus to this Barre workout.  After 12 visits on your first month membership you have the opportunity to take advantage of receiving 50% off your first month membership on an annual contract.  That time was quickly approaching and I needed to decide if I was going to commit for a year or go to the YMCA with my husband.  Checking in with him to see when he might be ready to get back in the gym himself, I didn't get the impression it would be any time soon.  I still wasn't 100% positive I wanted to spend that much money a month on a gym membership though.  And I was hoping my husband would want to workout sooner than later.  But who was I kidding, he doesn't like working out first of all and second he is so busy right now with work and then the holidays are right around the corner, I don't see him working out till at least next year.  So I made the decision to join Pure Barre and commit to 1 year.  "Go Big or Go Home" right?  Not to mention that Pure Barre was starting a challenge that I wanted to be a part of and could only do so if I became a member.  Otherwise my membership would have ran out and I would no longer be able to part take in the rest of the challenge. 

The challenge- 30 IN 45, you must go thirty times in forty-five days.  Seems pretty easy but that means you must go at least 5 days a week in order to succeed in reaching your goal.  The only other goals are goals you set for yourself- eating healthier, toning and tightening up, and/or losing weight.  This challenge will take you right up to Thanksgiving.  You definitely don't want to throw away all your hard work during the holidays.  I believe this is a good way to keep you to stay on track; hopefully 😉.  Would you really want to just give up all your hard work, not me!  This challenge
began yesterday, Oct. 9th 2017 and will go till Nov. 22nd 2017.  Yesterday- day 1/ I took Pure Classic- low impact, isometric movements, light weights, total body workout.  Today- day 2/ was Pure Empower- multidirectional, dynamic movements using ankle weights and a plyometric platform to target the entire body while keeping a faster pace.

  

Monday Morning Blues

It is a Monday morning and typically I don't get the Monday morning blues but today is a different story...    

My morning started off with my CGM (continuous glucose monitor) showing a pretty good fasting number until I checked my blood sugar with my One Touch. Sugars were actually a bit higher. So I give myself insulin to bring my blood sugars down; I take my vitamins and get in the shower. I check my CGM when I get out of the shower and my sugars have gone up even more. This is so frustrating! 

This morning I also have to change my infusion site and start with a fresh vial of insulin which will give me an additional amount of insulin when I fill the cannula. Great! This should help bring my sugars down. As I prime the tubing, I am waiting to see the the insulin drip from the needle point. I finally see insulin dripping but have already lost 20 units because of my vision becoming weaker as the years go by. Next I have to insert it now and that isn't exactly peachy. Today sucked! The injection site hurt the worst it has ever hurt! Causing a burning sensation.

My frustration had already begun yesterday after downloading my CGM and pump information onto my PC so I could get a true visual of how my numbers were looking over the past several months.  And they don't look good :( 

I have strived to lower my A1c every 3 months to get it as low as possible. And so far I have been successful at it. But I don't think that will be the case this time. I will know tomorrow after seeing my endocrinologist.

What has changed?

A few things...

• Hormones- all over the place. UP and DOWN causing my emotions to wreak havoc  
• Workouts- more weights and high intensity interval training
• Eating before workouts and blood sugars going up instead of coming down
• More protein intake

Go figure...

The Battle Within

It seems like a daily battle within, one day I am full of joy and thankful for all that I am and have, the next day I am feeling down and not satisfied with who I am or what I have. So why or how do things change overnight?  I believe it is that pre-menopausal journey I am on, my blood work says differently though.  I don't believe it! 

As I continue to seek God's Word, I find myself being convicted of the very things of this world my flesh takes in. The Spirit of the Lord is within me, so why does it struggle to shine bright?

LOVE is the first of the fruits and it is the most important command Jesus gave us. The word love is used so loosely and it seems to be no longer taken seriously. In the eyes of God it is not a feeling rather than an action. It gives freely without expecting anything in return. Love others without feeling they deserve it or not.

The second fruit of the Spirit is JOY. It is not the same as happiness. As I reflect on this, I realize, I struggle with joy. I rely so much on others to make me happy rather the Spirit op the Lord. 

And PEACE, another fruit of the Spirit. How can there be peace when there is so much chaos in this world? God tells us... Do not to be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all your requests to God in prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. ~Philippians 4:6-7 Sounds easy, right? But I struggle to complain to God. Does He really want to hear me complain? I have so much, why am I complaining....? 

Because I just want to be LOVED! (God loves me! That should be sufficient.)

So how does pre-menopausal fall into all this? HORMONES! Out of whack, unbalanced, lacking, etc... 

Hormone Fluctuations

From puberty to menopause your hormones are constantly fluctuating and this is a part of the natural life cycle, this gets the body ready for ovulation, and possible pregnancy, if this does not occur then the menstrual cycle begins and the process starts over again.Once a woman gets past 40 years of age hormone levels start to decline, this will eventually lead to menopause at around 50-52 years of age. While hormones are naturally fluctuating, problems start to occur when the fluctuations go out of balance …. this can cause a lot of symptoms in both your body and your mind.

The most common imbalance is an excess of estrogen compared to progesterone which is known as estrogen dominance, this can obviously be caused by the body making too much estrogen or you may have normal estrogen but not enough progesterone. This may cause similar symptoms but the treatment to correct the problem will be different

Signs of estrogen and progesterone imbalance
There are many different signs and symptoms of estrogen dominance and it is important to remember that some of these symptoms can be caused by imbalances with other hormones.
Signs and Symptoms Include:

• weight gain
• fluid retention
• PMS mood changes like anger, irritable and anxiety which can last from a day or so to two weeks
• migraines and headaches
• breast tenderness
• heavy periods, or very light periods if you have low estrogen/ progesterone
• breast lumps and cysts
• infertility
• cramping pains, back pains (something I never had before)

Sometimes women have one or two of these symptoms or you could have them all, and while they are common they are not “normal” and are a sign of imbalance. Some months symptoms are really bad, while other times things are “ok”. Lets look at why your hormones change. http://www.planetnaturopath.com/functional-pathology-testing/what-causes-hormonal-imbalances-in-women