What’s so BIG about that?

  A year ago, almost to the day, I set a goal to lose weight. I needed to. My health wasn't good, I was tired, exhausted , prone to injury and had been diagnosed as progressively going blind.  I hadn't recognized myself in the mirror or seen my toes in years. Not a lot I could do about going blind, but  I took a long, hard look at my future and figured I needed to change whatever I could change if I wanted to be able  to actively love and serve the One and ones I love for the rest of my life.  So, I bought a Wii Fit with the stipend I got when I won the “Love of Teaching Award” at the Middle School I taught at.  And I actually used it on a regular basis. My husband and I started a low carb diet, of sorts,  and we tried to take daily walks.

    During the past year, a year in which my husband and I unexpectedly found ourselves working in different countries for ten months, I went from weighing 227 on June 27, 2010 to weighing 165 on June 27, 2011. I shrank out of all my clothes. I felt a lot better. My recent blood tests showed that my liver enzymes, cholesterol and blood sugar are doing much better.

   The Wii Fit, however, still tells me “That’s obese” when I step on. It says my ideal weight should be 112 lbs. My husband thinks 112 would be ridiculous. My doctor says “Go back to a weight you feel most comfortable at.” I've decided to aim for 130 lbs.

    A few days ago, I rounded a corner, glanced at my pedometer and decided that I wanted to walk 1, 000 miles this year. Some people have told me that’s not such a big goal, that most people walk that much in a year. 1,000 miles is a big thing for me, when I consider that in the first half of 90's doctors didn’t know if I would ever recover my ability to move.** It’s a big thing to me because a year ago this five foot frame of mine was carrying so much extra weight that I couldn’t walk up stairs or around the block without becoming winded.

   Why 1680 miles? Because I want to stretch myself past what people think is normal. Years ago, I had a Pinocchio desire just to be a normal person. Been there, done that now, and found it greatly lacking. Also I needed to have a goal that I could possibly reach, if I stick to it. I used the formula based on an approximate burn of 75 calories for each moderately walked mile. I would like to walk off 35 lbs. I read that a pound of fat is equal to roughly 3,500 calories.

 

3500(calories) x 35 (pounds I want to lose)  =  1680 miles

 75 (calories burned in a mile from  walking)

 

Take it a step further :1680 miles /365 days = 4.602739726027397  miles per day.

    Today, I’ve shared the practical reasoning behind this goal of walking 1680 miles in a year. Add the fact that I plan to eat wisely and that’s about as practical as I’m going to get. More importantly,why am I blogging about it? Because I've learned that it's not only what you do but HOW you do it that's important . I'm going to try to walk those miles in meaningful ways. And I will need you to help me to add meaning and to stay focused as I  walk and write  my way through 1680 miles. Feel free to join me vicariously .

      Or, maybe, you’d even like to walk along with me....

**Years ago, Lyme’s disease left me progressively crippled with a series of “stroke- like incidents”  until I spent a year paralyzed. Then the next six years slowly, painfully inched toward recovery. It was hard on my whole family to have an invalid wife and mother. People prayed for me a lot, I worked hard; mostly though, my recovery was a “God thing”. I never would have made it through without knowing God loved and cared for me. Now, I still have  arthritic pain in most of my joints, but I can walk, talk and think clearly. :)