My running is also gone extremely well. I finally beat the 29 minute mark with a time of 28:45. Since then, I have been slowing myself down since doing that time just about killed me. I am still getting under 30 minutes every time.

As for my weight, still holding steady. Was at 208 this morning. Looks like I will not be reaching my goal of 200 by May 5th. I am okay with that. I will just keep on doing what I am suppose to do.

This does not seem to work well anymore.

Last Friday, I was down to 207. I finally broke the 209 I was stuck on for a month. As it so happens, we went out with some friends and I splurged. Not as much as I have in the past, but more calories than I normally have.

I expected to be up in weight for the next day or two. That is the way it always happened and sure enough I was. But now I am here, 6 days later and still sitting at the dreaded 209. It just does not work the same anymore.

I am not sure what to do now. It would be very, very difficult to maintain my normal daily diet without ever having a splurge now and then. Then again, maybe that is what I need. Maybe God is wanting me to show that I control what I eat, it does not control me. I dunno.

I am only 37 days until May 5th when I am suppose to be at 200. It will take a miracle.

I have done very well eating. I have stuck to my eating plan. I am running three nights a week.

This morning I was at 209. That’s right, almost a month into it, I have not lost any weight. I have dipped below 209 a few times, but it inexplicitly comes back.

I’m okay with it. I am doing my part, I will let God do His. But now He only has two months to get 9 pounds off.

To be honest, I have been eating VERY good this past month. We even had an overnight trip we took where I ate good, which is way out of the ordinary (travel to me usually means “Eat whatever you want”). I thought I would be back at 209 much earlier than February 5th and that I would get to start working on my second commitment (200 by May 5th) early. Well, God apparently had different plans. I believe he was teaching me patience and also about giving up control. I have said it before and I will say it again, all I can do is my part, the rest is not in my control.

So today begins a new journey. Going from 209 down to 200. If this is anything like getting down to 209, it is going to be painfully slow. I hope to average 3 pounds a month, but again, I will simply do my part and let go of the rest.

God is good.

Well, apparently God had a different plan. After a typical day of eating on Friday, my weight inexplicably jumped to 213. I was dumbfounded and my first reaction was anger. I quickly reminded myself of God’s faithfulness to me and had no business being upset. I also have to keep reminding myself that I can only do my part, the rest is up to God and what he determines is the best for me. So, perhaps God again is using this as a teaching moment for me.

So today, I sit at 210.5 again with three days before February 5th. A pound and a half would be hard, if not impossible, for me to lose on my own. However, it is not beyond God. I am committed to doing my part. That is all I can do. We will see what God decides.

As far as my running is going, I have once again built back up to running the full 5k. It is a great feeling to be back. God has definitely blessed me with this. I plan to just keep going with the 5k three times a week. My hope is to build myself up so it becomes easier and my times get better.

I will be back to 209 (from 215.5) by February 5th, 2011.

After that, I am committing to being back to 200 by May 5th. That is three months to lose another 9 pounds.

As of today, about halfway through the first commitment, I am at 212.5. Down three pounds.

The last two weeks, I have done really, really well on my eating. I expected the weight to just fall off. However, that has not been the case. Many mornings I stepped on the scale and felt frustrated. However, last night I had a realization, I am doing everything I can do, the rest is up to God.

After that, I felt okay and at peace. Then, what do you know, this morning I had lost half the weight I need to for the first commitment. Right on schedule.

God is good.

No more excuses.

It is time to be a loser again.

The holidays were not kind to my weight. I had hoped to maintain around 212, but I was at 215.5 this morning.

I just spent some time talking with God to decide what my next weight loss commitment should be. Here is what I got…

• It took about a month of bad eating to get from 209 to 215, so I will be taking a month to lose it. I will be back to 209 by February 5th, 2011.
• After that, I am committing to being back to 200 by May 5th. That is three months to lose another 9 pounds.

While I do feel like I have made these commitments with God’s blessing, I am still a little nervous. My last commitment did not work out. I failed. I do not want that to happen again. To help, I am recommitting to posting on this blog every two weeks. I have dropped that ball a lot lately.

As far as running, I have been running now for a few weeks. My oldest son Stephen has been going with me. Last night we ran 9 minutes, walked two, then ran 10. We are both working our way up to running 5k. The knee is still feeling good.

Go time!

The run went real well. In fact, it went great. After two months of not running, I went a full 30 minutes without stopping.

So I was pretty pumped to get back out on the road and went to run last Sunday night. It was bad. My knee was fine, but I barely made it a mile without having to walk. It really highlighted to me how much easier it is to run on a treadmill than out on the streets of my neighborhood. I only went around 1.6 miles and I had to walk a couple of times.

So I am blessed that my knee is feeling good. I am not so pumped that I am going to have to start over in building up to my 5k endurance again. On top of that, we have the holidays, which is not going to be nice to my weight.

Concerning my weight, when I hurt my knee I was at 209. I am now hovering around 212. If I can make it through the holidays right there, it will be victory. Then with the new year can come a new commitment to weight loss and getting back to running 5k.

I have been really bummed about it. I have never really had an injury like this. Here are some things that went through my head as I was thinking about it…

• I just got built back up to running 5k non-stop. Now I am going to have to stop running for who know how long and I will be back to where I started. I don’t like running, however, I don’t like not running.
• Getting around is going to be a real pain.
• We were suppose to go camping at the Canyon for Michael’s birthday the next Friday night, I doubt I will be able to do that.
• Do I go to the doctor? It does not hurt real bad. We have a high deductible insurance plan so a doctor visit can get real expensive, real quick.
• If I don’t go to the doctor, how will I know when it is okay to run again?
• Even after my knee heals, will I ever be the same? Will I go out at a retreat and play football, or will I think that it is just not worth the risk? Am I going to be scared about this for the rest of my life?

By Sunday night, I was really down because of this list. Monday morning I decided I had to go to a doctor and got an appointment for Wednesday.

As it turns out, the doc suspects that I have a strained PCL ligament. He said most of the time this heals on its own and does not require surgery. That is good news. However, most of my list above is still not addressed. Hopefully more will be address when I go back in two weeks.

My other issue is that I have used this injury as an excuse for eating badly. So not only am I know less active because of the injury, I am eating more calories than normal and that is the recipe for weight gain. I plan to fix this real soon.

So that is where I am at. I have told myself numerous times that God has something to teach me through this injury. If I figure out what that is, I will let you know.

Towards the end of my last two runs, I have been pushing myself a bit. The first time, the song “I Will Follow” by Chris Tomlin came on in my playlist.

Where you go, I'll go
Where you stay, I'll stay
When you move, I'll move
I will follow

 
All your ways are good
All your ways are sure
I will trust in you alone
Higher than my side
High above my life
I will trust in you alone

I then decided to imagine Jesus was running right ahead of me, and basically, I said those words to him.

Course, that introduced a problem. How do you picture Jesus running? I mean, have you ever pictured Jesus is a t-shirt, shorts and a pair of Asics? It is also difficult to picture him running in a robe and sandals. Anyway, I got over it.

So I told him, basically, if you keep running, I will keep running. If you start to walk, I will walk.

You may ask, “How exactly does that work?” It is me creating a mental picture of something. Don’t I have control over if he walks or not?

My answer is only this, I don’t know. The first night, I did this towards the end of my run and it helped me make it to the end running. The second night, I started it about mid way through and I did walk some. I really cannot explain how it helped me, but it did. I guess maybe with Jesus right there, if I was going to stop running and walk, HE would have to be convinced I needed to. It would not just be me thinking I was tired enough to walk.

This may not make a lot of sense, but oh well. It’s my blog, I’ll write what I want.