End of Week 2

So this last week we did a lot of traveling for some of my gigs which added a bit of a challenge to working out and eating right. We managed to fit in all of our workouts and eat what we needed to though. The main thing was planning ahead.

Last Sunday night Liz and I went to Grand Rapids to celebrate our anniversary. We planned ahead and made sure the hotel had a fitness center and good breakfast foods. It turned out that they only had treadmills but with our hotel key card we were able to use it to get into a nearby gym for free. And no the cards were not used to break into the gym. 

Later in the week we traveled to northern Michigan and stayed with my aunt and uncle. My aunt saw on Facebook that we were doing this program so she got on the Body for Life website and had meals from the website prepared for us which was so amazing to us that she would go to those lengths. Thanks, Aunt Mary!

With all the traveling, we used that time in the car to plan out meals and workouts. Some things were hard to figure out. We had to make some special stops for good foods. We also had to do a couple of night workouts to get them in but we did it.

Today we weighed ourselves and took photos again. My weight was the same. Liz, however, lost an amazing 8 pounds from her starting weight. In our photos we noticed that we both had more muscle definition as well.

Besides the physical changes, we both are becoming more motivated in general. We are more easily staying on top of tasks that need to get done. We have more energy for daily stuff. The soreness from the first week is wearing off and we are recovering much more quickly from the workouts.

We continue to struggle with figuring out how to win this thing. We know we are definitely making gains for ourselves as noted above; regardless of the competition. Even though we are following the program correctly we know we need to go above and beyond. Today in church I found a new hope for this. Our pastor shared this quote from Saint Augustine.

Pray as though everything depended on God.  Work as though everything depended on you


What a great quote!  I think we've worked fairly hard at the Body for Life challenge but we still have room for improvement.  We've been praying about it but I know we are not relying on God very much.  As our pastor explained, this balance of prayer/faith and action/works is very hard to find.  Most of us tend to be either works based or faith based.  As part of the Body for Life challenge we have decided that we need to work to find this balance.  We will pray knowing all our dependence is on God's will, guidance, grace, and mercy in this challenge.  We will also workout, eat, and plan knowing we have to DO the right things to win.

May God bless you in your won challenges you are facing.