End of Week 7

As I think about what the Olympians had to go through to train to compete for the gold, it makes me wonder if I'm competing at that level with this Body for Life challenge. We are competing with a lot of people in the country for this title of 2012 Body for Life Champions. I think of Ryan Lochte who went into his race yesterday in the 400m Individual Swimming Medley knowing he was capable of winning. He knew because of how he had trained. I guess I still feel like I can do better in this competition. Of my five goals, I feel the weakest on the part about winning the competition and also supporting Liz. Basically I'm thinking as long as no one goes all out with this, we have a chance.

With only five weeks to go I need to start putting everything I've got into this to make sure we win. WE need to be the ones who are going all out for this. I know it's so easy to say well I'm doing good enough. I know these Olympians didn't say that's good enough as they were training; at least the ones competing to win. The commercial that's been on about finding your own greatness really sticks out to me. Even though we're not competing for the Olympics, we can still compete like one. After all we did decide that we wanted to do this. We wanted to challenge ourselves to this. I've wanted to build more muscle my whole life. I want to see what it feels like to win a big competition like this. I find as we get further along in this I feel like even if I don't win, we've made some good progress. While this is true, I don't think this is a winning attitude.

This next week is going to be a little challenging as we will be traveling a lot. I was impressed to see Liz planning our meals and workouts out yesterday for the week so we are ready. We will be cooking a lot today so we have a lot of good foods to bring with us this week. We will be getting some day passes at a couple of gyms while we are traveling to make sure we get our weight training days in.

Even though we are doing well with getting our meals and getting our workouts in, I know there is more we can do. It's time to take this to the next level. Here's the plan:

1. Need to workout with Liz at least 2 times a week. We know we can't do our aerobic workouts together so we need to try to get at least 2 of the 3 weight lifting days in together to stay connected in this and push each other.
2. We need to study our form and make sure we are doing the exercises as accurately as possible focusing on the correct muscle groups.
3. We need to really make sure our portion sizes are accurate. I know I need to make sure I'm eating enough. It's really hard to get all the calories I need and still eat healthy. It's a lot of food.
4. I need to read up on what past champions have done to win.
5. I need to journal more so I'm ready for the final essay.
6. I need to make sure I record every meal and especially how much water I'm drinking to make sure I get enough.

There's a lot of detail things we need to do. We've already invested enough into this that it would be a shame not to take these extra steps to win.

I just realized a huge thing we've started to fail in. We need God with us. Our busy life has taken over again and we've gotten away from really putting our trust in Him. We desperately need to spend time with God. We need to work as if it were all up to us and pray as if it were all up to God.

I performed the hymn “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” this morning in church. Isn't this exactly what we need?  If God is with us and for us, who can stand against us?