I Am Living Proof

Loving the gas prices? No.

Loving the how risen gas prices affect food prices by two ways? No.

Hence, I love this list of The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1 Per Serving.   This post lists things like Wild Rice, Oats, Tofu and Coffee.  I love everything on this list and have a recipe for all of these ingredients.  Nicely done, the article has recipes suggestion.

I would also put in yogurt just because it is so cheap and so good and good for those who are lactose intolerant.  Do a little bit more research and add Ham to that protein list for about $2 per serving.

My peeps:

James
Brent
Kristen
Buddy
Dan
Rick
Brandy
Deborah
Joel
Theressa
Steven
Love
Tawny
Kelly
Jen
Ron
Darla
Theressa
Heidi

This is why we need prayer.  Everyday.  For all things.

Not as soon as Jean prayed for me, I had a battle last night.

Let me say that because my strength and shield are of God that nearly all the time, I feel nigh invincible.

I am not so cocky that things won’t get to me and hurt me.  I know they will.  I am fighting a battle.  I am in a war.  I can’t expect to fight and not get hurt in a serious way.  But whatever injuries, critical, crippling or otherwise, I know my God will protect, heal, deliver and restore.  My God has it all.  Whom shall I fear?

Then just last night, I was helping out a friend who used to be in porn and saved by the grace of God Almighty.  Unfortunately, she still has images/videos all over the internet many of which she has no control over.

She wanted me to respond to a myspace wall post from a guy.  So I go to the guy’s myspace page to send him a message by posting a comment when I have to scroll to the bottom of his profile.

Let us say we know now he is an “old” fan of my friend.  In other words, he had a picture of my friend that I wish I hadn’t seen.

In the past, that one pic would have broken me.  Satan and his armies launched a million exploding arrows upon me day after day and this time, one hit me square in the chest.

This time, I felt the sting of the pierce.  I feel my skin lit on fire.  I smell the stench of cooked human flesh as the arrow exploded.  I hear the armies of Satan laugh with a victorious roar.  It is enough to take the breath out of me.

I know the arrow is there.  I know it hurts like all hell.  My mind wanted to race a million miles a minute and ease the pain away.  The flesh knew what to do.  My flesh thought he had life again.

But my spirit is born and sustained by God.  Without stopping in my tracks and through gritted teeth and eyes full of tears from the pain and torment, God reached out, pulled that arrow out and healed of my pain.  In my joy and thankfulness, I reached out to His hand, kissed it and told him, “I love You”.

This is how God is so good.  Glory to God in the highest.

Since I am towards the tail end of my weight loss of 2.5 years, my updates will be posted less often than the other guys. -Ed.

Up to speed:

No I still don’t have a scale. I think I am going to go to a store and get a quick reading.

I am kinda cheap that way.

My 2XLT t-shirts from Calvin Klein are way too big. I am going to go try on XLT. I haven’t worn XLT shirts since high school.

I need new pants.

I need new underwear.

Other than that…

My energy drink intake has gone up so I am curbing that to 2/week. To counter, I am going to up my water intake to 1.5gal/day. That is 1/2gal more plus the current intake based on Weight/2 = water in oz per day.

For instance, I weight 250lbs. 250 divided 2 is 125. Since there are 128oz in a gallon, I just end up drinking a gallon of water of day.

I am craving milkshakes. That must be a calcium and sugar thing. So now I am on the search for good sources of calcium (greens) and sugar (carrots, fruits).

Today is the last day of my Fast Food Fast. I am not going back to fast food. Woohoo!

Today is the last day of my coffee. I am going to cut out rich coffee drinks (espresso + milk) and just stick to simple coffee with a sugar and dollop of steamed milk (called macchiato).

This time around, the lifestyle changes I have made seem to be real and very permanent. I have depend on God to help me with keeping my body healthy and shockingly enough (no, not really), He has come through. God is there to remind me with gut instincts and I am obedient.

Never forgot that God will help you with anything and everything. He knows what you are going through and His heart breaks for you. Lean on Him for it all. Watch His way be perfect.

My peeps:

James
Brent
Kristen
Buddy
Dan
Rick
Brandy
Deborah
Joel
Theressa
Steven
Love
Tawny
Kelly
Jen
Ron
Darla
Theressa
Heidi

I am at a lost of what to call this collective effort of my peeps wanting to lose weight. Thus, the title for this post.

My friend Brent at InWorship throws down this challenge:

“Starting this Friday, I will begin a new journey of eating well and exercising. Over the next couple of days, I will be working with my wife to figure out an eating plan and a daily routine to whip me into shape.”

… whereas my Twitter pal, Travis, throws down this challenge:

• 30 mins of exercise every day
• drink 64 oz. of water each day
• No soda
• No fried food

I am wrapping up a fast food fast in order to cut out both bad foods and convenience and a coffee fast (as a courtesy to my friend who fasted coffee for a month). I have been adding sports (basketball, soccer, football) to my everyday routine and I have gotten soda consumption down to once/twice per week all the while taking in a gallon of water per day.

I definitely don’t want to go back to fast food at all. So I figure I pick up these challenges, I can keep with that change in lifestyle and keep losing weight.

Most of all, I want to support and encourage those who want to lose weight and get healthy.

Over the last two years, I have lost 80 lbs. I was 10lbs away from my goal but now I want to lower that goal from 240 to 220lbs.. With that new goal, that would put me 20lbs. away.

I have a goal to aim for and I will be alongside others who want to lose weight as well. Woohoo!

Note: I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before. But I have to give thanks to God for taking care of my temple. When I started dieting, I would fail. Then I thought, “If I depend on Him for everything, why can’t that include a healthy lifestyle?”. So I leaned into Him to show me, help me and teach me for what is best for me.

Our God alone is good. - Ed.

Let me tell you how my last 5 minutes unraveled

Gmail shows I have an email from Classmates.com.

I thought, “This might be legit because back in 1996 I halfway filled out a profile before realizing I wasn’t going to pay a fee per month just to look up old classmates of mine.”

Alas, I didn’t have a Gmail account then.  In fact, no one did.  Gmail wasn’t around until 2004.

No alarms.

In this email was a link to Blogger website.  “Umm,” I wondered, “that is a mystery because how could somebody spam their blog to people who have merely halfway registered with Classmates.”

Now all the geeks reading this have the spam/phish alarms going off in their heads.  I swear I have those same alarms.  I hope I do after being a professional geek for 15 years

Alas, just wonderment.

No alarms.

Clicked on link.  End result: porn.

In the past, I would have been furious at several things.  One, naturally being my own stupidity.  Two, at Gmail for their recently weakened spam filters.

But in one split nanosecond, I ceased to become angry because I quickly realized one thing:

I couldn’t see past the top 25 pixels on the site.

From just the top of the website, I knew it was porn.  Without having to look at the rest of the website page, I calmly click the Close Tab x in Firefox.

Then I shared with my boss and co-workers.  Apparently, I am going to Geek Jail for being so lame.