Health and Heart. Part One.
INTRODUCTION
Hello! Thanks so much for taking the time to read this blog. I’m currently in the middle of a weight loss journey, so I decided to write about it once a month to stay accountable and to encourage others. The fitness portion of this blog will be covered in the “Health” section. I am also a Christian who is in constant need of God’s grace, so I’ll be sharing about my journey in faith as well. The faith portion of this blog will be covered in the “Heart” section. My goal with this blog is to motivate others and gain accountability for myself knowing that you will be reading this expecting an honest update every time. Thanks for your help!
HEALTH
Currently, I am at the halfway point of my weight loss goal of 100lbs. I let myself get to an extremely unhealthy weight, and about a year ago I decided to do something about it. I have lost a little over 50lbs in the past year, but I still have 50lbs more to go to hit my goal weight of 187lbs. About a month ago I hired a personal trainer to make the final push for the rest of the weight. I meet with him once a month for a workout, and I also pick his brain for meal plan ideas and other health-related questions.
One of my biggest struggles is consistency; I often do good for a few days and then bad for a few days and repeat that pattern. The number one reason I hired the personal trainer was because I was tired of my on-again off-again relationship with eating right and working out. I figured if I was paying to meet with someone every week and was required to talk to them about how I did the previous week, it would really help me stay on track; so far, it’s been a huge improvement! I know that if I can just be consistent with my diet and workout plan, I will definitely reach my goal weight.
I am also training to run a half-marathon with my sister-in-law in May of this year. Something you have to understand about my running training is my injury history. Last May I was a little over halfway through my 4-mile run, when I felt a pop in my left calf and some pretty intense pain. I later found out that I had a serious calf strain, and it would require several weeks of rest to recover. After taking it easy and working on my recovery for a few months, I started running again. The third time I tried running after that first strain, I felt it coming on again although I didn’t let it go as far this time as to pop again. I was very careful for the next few months, and eased back into running even slower. I worked up to running 15 miles a week, but I was about 3.5 miles into my run a month ago when I felt the right calf start doing the same thing the left calf had done previously.
Since then, I have not been running on it, and the pain has completely left that area for over two weeks already. I have still been using the recumbent stationary bike and the elliptical, and I haven’t had any issues on those machines. I am about to go on a snowboarding trip, after which I will begin running again. All of the research I have done on calf strains has recommended strengthening it to prevent more calf strains. I was scared to do heavy weight for fear of reinjury, so I was doing bodyweight exercises like lunges, squats, and calf-raises once a week. However, since that method didn’t work, I will be lifting heavy weights for much longer leg workouts twice a week to see if I can finally overcome these nagging injuries.
The method I’ve been using to lose weight thus far in my journey has been to workout six days a week, doing cardio for an hour and about twenty minutes of weightlifting with dumbbells at home. I’ve lacked in consistency in this area and haven’t had many stretches where I hit all six days of both workouts until I started with the personal trainer. My cardio days alternated every day between running and doing the recumbent bike, so I would get three one-hour sessions each week of each exercise. I have reached the point where the dumbbell exercises really aren’t breaking down muscle anymore, so I have just switched to doing heavy lifting six days a week for about 35–45 minutes using the machines at the gym. For my cardio I will still do three one hour runs each week, but I will limit the cycling to 30 minutes in hopes of helping more with minimizing risks to straining my calf and not limiting my muscular gains which help with weight loss.
HEART
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
- John 15:12
God makes it very clear over and over in the Bible that loving others is second only to our salvation in terms of priorities in our life. Jesus died on the cross for our salvation, and his very next command was to go and share that love with everyone we could so they could be saved as well. It’s like we’re all born on the titanic; our lives are doomed for death from the moment we are conceived. However, we have a lifeboat ready and waiting for us, so our first job is to save ourselves, then to save others.
If this is true, then why do I have such a hard time doing it on a daily basis? Sure, I can be kind to people at the grocery store checkout, or a waiter who I only see briefly during my meal. However, when I’m at work, with the coworkers I spend more time with than my own family, I am a very poor example of kindness. It’s amazing to me how I let such little things bother me at work and cause me to go off on a customer or one of the contractors we work with. I’m nice to my coworkers, but when I show discourtesy to others it kills my credibility with my coworkers. If I can’t be consistently kind to everyone, I come off as hypocritical.
It’s hard to keep our eyes on our faith 24/7 as a believer. It’s human nature to get distracted with other things, or sometimes life just hits you like a ton of bricks and completely throws you off-balance. The truth is, regardless of the circumstances, we cannot allow anything or anyone to steal our joy. We are loved beyond all imagining, and we have the joy in our heart of having a personal relationship with our Savior that cannot be diminished. All we have to do is remember that love and joy when life gets difficult. When we get distracted by things of this world and our attitude reflects that, we have to be self-aware and adjust it back as fast as possible.
Our coworkers are some of the most important people in our lives. Whatever job you are currently working, God has put you there for a reason. If we are called to love people, then the ones we see so often are the ones we must put the most effort into loving! I feel like I do an ok job of being kind to my coworkers, but I fail so often with being a consistent example of God’s joy. I hate to think about what they think of me, when I want so desperately for them to see nothing but the goodness of God and I continually show them the worst sides of myself. Whether it’s through things I say to them or to people around me, I can do a much better job of being joyful at work.
Do you have any similar struggles with your coworkers? Are you being a consistently positive influence on everyone you meet and interact with on a daily basis? What are some things you can work on to be kind to people? I know that life isn’t perfect, and it’s unreasonable to expect someone to be happy-go-lucky 100% of the time. We can, however, be happy at least 90% of the time, because we have a reason in Christ to be so happy. Let’s try to be more positive and uplifting with the people around us, and let us always be aware that every day our coworkers see us we are either helping or hurting our witness.
I will be writing a new post once a month, so please keep a lookout for the next one. I really appreciate any comments, questions, or concerns you may have, and look forward to responding to any messages when I have time. I hope this blesses you and encourages you, and thank you for reading!
Sincerely,
Matt Casperite
Photo credit:https://lifepalette.com/love-god-love-people/
