Christ Walk - Day Seven

Yesterday was an interesting walk.  It did cool off in the evening but I wasn't stoked about going to walk.  I was tired.... My legs hurt... I didn't feel like I had a focus.... Seth really encouraged me to just get out there and do it.

He has been proud of me and is pushing me forward.

I walked up and down and up and down the driveway.  It wasn't as exciting as exploring the dirt.

I wrote a few days ago that I was done body shaming myself.  I'm not body shaming individual parts of me but today I was frustrated with myself.  I was very snacky and felt like I didn't make the best choices.  I know I've had worse days but today I was hard on myself.  A good friend of mine told me that we have to work for the body we want.  For some people, I feel like that isn't very challenging.  That was me up until about 8 years ago.  I've never had to pay a lot of attention to what I eat or how much I workout.  If I wanted to feel better and lose a little weight all I had to do was make a few changes.  This is no longer the case.  A switch flipped in my body when I turned 30.  I know.... I've heard from many friends that 30 is nothing when it comes to how your body changes....

I stress about this stuff.  How lucky am I, though....?  One of my biggest stresses is what I'm writing about here.  Worrying about how I've treated myself and how I feel.  Good grief.  It seems silly.  But big or small it is something that I'm dealing with often.

Day Seven is actually titled "Stress".  I told my mom the other day that sometimes I feel like this book is blank inside until I open it.  That it almost feels like anybody could open it up to page 30 and it would say something different.  It's being written for me as I go and with the challenges I'm facing.

"Stress has a tendency to keep us from communicating with God.... Stress is bad for your relationship with God, for your health, and probably for your family, too."

I'm frustrated because I feel like I've had so much positive insight and self talk in the first few days of my Christ Walk and now here I am battling myself again.  Shouldn't my problems be solving themselves by now?!  Listen to this...

"Sometimes when we are trying our hardest to stay focused and Christ-centered, it seems that there are even more stressful situations being thrown at us."

#truth

I hate to use the trend here - but it was the first thing that popped into my head....

I have felt like several little personal battles have been plaguing me from the beginning of this walk.  I'm accepting all of these as tests to make my journey even more important and trying to believe that this means this really will be the journey that changes my life forever.

I have tried to better my health many times.  Always for vanity.  I don't have any illnesses.  My blood work shows no issues.  But I'm not always happy with myself.  So when I decide that I'm going to make a change it's so I feel better about myself - usually by looking better.  I have done this and that and this and that and usually have great success - but always fall back.

"Discipline takes practice and repetition.  You must do things over and over to make them part of how you live your life.  Research shows that it takes a new discipline being repeated regularly for about six months to become a habit, and even then we still can slip up."

"The good thing is that God is always there to catch us."

He's catching me right now.

I've already been afraid of what life will look like after this 40 day walk.  Will I be able to continue with my 'new life'.  How am I going to keep that focus?  I haven't made a plan for this yet but it crosses my mind every day.

I still haven't walked.  I'm currently standing at 11,821 steps.  That means by the time I go to bed I need to have around 17,000 steps.  Yikes.  I need to make a change.  I need to wake up and get to walking.  Start my day on the right foot, literally.

Will I be able to do that tomorrow....?  Forward planning, I know what my day looks like for the most part... I know what the weather will be like... But will I be able to walk around 5,000 steps starting around 9pm and then wake up before 6 to do it again....?

Stay tuned.