HomeMakers Testimony 9/13/11
In October of last year, I decided after
four children and over 100 pounds of weight gain since I married my husband in
1999, that I wanted to become a contestant on the Biggest Loser television
show. After all, how else would a girl
like me lose all the weight I had gained without the aid of a show like that?
Despite my embarrassment, that I had
allowed myself to become so very heavy, I asked several of my friends to pray
and believe with me for the opportunity.
On my 12th anniversary in March, instead of spending the
majority of my day with my husband, I was at the Mall of America standing in
the largest Q line anyone has ever seen for the Biggest Loser casting
call. I borrowed my friend, Emily’s,
video recorder in order to make what I thought was the perfect audition video,
even taking the time to walk around department stores to point out to producers
that the models shown were not really plus size models at all and other
phenomenon’s in poor taste such as placing the string bikini section adjacent
to the Women’s clothing area in the store.
My plan was to announce on the very last
day of HomeMakers in the spring that indeed I had been chosen. Balloons would fall, everyone would cheer and Living Word would finally receive some
good press. I would stand before you
today, the winner of the Biggest Loser season, and use part of my $250,000
grand prize to have somewhat of an "Oprahesque moment" here at HomeMakers and
provide manicures and pedicures for everyone.
However, the Biggest Loser never called and for a couple of weeks in the
Spring I was emotionally defeated thinking I would never achieve weight loss
and be unhealthy forever.
In the midst of my self pity one night,
I asked my husband if he thought I could lose weight just like the people on
the Biggest Loser show. Without
hesitating, he said, “Of course I do”.
And from there a new vision for health began to blossom.
I decided to take on a weight loss
challenge this summer. Besides diet and
exercise, I would also write a blog in order to keep myself accountable. I called my blog – “Run to Win: 100 pounds in
118 days”. Run to win based on 1
Corinthians 9:24 that says, “Do you not know that those who run in a
race all run, but only one receives the
prize? Run in such a way that you may
win.” 100 pounds because,
if some of the whiners chosen for the Biggest Loser could do it, surely I could
too. 118 days because that is when
HomeMakers would kick off again in the fall.
And even though we did not have additional money to add to our current budget,
I believed that God would provide a way to do it.
I decided my kick off day would be May
17, the day that Dustin Maher came and taught us his Mama Tone class. As he shared that day, he asked us to
envision ourselves 10 years from now if we made no changes to our life
today. For me, that would mean weighing an
additional 80 pounds and therefore, solidified my decision to adopt a healthy
lifestyle even more. At the end of the
class, he blessed me with a DVD set that contained 24 workouts. God was already providing.
As friends began to read my blog and
hear that I was using Dustin’s videos along with other workout videos I had
borrowed from the library, two friends, Monica and Julie purchased the
Biggest Loser and Jillian Michaels videos for me to use. My parents blessed me with CrossFit and
Kickboxing classes at a gym in Maple Grove.
And to help enhance my challenge, Julie also offered to bless me with
a 5K at the end of the summer along with participating with me to cheer me on.
When Julie asked me, I wanted to say yes
as I had thought about participating in 5K races before. However, even when I was a much smaller size,
I would occasionally have problems with my knees and shins while exercising
which made me afraid to try. Yet as I
thought about it more and more, the Lord brought Joyce Meyer's words to mind,
“Do it afraid”. I told Julie yes and
stayed committed to my diet and exercising no less than 5 days a week over the
next couple of months.
Finally, the day of our 5K arrived. This past Sunday, September 11. Despite my training, I was still
apprehensive. Yet I knew this was
something I needed to achieve. In my CrossFit classes, they teach that at the beginning of each workout you should
start with your goal in mind. My goal
for the 5K was only to finish.
As the horn blew and we began our run,
which was more like an aggressive walk for Julie, it turned out that running
was much harder than I imagined. And
even though it was only two laps around Lake Como in St. Paul, by the time I
was 1/5 of the way through the first lap, I started to wonder what on earth I
was even doing there. This was
torture. Instead of Julie paying an
entry fee, the organizers of the race should be paying us to participate! I am not going to lie to you. I thought about
quitting. However, with each exercise
video or workout class I have set out to do from day one of my journey, I had
never quit. I decided that this would be
no different.
One by one, they passed: A man with a baby in a stroller, a family with a six year old little girl, woman who weren’t even running, just
walking. However, Julie kept encouraging me, from
stories of Dory in Finding Nemo singing “Keep Swimming” to words about being an
active participant instead of just sitting on the sidelines. When the leaders of the 5K passed me before I
even finished the first lap, she assured me that was OK and they always pass
her too. And toward the end of the race
when I was so very tired and began to feel like I was circling a lake more the
size of Lake Minnetonka, she kept cheering me on and said, “Why don’t we just
power walk for a while”. As I gasped for
air, I informed her that in my world I was already power
walking. Finally, at 58 minutes and 20
seconds, I crossed the finish line.
Julie and I hugged and cried as we were
both so very happy of what I had accomplished. Something I never believed I would be able to
do just three months ago. Then Julie
looked back at the finish line and exclaimed, “Karen! You weren’t last!” I turned around just in time to see three
other ladies crossing the finish line. Not
only did I finish in under an hour. I didn’t
finish last!
If you knew me last year, you know as I
stand before you today on my 118th day of my challenge that I did
not lose 100 pounds. When I weighed this
morning, my total weight loss had only come to only 22 pounds. However, in the past three months more than
anything I have learned that my total weigh lost is only secondary. What is more important is all that I have
gained: energy, strength, a desire to eat healthy, perseverance to keep moving
forward and the ability to know longer feel ashamed of the person I am. Today is not the end of my journey, only the
end of the first chapter of many to come on the road to become healthy. Pastor Mac is right when he says, “If you
don’t quit, you win!”
