Health Goal Accomplished

On November 27, 2005 I set a goal to decrease my weight from 207 lbs to 190lbs and my waist from 36 to 33. I did not set a time limit as to how long it would take to accomplish this goal. I committed the goal to daily prayer. My desire in sharing progress is not to impress you with my results. Everything I accomplish in life, I owe fully to God's sustaining power to work in me and through me.

I do hope that it provides some encouragement to those that are struggling to lose weight and/or become better stewards of their health. This truth has been reinforced many times in my life: prayer and focus work. The things that you measure tend to improve especially when they are consistently bathed in prayer.

Food and drink have always been huge issues for me. I have been able to hide my addiction to them because I am relatively tall- 6'3"- and I have frequently exercised the last 12 years. Gluttony will be a battle I will most likely have to fight on a daily basis along with other sins. It is one of the crosses that I have to carry. My personality is compulsive by nature.

Fully aware of the physical and spiritual struggle, I set out to make progress towards my goal at a very difficult time of year to do so- Christmas. I measured seven areas:

1. Waist size
2. Weight
3. Estimated daily calorie intake
4. Daily water intake
5. Daily diet soda intake
6. Daily regular soda intake
7. Average calories burned from exercise daily

I had read that in order to lose weight, it is a good idea to consume less than 10 times your body weight in daily calories. For me that number was somewhere less than 2000 calories per day. I used www.thecaloriecounter.com to help me estimate/track my calorie intake daily. My goal was to eat five small meals per day and to just say "no" to second helpings.

I also have read that you should consume 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water per day. This number for me was 100 ounces of daily water. I measured soda intake because I was averaging nearly 48 oz of diet coke per day and wanting to cut that significantly.

Finally, I measured the amount of calories that I burned each time I exercised. There is a useful website that helped me track this: www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc. In the nearly three months that I tracked my results- which I will continue to do as I seek to maintain and make further improvements in the stewardship of health, I recorded the following results:

1. Waist size: From 36 inches to 32 1/2 inches
2. Weight: From 207 lbs to 190 lbs
3. Estimated daily calorie intake: 1845 (average closer to 2400 calories previous)
4. Daily water intake: 109oz (average closer to 70oz daily previous)
5. Daily diet soda intake: 33oz (average closer to 48oz previous)
6. Daily regular soda intake: 4oz (average closer to 12oz previous)
7. Average calories burned from exercise daily: 408 (225 daily average previous)

I am happy with the physical results. But the greater benefit has come spiritually. My next goal is to take the diet soda intake from 33oz to less than 12oz average daily. God is good. He is faithful to honor the desires of our heart that have His ultimate glory in mind. I hope that my struggles and small successes in this area will inspire you to reach for excellence in the stewardship of health.

I am reminded by a verse in I Timothy 4:8, "Bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds the promise for the present life and also for the life to come." But until the day believers inherit resurrected, glorified bodies, I urge you to take care of the earthly body. When it wears out, we have nowhere else to live until the resurrection of the dead.

For His Glory,

Ashley Hodge