Today is Sunday and my official first day of the smoothie experiment diet starts tommorow! I know I was supposed to start last week but I just made it to the store. I also wanted to wait till Monday because that will give me 25 weeks by Christmas. Then it will be the exact same time as Valerie Winters. I have been fighting thoughts like, can I really do it and "what if" ing myself crazy. I know that I NEED this and God is going to be right beside me the whole time. Iam so thankful that even though right now I hardly have any friends to help me through this I have God. I mentioned that I am also on a healing process as well. Right now I am very emotional because I am letting myself feel things that I have been regressing for years. I will not let the devil beat me like this again! He is trying to make me believe that I can't do this and putting negative thoughts in my head. He is tempting me right now, making me want sweet tea and chips. I'm so glad that God knows my end as well as my beginning and that is how he sees me. I choose whether I am going to make the right food choices and I choose whether to exercise or not-it's my choice. So I have no one to blame if I don't do it. I have never finished anything I started, but this is going to be different. I am so desperate to change, this time is different because I have given God full permission to do in me as He wants so I can be in His will. I am giving Him full access to my heart. I am fully surrendering to Him. I thought I have before, but He made me realize that I gave him everything, but the deep, dark, hurts and pains in my heart, the place that is shattered and broken, the place that no one else gets. So now it is His. I am allowing Him to mend and fix the places where only He is allowed to dwell. I am allowing Him to bring His light in the dark. I am learningto trust Him as my daddy. It is hard because in the past I have been so disappointed by my earthly father, but I know God will never hurt me and disappoint me. Let me mention again that I am not talking bad about my dad, he is a gret man. We just never had a relationship. I mean he lived with me, but we never had a real, true relationship. So bad I wanted to tell him how hurt I was and how I just needed him. I just wanted him to be there for me and listen to me and to love me, not just say he loved me but show me. I don't blame him, because I think in his heart he was doing the best he could. The devastation it caused me from the lack of a relationship with him triggered alot of bad choices in my life. I made my own choices and I take responsibility for all I have done, it's just that that is what influenced me. The feeling of never really feeling loved is hard for someone to bear. It makes you "look for love in all the wrong places." Lord knows I wish I would have just trusted Him a long time ago instead of waiting till now. It would have saved me alot of heartache, disappointment, and failures. I refuse to be a victim of my circumstances any more! So today I am saying,"Lord do in me what you have to, what is needed and necessary to make me whole again." Create in me a new heart, clean me and make my heart pure. Give me your eyes and your heart. Help me to see opportunities to bless people and to minister to them. Help me to fully trust and rely on you. I need you as my rock and my fortress so my house will not fall. Help me to fill the love you have for me. Bring to my rememberance the things I have done and forgot that I need to ask forgiveness for. Help me to treat people the way you would. Help me to be like you. I know I am made in your image, help me to be able to walk it out. Help me to align my will up with the will you have for my life. May I bring encouragement to others and may I be an inspire those that need help. Help me so that I may help others. My heart is broken but God I am trusting you! just my thoughts.

Tommorrow....tommmorow...I love ya...tommorrow-you're only a day away!

Okay so my blender is on its way to my house and is promised to be delivered today. I am going to the grocery store today to get some fresh fruits and vegetables and to get ready to srart my "experiment" tommorow. I read testimonies of people who tried this and lost tons of weight! I am also going to be exercising, which is very important! I am studying herbs and plants and their healing properties. I have been dreaming every night for over 3 years that I had done something to get started on my weight loss journey, but when morning came I would just fall back in the same routine. I am asking the Lord to show me how to do this, not my way, but His way. For Him to give me wisdom and supernatural strength to be able to tear down this terrible stronghold that the enemy has held me in. I have been in chains for far too long and I am fixing to be set free. This journey is also about emotional healing and being set free from it all-all the junk! And who God sets free is free indeed! I know that when this is all done I will be able to do so much more, my quality of life will be better. I don't tell people this out of fear of rejection or what they will think of me but I have been hiding behind my self. If that makes sense. In reality I feel totally different than I act sometimes. I will force a smile on my face and tell everyone I'm doing good and things are great, when on the inside I am broken, torn and dying inside. I was afraid to tell people that I hate being fat and because I knew I would hear,"well do something about it," or "well when you are finally ready, then you'll do it." That is terrible to hear. Or people that try to guilt you into doing right, that just made me want to go eat a big cheeseburger and cry! WHy? Because people need to be encouraged and lifted up! They need to hear, "you can do it, " and "I believe in you!" It hurt me when someone told me that "if I cared about my kids then I would lose the weight." While they are one of the main reasons I'm doing this, I didn't need to hear that. When people are not encouraging and they think they are being "tough" all they are really doing is provoking anger. It turns into anger, but you have to let it go and forgive them, because they are not trying to cause you pain, they really do want what is best for you, they just don't know how to go about it. I beleive in order to lose weight and keep it off you have to deal with the emotional and psycological aspects of being overweight as well. I mean I definately need to dig within side myself and ask why I would let myself get to 270 pounds! Because when I looked in the mirror, my vision was blurred, I guess. I mean I knew I had gained weight, but it was not until i SAW pictures I was in that I was shocked. Immediately depression started to kick in. Those feelings of can I really lose weight and is that really what I look like to other people? Oh my! How embarasing. It afftects the way I deal with people. For example I hated gatherings at church when there was food. Because I felt like people were thinking "she don't need that, what she needs is to go walk." I have a hard time looking men in the eyes, especially when they are talking to me directly. The big overwhelming sense of insecurity would take over and I thought "they think i'm so hideous and fat" and there is no way that they think I'm attractive. I never wanted another man, just trying to expalin how I felt.! I really don't care about other mens opinions of me, but I was afraid they thought I was disgusting. I guess you could say that I feel unworthy and I have for a long time. Unworthy of good relationships, unworthy of love, and unworhty of a relationship with God.(which I know is a lie, because God sees me as a finished product) I felt the need to have a BIG personality because it had to cover the fact that I was a BIG person. I would try to say things that were funny because I thought well at least they'll think I'm funny and that will give them a reason they can like me, because in my twisted sense of reality I thought there was no way they would like my "fat butt." I would always say "well you know big guh's gotta eat" and I would laugh, but on the inside I hated myself. There are so many times that I have said things that I shouldn't or that was inappropriate that I really didnt mean, but I was trying to "cover up." I also really believe that bigger people are discriminated in the work place. I overheard a man saying that the skinny girl looks like she could get more work done, while I was on an interview. So I guess he assumned that since I'm overweight I must be lazy! But all this is very soon going to be the past. I am working on seeing myself the way God sees me and coming to the place where I have peace with myself and can love myself again. I know this will take one day at a time and thank you for walking this journey with me.

Starting

Tommorow I will be getting my Vita-mix in the mail, and I can hardly wait! I will officially be starting myself on the Green Smootie Challenge. I will be eating, well I should say drinking only green smoothies for the next six months! I need this dramatic kind of change because I am wanting dramatic weight loss! I hope on my weight loss journey that I can find encouragement and be encouraging to others as well. My goal is to lose 150 ponds by Christmas!!! I need to do this for not only myself, but for my kids. They deserve a mom that can play with them and keep up with them, not a mom on the "side lines." I don't want to be the "fat" mom. I don't want my children to be embarassed of me. I want to be the kind of mom that the kids can play with and be proud of. I know this is going to be a long journey, and a hard one at that. I will probably be doing alot of crying, but I know in the end it will be worth it. I am leaning and trusting on God throughout this journey to give me courage and the strength, determination, and preserverence to go and do it. I know that He will be here with me and I know that with Him I can do it! I am so glad that on this challenge for better health, I am also challenging myself to develop a deeper intamacy with my heavenly daddy. I am learning to see myself as a daughter, and its hard when you don't have a good relationship with your earthly daddy. Don't get me wrong I love him and honor him and he is a good man, but we have never been close. I have never understood the whole daddy-daughter relationship, but I am learning. So my goals for the next year are not just weight loss, but building my relationship with my God, and being a better wife and mother to my children. I am going to have to learn to have the right relationship with food, wierd to say, but it's true! It's kind of like I have been hiding the true me in the fat me and I have been afraid to come out! So many things I have to work on, but I have the time. In all of it, I will always give God the Glory! I am nothing without Him, and with Him I am everything! Peace to all, Audra