South Beach Update

This is for Judifree :) I am no quite sure how much weight I have lost at this point. I dont have a scale at home and I usually go to the gym late at night to work out and weigh myself then. Well my weight that late at night, depending on what I have eaten for dinner, is always different. I need to buy a scale. But, good news is my pants are fitting a lot better and I can definately tell my body is smaller and more firm. Yay for me!
The one thing that was hard for me for the first 2 weeks of the diet was that I had a hard time running for long distances on mostly protien. It seriously at points felt like my legs were 50 lbs weights. Now I can have a little more carbs so running is a lot better.
I feel good! Its a fun challenge to find new recipes and fun things to eat. And it definately feels good to be disciplined :)
Does anyone have good tips or recipes that they have done while getting back into shape? Judi - I know that people want to know how you lost 40 lbs on the South Beach. How long did it take you? What are your secrets?
As soon as I can weigh myself at a normal time of the day I will let everyone know the progress.

EXPELLED!!!!!

Curt and I went and saw "Expelled - No Intellegence allowed", on Saturday night. It was such a good documentary!!! I urge everyone to go and take as many people with you as you can. It is a great move for kids 12 and up to go see too. Liberals are up in arms about this movie and I think we need to supoort Ben Stein in this.

South Beach

How to weigh yourself and get the most accurate result.

I cant believe that I have been doing it wrong all these years!!!!
We Must get the word out!!

So, I started the South Beach diet today. I must admit that this last year and a half has not been my trophy period of eating well and working out. I think the "big move" to Colorado got me out of sync with myself and away from everything and everyone that I love, which therefore made food a joy and comfort. Also, has anyone else noticed that when you get married you seem to start eating more for no apparent reason? It has been shocking to realize how much and how often men need to eat. For example, lets say that I am not hungry, or forget to eat lunch until about 2pm in the afternoon. At 6pm we are meeting a bunch of friends for dinner at PF Chang's so I know that I don't want to eat a full lunch at 2 pm because I wont be hungry at 6 pm to eat a fabulous dinner. Therefore, I will just eat something small or veggies or something like that. If the same thing happened to Curt, he would eat a full meal at 2pm and a full meal at 6pm.

Friday night we were planning on going to a really great restaurant for dinner. Curt wanted to go home first and chill for a while before we spent the night out at dinner and a movie. Well, by the time we left the house and got the restaurant, there was an hour wait to get a table. Of course I would have been just fine waiting, but Curt got a panicked look in his eyes and said quite decidedly that he could not wait that long to eat. So driving between that restaurant and another restaurant that could seat us faster, he about died from hunger. Why you ask? Because men just need to eat. They cant just make a mental decision that they will wait a little longer or they will have a nervous breakdown and get really, really grumpy. Am I right? Or is that just my husband? So I say all of that to say, when you are first married, you tend to take on the eating habits of your husband, even though you don't need to. At least I did....

I have heard that once you hit 30, losing weight is a whole new challenge. Well, I turn 30 on May 1st so I decided it was time to get on the ball before everything goes south. Scary isn't it....turning 30. Wow.....I don't think I am ready.

Here are my thoughts on the opposite side of dieting....whether you think I need to lose weight or you think I am crazy for talking about it. I am extremely passionate about this subject because I feel that our country, and even christian women have turned our bodies into idols. I am all about being healthy and exercising but our culture is obsessed with looking good! For some reason we think that the value of the person lie in how they look.

I hate, hate, hate that the devil robs us of so much joy in life because our happiness depends on whether we are 10 pounds over weight or not.

Life is so not about looking good. I think its one of the main things that the devil, or ourselves, use to distract us from what really matters in life. We obsess about 5 pounds, or the jeans or bathing suit that we want to fit into and don't fill ourselves with the things that will last for eternity.

I just recently had a really long conversation with my good friend about this subject and I know that every woman out there struggles with this stuff to a point. So, work out and eat healthy if you want. I know that working out just makes me a happier wife and friend. And if you love yourself just the way you are, hallelujah! But make sure that you are working on that which lasts for eternity more than that which will fade away in the next 50 years :) And be sure to encourage all the other women you know to do the same thing.

God made us PERFECT!!!! Ephesians 6:12 - For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Friends and random pictures

My friend Jill and I went shopping together for clothes to take on the trip and knowingly bought the same exact shirt but then ended up wearing it on the same day by accident. We obviously could have changed before we left the house but we really didn't care :) There is also a picture of Jill and her husband Matt in the mix and they are one of our favorite friends here in Colorado :)
In another picture, there is a group of us praying for two ladies. These ladies were walking by the church, saw us all in their praying and came in and asked if they could receive Jesus as their Savior. Can you believe it! I was so awesome!
There is a picture of 3 African girls, Barbara, Gloria and Julie, who were our favorite girls of the bunch. They just really bonded with the girls on our team and will always have a place in our hearts!
The two pictures, before the last picture are of the group eating at a food court in the mall in Uganda. I think I had Chinese food and Curt had Greek food. There was about 6 different restaurants that you could choose from and it was all great food.

The very last picture is of Dean, (who is on the far left) he is the reason that Curt and I met, and he led our team, Pastor Robert; who is the pastor of the church we help plant in Wakiso and then Bill from China who is a great evangelist that came to minister with us.

The End :)

Noah

This is Noah, one of the boys that we support to go to school. He graduates this year and has good enough grades to get him into law school :) We are so proud of him. This was my first time meeting him, Curt millionth time. He was so sweet, very shy around me but sweet.

Curt Preaching

Curt preached Sunday morning at his friend Pastor Emmas church. I think the church was only about 3 months old. It was definitely rural :)Curt did such an awesome job. He just has an amazing way with people and they love him!
Im sure it was his preaching that kept the people so enamored, but then again, they could have been thinking, "I had no idea they made men that large". :)

Ugandan Food

Here are pictures of the Ugandan food they served us for lunch. Actually, the first picture is of a fish that we got at a restaurant on our way to the airport, leaving Uganda. The fish is called Talapia and they give you the whole fish and you just pick the meat off it. Some people actually ate the eye but I wasn't that nuts. What some people will do to get attention :) Next to the lovely fish in the green bottle was my favorite drink called, "Bitter Lemon". I had this drink a lot when I traveled Europe and I think the best in the world is in Germany, but Ugandan bitter lemon is pretty good too :)

So the food on the tables in no specific order - The stuff that looks like flour tortillas is called "chapatti". Its a thin deep fried bread that is to die for. I think I ate that whole plate. Then there is a picture of a pumpkin. They peeled the pumpkin, gutted it, filled it with veggies , wrapped it in banana leaves and cooked it over an open fire. It was pretty good and any kind of fresh veggies that you got you would eat because they don't have a ton of them.
The brown, poop looking food was peanut sauce. That was really good. They usually put it on rice to eat it. I love Thai peanut sauce, but Curt does not like it, but he likes Ugandan peanut sauce. Thai peanut sauce is sweeter than Ugandan, just to give you an idea.
In two of the pictures, there is a plate of yellow mash looking stuff that is called "matokie". Matokie comes from the banana family, it looks like a little banana when they are still green. and they grow in clusters like the banana. Matokie is a staple in Uganda; it doesn't really have a flavor, has the consistency of spaghetti squash and mashed potatoes mixed together. They pour a really good meat broth over it and eat it that way. I liked it but Curt hates matokie :)
The purple and white looking food is their version of a yam. Looks nothing like our yams, has a chalky consistency and not much taste. They always had fruit, bananas, pineapple or mango. Their fresh fruit was the best.

Random Pictures

These are random pictures of Ugandan life. The 3rd picture down is a huge billboard that says, "Say no to Sugar Daddies." It had a picture of a council man, a student, a sugar daddy and a community member. I guess Uganda has a huge problem with young girls, basically selling themselves to rich men for college fees. The rich men will take care of them during college in exchange for other fees. So much so that they need billboards to promote saying no. We drove by it everyday and it cracked us up every time we saw it.
Every morning we drove straight through the city on our way to Wakiso and every morning we would see huge groups of men standing around. We still dont know what they were doing....maybe it was their job to stand around? I dont know :)

They had a few supermarkets there but they were mostly used by foreigners. The natives used small markets that were every where. You could basically set up a stand in your front yard and sell products. Then of course they had large open markets where people brought their products to sell. All the meat was out in the open. Its not cut as nicely as our meat here :) They just start hacking away at the meat and leave bone and fat on it. So when you eat it, you have to eat around a leg bone, not like ribs here :) It was quite interesting.

The Hill

So the driving in Uganda is indescribable. Chaotic to the point that you think..., "how are we even getting anywhere" or, "how are we even still alive?". Thank the Lord that we had the BEST driver in the universe taking us around everyday. But not only was the driving from one side of the city to the next everyday bad enough, before we got to the house we had to encounter the "Hill". I swear to you this thing was straight up. And Cabugo (probably not how you spell it but it is phonetically correct) was a master at getting the 30 passenger bus up it everyday. I kid you not, there were houses on one side of the hill and a cliff on the other. I swear to you I got saved again every time we drove up it. One time it had rained so much and it was to slippery and muddy to make it up the hill so he had to stop in the middle, let us all out and we walked the rest of the way. The pictures of the hill are us walking down the hill the next morning to get to the bus that they had to park at the college. And yes, that is a road in Uganda.