I am sticking it out, still at the gym, and the pounds are still coming off, albeit a bit slower than at first. I love being able to ride up hills in a higher gear and not being out of breath after a few flights of stairs. My husband pokes my ribs and is happier than the witch was when Hansel stuck his arm out thru the cage in the fairytale. There is less and less of me to cook a stew on! I have always upped my nose at people who went to the gym all the time and had no time for anything else, but I am experiencing that taking the time to exercise actually gives me energy so that I get more accomplished. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and even if it is a 50-year-old construction I am not going to let it turn into a ruin. The exercise and diet change has worked! I have put away some clothes that were saggy and found some old clothes under the bed that I haven't been able to fit into for a while. Physical exercise works! You can actually change things with it! The apostle Paul knows it too. He says to Timothy (who perhaps was a fitness freak?!) that physical exercise is pretty good, but spiritual exercise is even better. It changes you on the inside! Just like you can break old habit patterns and shape new ones in a physical way you can take practical steps to get closer to God. Lately I have been conscious of what has gotten into my mouth. Spiritually, we need to watch what goes into our eyes and our ears. We need to fix our minds on that which is good, wholesome, truthful ..... it will make a difference in our spiritual well being. Paul puts it this way: "We'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we are in. Study how he did it, because he never lost sight of where he was headed: That exhilarating finish with God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over it again and again". That's how the Message Bible puts it. I love it. And I aim to live it.

I have been getting really fat lately. I haven't minded so much because I have a wonderful God who loves me anyway and a sweet husband who does the same, but because I had turned fifty I had to go see the Doctor for a regular check-up like my car does after every few thousand miles. Well, The Doctor looked at me sternly, told me that I was bordering on being not just overweight but obese and that my blood pressure showed it. She prescribed diet change and exercise and sent me off into the frosty morning. It was January 2 so it was the time for New Years resolutions anyway. Off I went, determined to get into shape. Fitness.dk is the local gym that has a jacuzzi and a steam cabin and I decided to join that one because I knew I wouldn't last five minutes on a cross trainer unless there was some kind of reward system at the end. I turbo-charged my membership by joining their fat team and started boxing, spinning and exposing myself to other types of torture. Going to the gym for the first time was a really scary thing. I have never been a sporty type and have had ideas of self-absorbed model types in the latest exercise gear filling a gym, so I just didn't think I would fit in. So many negative thoughts flooded my mind as I approached the place on that first fat beating evening. Logically I tried to convince myself that the others probably weren't skinny as rails if they were joining the fat team, but my mind was just flooded with thoughts that almost paralyzed my feet and prevented me from entering: "You will never figure it out. In aerobics you will probably stick out your left arm while everyone else is sticking out their right arm and you will look so stupid". "Everyone else probably has the latest gym fashion and you just have some old sweat pants". "You don't even have a real water bottle, just an old coke bottle!" ... it required all my strength to walk past the wall of negative thoughts and get my butt in there. But I did it. And now, a month later I am 12 lbs. lighter. I have had a taste of spinning, calestenics, boxing and have mastered the digital maze of cross trainers and step machines which know all about me, at least they know what my heart rate should be at 50 years and xx lbs. (Sorry, faithful readers, I love to be transparent with you, but my multitude of pounds mean that I am not quite THAT transparent). Every spare moment I have I head out to the gym for an hour of exercise and I love the energy it gives me. I can actually do something about my weight, I don't have to be fat forever. It amazes me, however, to see how the whole fatness industry is so narcisistic. You can ride a bike wearing a pulse belt for an hour and afterwards receive an e-mail telling you how you performed compared to last time. The cross trainer can tell you your target heart rate and advise you to slow down if you are moving too fast for your own good. I just stare at that blinking heart and do as I am told. And the pounds are coming off. I can master my body. Physical exercise is a whole new world to me and I am loving it. My husband has promised me a trip to Paris when I have lost 20 lbs and I can just see the contours of the Eiffel Tower in the horizon. Physical exercise is pretty good, the Apostle Paul says. I must agree with him. And in my next blog I will muse about spiritual exercise, which Paul also has an opinion about.