Fitness Friday-Counting the cost

The annual Fine Arts Banquet was this past Saturday. On this night we honor all of the hard work of our students in worship ensemble, studio art, yearbook, drama, choir and strings. It includes handing out Honor and Merit awards, Rookie of the Year, Spirit, Service awards and etc. There are acts, videos, art displayed and it wraps up our year of competitions and galleries.

Our Fine Arts Director spoke about how our Passions will cost us. I could never pen it as eloquently as she delivered it but I will summarize my thoughts which were inspired by her words.

The movie "The Passion of the Christ" is rightly named, as passion means "suffering". He suffered for those whom he loved, he paid the price for us. His passion is for us.

In that same way our passions in life will cost us. God gifts us all individually and uniquely. That doesn't mean that those talents come easily...in fact, most of us put more time and effort into our God given talents than other areas of our life so that we can perfect them and use them to give honor back to the Lord. No one ever realized that they had a passion or gift for playing the piano and immediately sat down and played Beethoven's 5th symphony. It takes commitment, time, patience and suffering. It costs you.

Training for my marathon!

She mentioned that "getting fit for Mrs. Harvell has cost her something". I was touched that she noted that.....not to many people (except those who wrestle with this same goal) understand the cost of a healthy lifestyle, especially in today's world. I started thinking about the cost of eating healthy, exercising and training and thought I would elaborate.

Weight training at 5am!

Obviously there have been financial costs. I have paid for an Advocare 24 day challenge kit and 5 weeks of personal training. After that though my only cost have been workout clothes and buying a brand new smaller wardrobe (which lets be honest is every girls dream!!)

Icing my knees on top and heating my hamstrings after a half marathon!

There have been physical cost. I recently went to an ENT and found out that the reason I immediately lose hearing when my heartrate goes up is due to exercise induced asthma. So I either deal with the snotty nose and hearing loss or I stop working out....meh, no biggie, I choose exercise.
I was SO SORE the day after my marathon that I couldn't go potty without wincing in pain...now that's a PHYSICAL COST. I have yet to deal with an injury that took lots of therapy or surgery but I know other athletes do. Fortunately my IT issue was cured with some stretching and a Cryotherapy session.

Spinach, chicken, mushroom and broccoli with some ginger sauce..YUM

There is also a lot of time that I sacrifice for this lifestyle.  I go to bed by 9:00 every night and get up at 4:45 every morning. I have trained myself to be awake then, often times turning off my alarm clock before it ever goes off. Adam swears he never hears me leaves the house :). I do this to negate anytime that I might lose with my kids. Working out before they ever wake up and before the madness of breakfast/braids/uniforms begins is a must in my house. I have also given up time to sit and stare at my cell phone at the park in order to literally run circles around them or do squats while pushing them on the swing. I gave up several hours of relaxing during their naptime last summer as I was outside laying our flagstone patio. The only other time I give up is the extra 5-10 minutes a day I spend meal planning. I usually eat 1/2 of what I am making them for dinner, usually the veggie sides or protein and then make myself something else to go alongside of it. I also spend time calculating my calories every day..but honestly most of that is done in the car while Adam is driving us to drop off Baby Boy and then to school.

Getting a professional massage while heating my knees

The more touchy sacrifice has been the cost of relationships or at least strain on those relationships. I won't go into detail but some family members and friends have made hurtful remarks...heck, some of them don't support me at all. They use words like "anorexic" or "obsessed" or "unhealthy" to describe my goals and daily routines. In the end I had to realize that I am doing this for myself and no one else and in all honesty, I am pretty stinking proud of myself. I also know that I have a super supportive husband who will (and has) let me know when I take things to far or push myself to much. I need to include the fact though that there are other relationships that have been strengthened due to this lifestyle as well. I am now 10x closer to my Mon/Thurs workout buddy Debbie...we have talked our way through motherhood, our relationship with the Lord, our jobs, husbands, love, health, food, etc. as we sweat it up!!! I have built a close community with other ladies who join in on occasional workout or who I keep up with on Runkeeper or Facebook. I have built up accountability with my mom and now can always count on her to workout with me when I go home to Alabama..thats generally our only alone time!!!

Right after the marathon..HOT SHOWER, ICED KNEES, Cheerios plus protein!!!

In conclusion, if something is worth doing there will be a cost. Meeting your goal wouldn't be so sweet if there wasn't sacrifice included. I wouldn't have cried when I ran 26.2 miles if I hadn't trained myself and pushed myself to do more than I ever thought possible. Olympians don't cry on the medal stand because they are sore....I totally would...., but instead because they know that all of their sacrifice has paid off. They have met their goals...they have lived out their passions!

My favorite decal :)