Beauty & Beast in one

Why women should weight lift!

- Reduce your risk of Alzheimer's, improve cognitive function in elderly women
 - Endorphins make you happen, happy people don't shoot their husbands
  - Smarten up, Southern state Uni research proved strength training is associated with higher GPAs
   -  Decrease injury risk
    - Decrease osteoporosis risk, denser bones, less fragile
     - Zzzz... better sleep
      - Calm down! Stress relief, reduce irritability, anxiety
       - Burn more calories
        - Banish belly fat, weight lifting burns more deep belly fat then just cardio alone
         - Diabetes proof, causing muscles to use more glucose for energy which lowers blood sugar
          - 12 weeks of training can lower systolic & diastolic blood pressure
           - Heart disease, no thanks!! Body will be leaner, less fat, less risk
            - Open your own pickle jar, improved handgrip is a marker of overall strength
             - Confidence boost, one of the most empowering things a women can do
              - Protect your back, reg. strength training helps ease lower chronic back pain
              - Relieve neck, strengthening neck and shoulders reduces pain
             - improve balance
            - lower cholesterol, boost good cholesterol which combats against bad cholesterol
           - Breathe easy, improve max capacity to transport and use oxygen while exercise
          - Run faster, improve 5K by 3%
         - Boost libido, increase testosterone which boosts sex drive in females
        - Curb cravings, lower ghrelin levels, a hunger stimulating hormone found in the gut
       - Hit cancer hard! protect body against oxidative stress, believed to contribute to cancer
      - Boost metabolism, muscles builds up your metabolism, burn more longer after workout
     - Look sexy, help yourself build and preserve lean muscle, creates tight and toned bod
    - rid yourself of cellulite, diminish it
   - Stand tall, improves posture
  - Body image
 - Explore, reason to venture out of land of steppers, spin class & treadmill & go into the weight room

Banana Butt

In a few weeks I will be leaving quite a bit to enter into the unknown.
University.
Brochures, pamphlets, emails, websites, phone calls were what I saw of Trent. The life there, trying to grasp how I will fit among the crowd of busy students, all trying to make a name for themselves. Now I'll be fully submerged in the coming season.
Its pathetically true, but the one thing, the one living, glorious creature I will miss most of all is my Labrador-retriever Jessie.

She has white and blond eyelashes, doe brown eyes, the biggest fan tail and a plethora of names to fit every mood we're in. My little banana butt. The apple of my eye. It's very hard for me not to believe that an animal can have a soul. I swear she does.
These past weeks, she been giving me more and more attitude, I suspect she's gathered that I'll be leaving her soon.
One thing I love to do with this 6 year old beauty is get her outside, photograph her, capture her character. My companion. My buddy.

Here are some that I hope will be inspiring, but also show off my Jessie-girl ...

What to expect?

as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

phil 1:20 

I remember a few years ago, looking at my friends, looking at magazines, filled with jealousy and envy. All I wanted was to look like those girls. I looked more like the boys, beefy, chubby, strong. Words like dainty, tiny, skinny, feather I wished could describe me, but that never happened. I thought there was something wrong with me. I'd ask my dad, "when will I start to look more feminine?" He'd smirk and say "just wait!" I boiled in disbelief.

 

I see myself differently now.

I'm tall and that worked to my advantage. I'm an upside down triangle, portioned to swim and run and lift heavy objects with joy and pleasure. Sixteen was my year for courage. To fold up self pity and tuck it away. I rolled up my sleeves and began a new shameless lifestyle. Belief in my body's power. Every temple is unique, some are made of limestone, marble, some are pointed, some are flat, inspire of Egyptians, Aztecs, Romans. Colorful, plain.

 

God desires our own acceptances for ourselves. We're critics of a perfect artist. We should be silent and admire and yet we degrade the art piece.

 

Challenge yourself to expect that God has given you this blueprint of your temple for a reason, for a gift to the world, for your eyes to behold and rejoice in.  

 

Many paths

Changing the name of this blog, my blog, little babe of a blog was difficult, but it now allows me to embrace a new direction it will be taking. I love many things. God, people, creation, empowerment, admiration for our beautiful temple-bodies, creativity and all other things I can put words to. I like words, letters forming words, sheers of gold, onto the lips to form speech. To read, to envision. To enjoy.

So I will be writing about my dreams, about powerlifting, about limits and trying to overcome them, about scripture, photographs, recipes, school. Every entry, different and messy.

//Here we go//

Fear-FULL Hope

I was thinking a lot about the book of Hosea, how it's collected a lot of dust in my life, so I opened it up and found hope.
 
6: 1-3 Hosea
 
^ I will write it out in a bit. The book had many curses & blessings. From what I gathered, God is telling the people of Israel through Hosea (Joshua) that another nation will destroy them. And after the fact, God will be able to bless Israel again. The beginning of their end happened when Israel was introduced to other gods as they fought with different nations. As kings came & went, Israel became smaller and broke their covenant with God.

Brokenness was poured into Israel. Humility sprouted. Faith was desired again.

God tells His people that He will bring them health, but first Israel must try to 'know' God.

Even though this book is old testament, I am humbled by it's story. I didn't live in the mid-8th century... Jesus has come, has died for me and so there isn't some guy telling my home town that God is going to punish us. Makes me wonder how beautiful the community could be if we lived as though that could be a reality. Not living in fear of God, but living fearfully in God. Get the difference? Sometimes I wonder if having Jesus thrown into the mix makes God's Might and judgment diminish.

Now there' s a question of why I found hope in this book, because if I'm living in 2015 and don't need to worry about God's wrath being unleased why would I relate to this?

" Come, let us return to the Lord;
for He has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him. "

Hope because we all leave. We get torn. We get struck down! Except it's not God doing it to us now. It's this wide world, it's broken like Israel was. But when people return to God, they are healed and bound together again. He is telling me through this passage that he is the reviver of our lives. He is powerful enough to raise us up out of the mud of this world when it becomes too thick. He just wants us to keep coming back.

Living fearfully allows us to remain in hope. Israel lost that fear. People today, lose that fear.

" Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord,
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth. "

Consistent faith, like the sun rising and setting. Not being doubtful if the rain doesn't come for a while, it'll just stop all together. Faith that knowing God more, learning He comes in his time. He has a master plan to bless our lives. We just need to return to him. To fear.
 
Hosea reminds me of a verse I recently came across in Isaiah and I think it ties into what I am trying to say.

" I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says the Lord. "(66:9)

In these moments when we leave God's path & are struck, the pain we may find in our lives doesn't go without serving a purpose. God uses them to create something new for us. Just like God allowed Israel to be destroyed so that a new Israel could be born and blessed. A God fearing land. A beautiful nation. Just as we can live as God fearing people. Learning it's importance from this story. And finding hope in the power of God.

I hope this made sense. I really like Hosea.