Climb! Climb! Climb!

My new background picture is not coincidental. I climbed the Middle and South Tetons in 2006 and it was life changing. This is a picture that gives you a teeny tiny idea how big the Tetons are when you're actually trying to climb them. If you look closely you can see little people climbing up the snow and the Middle Teton base is on the left of the little people. The Middle Teton is incredible and I'll never forget how I felt when I reached the summit. I was scared. I was tired. I was thirsty. I was cold. I was worried. I felt incredible despite all the negative feelings I had. My biggest worry was how in the heck am I going to climb down now? We started at 4:00AM and didn't finished until about 6:00PM and we were absolutely exhausted but it was well worth it. It was hard and scary and I'll probably never do it again but I'm glad I lived to tell the tale. I used to use mountain climbing as a way to put things in perspective. I would consider each mountain that I climbed a sanctuary for me to reflect about God's love for me, His amazing power, His amazing ability to create, and of course a reminder that if He can make these mountains He can do incredible things with my life. Today I witnessed the wedding of a friend in the Salt Lake temple and it was so beautiful. I was reminded again of love of the Lord. He is really in control of everything. I sometimes think I have to fight this battle of weight and health issues alone but I am dead wrong. He gave me my body and the tools to take care of it and it's up to me to honor this precious gift. I think when I mistreat my body in any way it damages my spirit and when I neglect my spirit, in turn, I am not taking care of my body. I have never been a good scripture reader but living a gospel centered life has always been important to me. I think this new year I will work on taking better care of my body and my spirit and allowing the love of the Lord to teach me patience- patience that this disease will take its course and in time I will find a solution to my weight gain. Patience that I will overcome my tendency to eat more food than my body needs. Patience that I will grow stronger and stronger as I exercise and take care of my body. Patience in all things. I am my own worst critic but it's because I feel so powerless sometimes- it's like I've said before, I know that food is not the answer to my problems but man it tastes good and makes me feel good!! Little by little I'm making progress on listening to my body. Today at the wedding luncheon I stopped myself, pushed my plate away and realized I was getting to the point of satisfied and if I ate a few more bites I would feel a little uncomfortable. I waited and then without thinking about it ate a few more bites and almost instantly I realized I was stuffing more food in my body than it wanted. I stopped eating. Dan went and got dessert and I didn't get any- sure, it looked good but I knew if I ate dessert I would have a stomach ache and feel like crawling into bed for the rest of the day and those consequences seemed less desirable than the dessert. These are little steps for me. I still feel miles and miles away but like this picture reminds me, it's one little step a time. You don't climb a mountain in one day but eventually you'll get there. Tonight I'm going to the gym and will really enjoy the feeling of riding the spin bike (if I make it there in time, if not, it will be the feeling of running and weights!) I LOVE how I feel after I work out. Having Dan as my partner makes it so much more enjoyable as well.