So, a month ago my husband and I wrote up a contract and signed it. This contract held us responsible for doing three things: saving up money, exercising, and reading the Bible. I thought I’d give everyone a one month update.
Saving Money
No, money does not grow on trees, and don’t we wish it did? It would certainly help us pay off our student loans if it did.
At the moment, we are doing ok. We’ve built our savings account back up, but it still has a little ways to go before we meet our goal there. One more pay check and it’ll be good. Yeah! Also, our savings account is healthy. Paying off our student loans is next on our to-do-with-our-money list. Let me tell you, I am ready to see it go away! With God’s help, this will be the year it does.
In order to spend less money, we are eating out less. The contract stipulated we eat out only on the weekends, which we are doing. This not only helps us save money, but calories.
Weight Loss
One month ago, my husband and I started exercising. This wasn’t the first time we’d started exercise. This would make my eighth year to make that resolution. I’m hoping that regularly exercising soon becomes a lifestyle, not a three-months-out-of-the-year-resolution lifestyle.
When we started out this year, I was 188lbs, and he was 288. It took us two weeks to figure out what worked. For my husband, bike riding for thirty minutes four times a week on high difficulties work for him. For me, I have to work out for an hour on lower difficulties five or six days a week. He can burn between 500 and 600 calories at a go nowadays–easy. I’ve worked myself to burn over 400 calories at a time. We both hope to see those numbers climb in the future.
To help us lose weight, we are eating less, snacking less, and going out to eat less. This isn’t easy to do. Both of us like eating out, especially on stressful days or when we are running short of time and don’t want to cook. Â But we can’t eliminate eating out, snacking, or our favorite foods. Instead, we are controlling how much of our favorite snacks we eat and how much we eat at our favorite restaurants. This helps us prevent binge eating and cravings. Though we have had to completely cut out some things. I’ve had to give up ice-cream, and my husband has had to give up soda.
On the whole, this has been working for us. Yesterday I weighed 186lbs, and my husband weighed 278lbs.
Bible Reading
Finally, our progress on reading the Bible. My husband has had much more success finding time to read the bible. He actually listens to it while he exercise. Considering he works out for thirty minutes, he can listen to a lot of Bible. He’s past Numbers now and into Deuteronomy.
Me? I’ve had much more . . . choppy progress. To state it optimistically. I haven’t found time to read my Bible and I haven’t been putting a lot of effort to developing a healthy Bible reading habit. Unfortunately.
I know God is a forgiving God, but I look at this and I shake my head. If I had been trying my best, that would have been one thing. But I know myself, and I know I haven’t been trying. Thankfully, there’s still plenty of year left. I’ve just got to start trying again. For real this time.
Living with the Pun Master 