Matt Singley has a great series going on now about New Media.  One of the things that I have begun advocating to our staff and others is the idea of following bloggers.  I know how much power comes with my (albeit limited) interaction with the CITRT.  While I’ve never been to an in-person round table meeting, I read like crazy.  The interaction I’ve received between other Church IT professionals has enable me to function much better in my job.

So, does your children’s minister follow children’s ministry blogs?  Does your missions pastor read missions blogs?  Why not?  Have them read Matt’s post about Google Reader and start subscribing to blogs.

Jason asked that each of us who lost double digits share our secrets. I’m going to use Tony’s post as a template to accomplish this. I did make some pretty significant life changes to accomplish my results in this competition, but nothing revolutionary. There really aren’t any secrets in this post, just the recipe for my results.

Exercise: I started out in December by walking 2-3 miles a day, and I worked up to walking 5 miles a day. Each day I would try to walk a little faster than the day before. Walking was great since I stayed to main roads and always saw people I know. That was a tremendous encouragement (and accountability - “I didn’t see you walking yesterday”) to keep going. I did the walking thing until it started getting rainy and hot. Then I joined the gym. For the last few weeks, I have been doing time on the eliptical trainer. Whoop. I started out going 20 minutes on level 1, now I’m up to 50 minutes on level 4.

Diet: This is the area that I made the most changes, and it really has had the biggest impact on my weight loss. Most people agree that you will lose one pound for every 3,000-3,500 calories you eliminate from your diet. I added up today that prior to starting up in the competition, I was consuming about 4,200 calories a day. I set out to keep that number under 2,000 every day and consistently kept it between 1,200-2,500 calories a day. The big changes I made were: not drinking calories (no regular sodas and limited diet sodas), eating lots of fiber, reducing the amount of candy I eat (none at first, sparingly today), and not eating fried foods.

I didn’t worry about carbs. Bob says that the Atkins diet works for people with sedentary lifestyles, but carbs were essential for active people. I casually counted calories and stayed away from fried foods that slow me down. I didn’t carry a calculator or a log, and I wasn’t super anal about what I ate. I wouldn’t have kept it up if I made it that hard on myself.

Eating Frequency: The only change that I made in this area was to work breakfast into my schedule.

I chose to eat less: I did eat less, as I slowed down and let my body have time to tell me it is full. I used to always eat in the car, and I read that was a bad thing to do because you’re concentrated on driving, not on eating. What this does is psychological in that your body never felt like it ate, so you want to eat more. Now, I always sit down to eat. No questions. When I get full, I stop eating.

This is a work in progress, and I am so thankful for the accountability and encouragement I received in the contest. I still haven’t received a prize yet, but that’ll probably propel me on even more. Looking forward to the next round!