Strong Choices

My legs are sore this morning.

I watched Dancing with the Stars last night, and no, I wasn't dancing, but I did get some exercise.  I was jumping.

My husband brought our mini-trampoline into the living room, and while he went for a run, I hopped my way through the show.

I didn't realize a little bit of hopping would work leg muscles that way.

It's a small thing:  a small amount of hopping, a small amount of soreness, but I hope to make those small changes into big ones.

My family heart history isn't very good, and the trend seems to be that I'll fall prey to having heart issues within 15 years of my current age - and my children at the age I am now.

I want to change that trend, to break that history for them, and so I need to make changes.

It isn't always easy, but I could choose a different path.  One that involves more exercise and less chocolate and more veggies.

I'm trying to choose that path.  I'm realizing that it's not a choice I make daily - it's a choice I make dozens of times each day, when I choose between a banana or a cookie, when I choose to read or run, to sleep in get up, to be a couch potato or to hop.

Sometimes I make the good choice, the healthy choice, and sometimes my selfish desires get the better of me and I choose the chocolate-filled way.  For the first time ever, though, I've made enough healthy, good choices so as to feel physically yucky when I make a bad one.  My body is not only getting used to good choices, but it depends on them - and that helps me to continue making them.

I've never wanted to exercise - I've always seen it as a necessary evil - but I'm starting to like it; or, at least to like the way that it makes me feel stronger, healthier, more fit.

It's still not easy, but as I see changes happening, I'm more and more thankful that I have these choices to make.  God doesn't doom me to the past - though I can't change my genetic history and may not be able to avoid diabetes or heart issues - He gives me the freedom to care for the body that He has given me.  I can give it my best effort or be lackadaisical and increase my chances for health issues further down the road.

Two days ago I threw away my son's birthday cake.  At a week old, nobody had touched it since the first cutting on his actual birthday.  That hurt my feelings at first, since I worked hard on it and he had really liked it, when I realized that he wasn't eating it because cake wasn't a priority.  He was too busy enjoying apples and nuts and other yummy things - and isn't that the better choice?

I'm grateful that He's not only given me that choice, but forced my hand into making it now, when my kids are young.  I'm having to make the choice to be healthier as an adult - but they are growing up with a healthier lifestyle in front of them, with better eating habits and more information at their fingertips.

So today, I'm thankful for trampolines and sore muscles and thrown-away cakes and all the bananas you can eat; but most of all, I'm thankful for seeing truth and making good choices.


What about you?

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