Kara

Member Spotlight: LAUREN

By Leave a Comment

I’m so excited for y’all to meet Tribe member, Lauren. You’re going to be so inspired by her journey!

Meet Lauren from Georgia!

How old are you? 39

Are you married? Do you have kids?
Yes, Chris and I have been married since 1999. We grew up in the church nursery together, but didn’t really become friends until high school. I was the baseball manager and he played on the baseball team. We didn’t start dating until I was 17 and he turned 18. I asked him out on our first date for his 18th birthday. We have 3 kids — Cayle, is a college freshman,  Caitlin is in 8th grade and Cooper is in 3rd grade. Chris and I are both teachers. He is a high school health teacher and coaches softball and golf. I teach EIP for kindergarten and 1st graders. This is my 17th year teaching.

Tell us a little bit about your journey:
This is a complicated question to answer. I have been on this journey of trying to be healthy for a long time. I have tried weight watchers – several times, belly fat cure, weight loss God’s way, Curves exercise meal plans, wheat belly and done numerous searching for how to “eat right and lose weight”.

When I joined the TRIBE, I wasn’t doing any sort of meal planning. I just knew I felt terrible. I focused on just doing the workouts and worshiping. I did that for a while and was seeing inches go away. Then, I was diagnosed with PCOS. I went on meds and didn’t really see much change with weight loss. At this point, the weight loss was needed to have a better quality of life and not for vain reasons. I would try each weekend to get my act together with eating protein and produce and would fall so quickly back into the sweet tooth and coke trap.
This past December I really had enough of feeling sick and tired all the time. I had spoken to a friend at work who was doing weight watchers and had PCOS and was getting healthy. I was very hesitant and prayed about going in this direction because I was experiencing the freedom Kara always talks about and didn’t want to completely be obsessed with a program. I signed up, with complete caution to have my guard up, for weight watchers Dec 30, 2017. I went in with the mindset of “I knew the best way for my body to eat is through more protein/produce and limited carbs”. The new Program they have been promoting is eating foods that are considered “free foods”. For me, this moved me to wanting to eat correctly because the free foods are what I needed to be eating….fruits/veggies/chicken/eggs. I have been able to lose 25 pounds since Dec 30. I feel better. I really want to stress though, that had I not been in the TRIBE and been working on my heart and mindset so much prior to joining weight watchers…I don’t believe my priorities would be in the order they should be in, like they are now. For me, I have found a healthy balance of freedom.

One food you can’t live without? Mexican and my Trader Joe’s Liquid Stevia

What is your worst habit? Thinking I’m not qualified/being insecure

What is one thing you love most about yourself? my smile and my hair

What is something hardly anyone knows about you? I danced in the Halftime show for the 1994 Super bowl and the Opening Ceremonies of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta

What is your favorite type of exercise? step aerobics and kickboxing

How did you learn about the At-Home Tribe? google searching for Jesus centered workouts —- I joined Dec 30, 2015!

What is a dream you have for your life? To become and assistant principal and a Fitness Teacher/Gospel Preacher through RevWell

What is your favorite bible verse? Well, this usually depends on what season I am going through in my life. In my college years it was Jeremiah 29:11. When I was helping do 24 hour care for my grandmother it was John 3:16…because she spent so much time sharing with that verse meant to her. When I went through having gestational trophoblastic disease and having to have chemo to treat it, I clung to Psalm 46:10 and Psalm 4:8. This year I have claimed the verse from Isaiah 43:18-19…..because I am not dwelling on the past, but watching Him do a new thing in me.

List one of your favorite recipes:
My favorite thing this week was making Chicken alfredo with zoodles.

What is your favorite thing about the At-Home Tribe? 
I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to say to answer this question, because I could talk about it a long time. The TRIBE just fit what my soul was longing for in my life. The combination of exercise and worship is beyond what I can describe. I can just say I don’t view it as exercise and dread doing it. My mind set has been changed about how I view being able to move my body. Spiritually I have grown so much because I am seeing God in all things.
It has only been the last couple of years since I found wellness witness and the truth that is constantly told to me.
1. I am loved
2. I am worthy
3. I am free
4. I am made for a purpose
5. I am qualified
6. I am forgiven
That I have started living with the godly confidence and living loved like I should be.

I love Kara’s workouts and teachings. I also love the facebook group. The ladies are always welcoming, never judging. In the social media craze…..this group is so refreshing!

The picture on the right was from move-in day with her daughter at college, and the picture on the left was from the last day. Amazing, right?

 

Lauren often invites the other teachers at her school to join her for a Tribe workout at the end of the day. SO FUN!
Just look at the JOY on her face! Total transformation!

If you could give ONE tip to someone just starting out their health journey, what would it be?
For me it was to just press play. The tribe workouts did more for my soul than anything else when I first started. And drink water!! I started small and just kept making small changes.

———

We’re so PROUD of you, Lauren and so grateful you’re a part of the Tribe!
(For fun, if y’all want to read her daughter’s story which we posted a year ago, go HERE).

——–

In case you’re interested in joining the Tribe I wanted to give you a heads up that the doors are closing to all new members on May 30th for at least a few months. When we re-open, the content will be different, and the monthly rate will be higher. If you’ve ever considered joining us, now is the time so that you can lock in the lowest rate that won’t increase as long as you are a member.
Find out more at: www.athometribe.com .

 

When Love Doesn’t Look Like you Think it Will

By Leave a Comment

Today, my husband and I have been married for 13 years.

13 years.

That seems crazy, even to me.

This morning, I was scrolling social media and noticed that FB had created an Anniversary video for us. I pushed play and watched as the slow, sappy music played as they displayed photo after photo of us over the years. There were photos of our wedding day, vacations, the day we officially filed for an LLC for this business, trips with the kids…many of the highlights over our past 13 years. The captions are what got me, though.

It would display a photo of us bright-eyed and ‘in love’ on our wedding day and then say “Love is this…”. The next photo would be one of us on a vacation and the text would say, “…and that”. 
It ended with a photo saying, “most of all, love is knowing this is who you’re meant to be with”.

Oh, Facebook.

I appreciate it.  Thank you.
But if 13 years of marriage has taught me ANYTHING at all, it’s quite the opposite of this.

LOVE to me isn’t just two excited young folks running down an aisle at the church after their wedding, it’s late nights and a messy kitchen. It’s cleaning up the car when a kid gets sick, and taking the dogs out when it’s raining because you know I don’t want to. It’s packing lunches and changing diapers and going with me to doctor appointments that I’m nervous about. Love is gatorade and saltine cracker runs when the stomach bug hits and early morning peewee soccer league games in the freezing cold. It’s a whole lot less about romantic date nights out and looks more like Netflix and falling asleep before 10 pm. It’s disciplining kids when we would rather not and folding laundry because it needs to be done. It’s unloading the dishwasher day after day, setting the timer on the coffee pot,  and packing lunches every night. It’s defending one another when one of us feels left out and overlooked by friends, and it’s disagreeing over the most ridiculous stuff possible. It’s Sunday afternoon budget meetings and Friday night family movie nights. Marriage is nothing like I ever pictured it, and yet it’s more than I anticipated.

If you’ve only ever imagined what love should look like or feel like according to the world’s standards, real life won’t measure up. And if love was based on just the highlight reel moments displayed on social media, it would not could not sustain.

I imagined marriage would be one big romantic adventure. Setting up a home, raising well-behaved and calm children, pursuing work that we loved that left us feeling energized and fulfilled, frequent date nights, a full bank account, agreeing about how we would spend our money, and working together to face challenges and to overcome difficulties… In real life, marriage doesn’t look a whole lot like that.

Marriage for us has looked a whole lot less like the worlds definition of romance and more and more like sacrifice.

And it’s beautiful.

We have been sanctified in new ways. We’ve learned to love and to serve when it’s the very last thing we want to do and we’ve gotten really good at asking for forgiveness.

We get it wrong a whole lot, yet, we press on.

Love may not look like you think it will, and it definitely won’t look like social media may tell you that it should. But, that doesn’t mean it’s broken or not worth honoring.

After 13 years, I’ve learned this: My husband cannot complete me. He cannot fulfill me. He can’t fill in and fill up the broken places in my heart. My happiness can’t hinge on how well he loves me. He is not my Savior and he will never be.

He’s a good gift. He’s my helpmate and my friend, but he can’t “fix” my brokenness. And I’ve had to stop expecting him to try.

Facebook told me today that “love is knowing that THIS is who you’re meant to be with”, but I’d argue it’s more than that. Love is choosing that THIS is who you will STAY with. 

Love is a choice.

Today, I’m choosing it again.

I’m thankful for a man who doesn’t give up when things get hard. A man who allows me to go and chase the dreams the Lord has sent me. A man who truly celebrates with me when things go well and a man who is willing to run hard after the Lord.


I also know there may be some of you out there reading this who are struggling in your marriages. Or in waiting for marriage.

Hear me say- I’m praying for you today. I’m praying for you. For your heart. For new places of breakthrough and hope to spring up today. I’m praying tha the Lord will give you a new passion for praying for your marriage (or future mate) and in asking Him to begin showing you where He is calling you to surrender and to turn.

Don’t give up hope, friend. He brings beauty from ashes and the dead to life. Pray and ask Him to redeem and rescue. Ask Him to show you new ways to love him today. He’s faithful and He will.

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

The confession that may cost me:

By 37 Comments

Today’s post has been a long time in the making and today, I’m clicking PUBLISH with shaking hands and praying my words will be received in the way I am intending.

I have a confession and I need you to hear me out:
I’m a health and fitness leader and I have gained weight. Even more than that, I’m a health and fitness leader and most days, I’m tired of talking about health and fitness. 

I’m leading other women daily in ways that they can live a healthier, more free lifestyle, yet at the same time, according to standard measures of the world, I am not successful at the same thing myself. 

A couple months back I showed up for my annual physical. When the doctor entered, after she greeted me, her first words here “So let’s talk about your weight”.

To be honest, I wasn’t aware of my weight. I don’t weigh normally and hadn’t stepped on a scale in months.

When they weighed me in before my appointment, I didn’t look at that number, because for me, it doesn’t lead to a place of freedom and growth, but instead judgment and restriction.

I walked into that appointment (in January, a few weeks after Christmas), knowing I wasn’t at my thinnest, but also feeling really free and in a healthy place.

I lead fitness classes five days a week, was training for a 10 mile race, and eat well MOST of the time.

According to the scale there, I had gained 7 lbs over the past 1.5 years and had gained 14 lbs since I was at my lowest weight four years ago.

To try to make a loooong story shorter, let me give you the highlights:
Five years ago the Lord called me into learning how to live healthy and well for His glory. 
Over the course of that next year, I became obsessed with all things fat-loss lifestyle and metabolic training related. 
Four years ago the Lord asked me to begin sharing my journey with others. Wellness Witness was launched which at that time was a super-active blog, recipes, and local fitness classes. 
Three years ago He asked me to step out into full-time ministry and work with Wellness Witness and we’ve grown since there. I’ve gone from teaching 2 classes a week to teaching 5. I’ve added an online program called the At-Home Tribe that leads 300 women around the world virtually. I get to travel and speak and write and basically use this platform of health and wellness as a tool to speak life and worth and share the Gospel with women. 

It’s an amazing calling and I’m grateful for every second of it.

But, according to the world’s standards, I have no business leading a health and fitness platform.
Instead of seeing my body continue to grow stronger and smaller, I’m finding that the more freedom I walk in, the more space I’m taking up (In more ways than one).

Here’s where I need you to stick with me:

-The enemy is using this to try to convince me that I am disqualified.

I’ve gone round and round over the past two months trying to figure out what the Lord has for me in this struggle and if I’m supposed to even be sharing about it with you all.  It’s a strange place to know that others depend on you to tell them how to find ‘success’ in weight loss and living well but to not feel like you are experiencing that in your own life. It’s even more strange to not want to continue talking about health all the time because you know there are so many more important things we can focus on.

I felt shame.
I felt judgement (totally self-imposed).
I felt disqualified.
I felt a bit lost.

That stupid enemy. He doesn’t fight fair. And he doesn’t speak truth.
His goal: STEAL. KILL. DESTROY.
He’s been after me. And at times, I’ve been listening.

This morning, though, I was reminded of truth and I felt led– no COMPELLED- to share this with you.

Here’s my confession:
I am a health and wellness professional and I have gained weight.
I am a health and wellness professional and I don’t want to focus on living a ‘fat loss lifestyle’.
I am a health and wellness professional and I am done with measuring my worth by how often I workout.
I am a health and wellness professional and I know that training my body will never fix the issues that linger in my heart.
I am a health and wellness professional and I don’t care if the clients I work with ever lose one single pound.
I’m a health and wellness professional and I believe that we have far more important things to talk about than the number of carbs in the food we have for lunch.

There, I said it.
It’s out there.

But can I tell you what else is true?

I BELIEVE IN FREEDOM LIVING. 
This means I don’t live chained by a set of ‘rules’ to tell me what I can and cannot eat.  My joy isn’t linked to the number on my scale, and my success won’t be measured by seeing my monthly measurements go down.

Success for me?

OBEDIENCE.

…Stewarding well the gifts the Lord has given me INCLUDING my health.

For me this means moving my body because I GET TO and because when I move, I come alive.
It means making my workouts an act of worship that don’t just impact my body- they speak to my heart and bring peace to my soul.
For me this means being ON MISSION and more concerned with stopping to serve the people around me than meal prepping and planning to meet my nutritional goals.
It means putting people before platform and my relationship with the Lord before my required tasks.
It means I’m done trying to fit into someone else’s expectations of what health and wellness has to look like.

Here’s what else it means:
I am not disqualified to lead others into doing the same. 

If you’re looking for a quick program to change your body- you won’t find it here.
If you want a trainer who will whip you into the best shape of your life- it’s not me.
Looking for a nutrition plan that will map out for you every single bite of food you’re ‘allowed’ to have so that you can watch your body shrink smaller and smaller? You won’t find it here.

But if you are sick and tired of living sick and tired and you want to find a better way? This space is for you.

If you’re tired of letting the scale dictate your worth? We are your people.

If you know that the calling on your life is bigger than achieving a perfect physique? We agree.

If you know that living a healthy lifestyle matters so that you can go where God sends you? We’ll help you do that.

If you’re tired of looking at the women around you, constantly comparing and critiquing how you measure up- we’d love to show you another way.

I’m ready to change the conversation from weighing less to LIVING MORE. I think you might be, too.

We have more important things that we have been called to than fixating on every perceived flaw we’re walking around with.
And we have bigger tasks we’ve been equipped for than simply trying to take up less space.

YOU HAVE BEEN CREATED ON PURPOSE AND FOR A PURPOSE, set free and saved, and given authority to walk in. It’s time to stop shrinking back because we feel disqualified, and to ask the Lord to send us out even when it may not look like we think it should.

In the beginning of my journey, obedience for me looked like a whole lot of dying to self, breaking food addictions and unhealthy choices, and beginning to honor the Lord with living healthy.
A few years later obedience looked like trusting Him that where He calls, He will provide.

Today, obedience looks like surrender.

To being able to honestly say- “God, I surrender this to You. All of it. I’m willing to continue obeying You and the things you’ve called me to even if nothing ever changes. I’m willing to be the one who will step forward and say ‘I’ll go first’ and to shout that there has got to be more to this life than living chained to physical measurements of our worth.”

Lately I’ve been talking with the Lord about obedience and my current health journey and having to decide: IF I NEVER LOSE ANOTHER POUND, WOULD I STILL BE WILLING TO OBEY HIM BY LIVING WELL? Eating healthy foods, moving my body, doing restorative care, drinking my water…Am I willing to obey? To not take short-cuts, to not tie my worth to my weight, to not feel disqualified because I don’t look like other health and wellness leaders.  AM I STILL WILLING TO OBEY?

My answer is yes.

It matters.

The way I steward this one life I have to live MATTERS.

So I’m going to continue showing up.

I’m going to offer what I have.
I’m going to keep cheering on those around me.
I’m going to keep pointing you back to the MAIN THING which will always be heart > weight.

I know this will mean some of you can’t stay. But, for those that will, know this: WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED.

I’m free and the enemy has lost his hold over me.
Get ready- I’m stepping forward with NO SHAME and I’m inviting you to link arms and come with me.

let’s go- we’ve got lots of work to do. It won’t be easy, but sister, FREEDOM WILL BE WORTH IT!

When I was early on in my journey, I’d share progress pictures. I thought this would be a good way to show you tangibly what I’m talking about today:

This was one of my favorites- it’s a picture of my on my wedding rehearsal night in 2005 and then one from 2014 of me wearing the exact same pants. I’d lost a significant amount of weight and I used these green pants as my indicator of success.

Here’s a picture I snapped of me wearing those same green pants today:

Not too bad at first glance. Definitely tighter, but not too bad.
BUT HERE IS THE REALITY THAT MOST STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET WONT SHARE WITH YOU:

There it is.
The truth.
My pants won’t zip and guess what: I AM NOT DISQUALIFIED.

I’m refusing to feel shame over this.
I don’t HAVE to be the same size I was THIRTEEN years ago. My body has carried two babies, it’s endured countless trials and stresses and it has LOVED AND SERVED WELL. I will not belittle it or despise it. I’m making peace with it.

And I’m hoping that my sharing will serve to empower some of you to do the same.

Let’s do this differently.

As always, I’m praying for you and CHEERING YOU ON!

 

Plank and Pray March Challenge

By 1 Comment


Hello, friends!

During the month of March the At-Home Tribe is going to be focusing on the theme of MADE FOR MORE.

We’ll be applying this in lots of different ways- one of them being an intentional woman of prayer.

One of the tools we’re using for this is a daily calendar with an assigned group that we will be praying for.
For those that are interested, they’ll be invited to hold a plank variation while they pray. Although the planking is totally optional, we would LOVE to invite you to join with us in prayer as we intentionally pray through this month and learn more about the powerful practice of prayer.

If you’re interested in joining us, click on the Calendar below to print your copy.


March PLANK AND PRAY Calendar

If you decide to join us, we’d love to hear from you on our FB page or IG accounts, or in the comments below. Be sure to use the #tribeplankandpray when posting so we can find you.

I can’t wait to journey through this next month with each of you!

SaveSave