Going Through The Fire with JOY!

This past weekend, about 50 of us went through the fire, as we do each year, at a 3 day Tae Bo®

Re-certification camp that pushes you to the extreme mentally, physically and spiritually.   Why do we all go to such great lengths to attend such a thing?   Because we know what amazing growth and love comes out of such a camp.  Each camp is different, each reaches you and teaches you in different, wonderful ways.   It forces you to deal with YOU, deep inside, and it isn't always a pretty thing!  There are so many things to touch on, but  will focus on one for now.

Can you be miserable and be in God's will?  Well heck yeah!   I can say there were some moments in camp that I was quite miserable, but sure know I was in God's will.  When God asks us to stay in a difficult situation, He provides a special grace for us to get through it.  The key is we have to trust Him and have faith that He will, find joy in the situation so that that HE is our strength to get through.   

On our last day of camp at our class with the public, there were about 7 brand new people who had never taken Tae Bo® in their life.   Shellie let them all know that the class would be stepped up since they were in a room full of instructors and to go at their own pace if it was too fast.   They looked a bit nervous, but they were brave and willing to take it on.   Our bodies were pretty much gone from Saturday, so it was all Spirit going on in this class and sometimes, I think that makes it better, because you know that all that is coming out is your heart and soul; no flesh.  We all struggled and the new people just did what they could and kept going.  We were all motivating each other!

Then there was BOB.   Bob was also a new student and he arrived dressed with black tube socks and a head band.  He had such a great smile and attitude and the minute you saw him, you just had to smile big!  He was ready to take this class on full force and with so much JOY!   He worked through it like all of us, only he had such joy in his face and always lifted my spirits when I looked over at him.  He would goof around and be silly, but hey, it is about having FUN!   

Just when I didn't think I could do one more front kick to lunge,  Shellie changed it up and challenged us to do moving machine gun kicks.   I was thinking about our first timers and what they thought about this!  You know what?  They went for it!  They didn't  know anymore than what they learned in that hour, but they bravely got up in front of everyone and machine gun kicked the best they could.  Then Shellie was doing flying side kicks and they would do it too!  It was crazy!  Most people would not have even attempted it, but they were made to feel empowered to be able to do it and did it.  It inspired my socks off (even with raw feet, the socks came off)!  

BOB, aka Tae Bob® then took over and started doing this Russian dance down the line in front of everyone and then picked up Shellie and said, "I KILLED THIS!!!!"   WOW!  It was amazing!

Now, had we gone through the entire fire filled camp with his attitude, how much more could we have grown?  How much more could we have absorbed and taken with us?  

Bob and the other beautiful new students who attended that Sunday morning class, I want to thank you for blessing this instructor and inspiring me.

Shellie and all of my peeps at Team Tae Bo®, thank you for being you and giving us all a place to renew and grow.  I love you all dearly and will hold close to my heart all that we took home with us and come back next year even stronger and full of JOY!

Is the show Biggest Loser Show Realistic?

Biggest Loser Show has Big Health Problems

So this article has raised some questions about whether this type of show has now crossed the line of helping others to entertaining the general public by coming up with more drama and more drastic transformations, finding the heaviest people in American to transform in a few short months.

There was also this article that was written late last year regarding safety

Contestants Admit Dangerous Practices, Can't Speak Out

I think there are pro's and con's to this show, as anything and my hope is that a balance could be found and that ultimately, the care of the contestants would be more important than coming up with more and more drama to obtain more viewers.

This show is really awesome.  The trainers really seem to care and they have been able to breakthrough to some of these people who clearly were not ready to change from the start.   I agree that one must be pushed hard and go beyond their limitations in order to go to the next level.   We practice that at our gym all the time.  We put people who are overweight and out of shape in tough situations to overcome, so I agree with that. They inspire people all the time.  We always tear up when we watch it!  It is beautiful to see people conquer such a challenging area of life.  The show inspired us to start the Quest 12 program and many other programs around the nation.  It has put something more positive and meaningful back on TV.  So understand I am not a Biggest Loser Hater, just want to make sure people are not changed for a TV season to entertain us all , but for a lifetime.

Would really like to hear more stories about what happens to the people after the show.  Remember when Michelle won?  I had read she had to quit her job so she could keep up working out at least 4 hours a day to maintain her weight.  What percentage of these people are able to keep this up?   

It is similar to going on a diet.   You do something radical, you will definitely have results, but what happens when you back to real life and you cannot exercise 6-8 hours a day or have someone provide and help you prepare your meals.  You go right back to where you are.  If God gave you your perfect body tomorrow or 6 months from now, you would put it right back to where it was.  That isn't enough time to learn how to keep it that way.  The joy of this entire process is the journey!  The way there! 

We have to make small changes we can live with forever.  We cannot workout 8 hours a day forever, we can't go on a no carb diet forever, we can't drink Slim Fast or take diet pills forever, it will hurt us in the long run.  Gradually make changes and it will gradually come off and stay off.   Not only that, doing it this way gives your family the ability to do it also without expecting them to do something radical.

I am open to all opinions as I know there are some die hard Biggest Loser Fans, so share away!

Tae Bo® A Thon

During our Quest 12 program, we do our best to provide challenges for our participants. We decided to hold a private Tae Bo A Thon. What we do in this event is we have back to back Tae Bo classes with about a 10 minute break in between each class. The Tae Bo A Thon usually lasts about 12 hours total.

We had 54 start out at 9am this past Saturday and 38 were still standing at 8pm. It was so incredible. Many of the participants had just started getting into shape a few weeks ago.

We want to teach people that getting in shape is not about the physical, it is about the mental and spiritual. That we have the ability to go further, no matter what our circumstances are if we ignite our spirits.

At Fit By Faith, we truly believe that God gives us opportunities to be courageous, opportunities to break through our flesh so we can go to the next level and get those blessings He wants so much to give us, to dig deep and learn how to activate our spirits to prepare us for future warfare in other areas of our life.

The cheer that was heard at the end of this Tae Bo A Thon was one of the most amazing, victorious cheers I have ever heard. It was beautiful. The testimonies of what some of these participants had to go through, what happened to them before they even got there and what happened afterwards are just amazing and I do hope they will post their comments here.

Such an inspiration. Everyone should do something like this! God is so GOOD!