When writing a blog, I've been told, your title holds 90% of the power, for it draws readers in.  10% remains in the quality of your written words, and the wisdom those words hold, to hold your audience captive.  Now I know that I have the catchiest title of all today, so let's see if I can muster the power here at the keyboard to encourage us to shed some weight in the New Year.

So onto the fore-stated 10%.  The meat.  The goods.

Immediately following your read of this post, I charge you to stand up... stretch... stretch... stretch... Loosen up now, you're about to shed some serious weight in the next few minutes!  Now carefully roll down your spine, vertebrae by vertebrae, and pick up a trash bag.  Roll back up, remaining loose and flexible.  Jog in place for just a minute or two to get the blood pumping, and... GO!

Fill that bag with, O, you know... all of the clothes you haven't fit into for five years (though you've insisted on moving them from one house to another, and into yet another... by now they're out of fashion anyway); throw in the discarded happy meal toys that end up daily on the ground along with those stinkin'  ZuZu Pets that always get dumped out but never actually played with anymore; the pots and pans you received as hand-me-downs from Great Aunt Ethel when you got your first apartment, now collecting rust and dust at the bottom of your stack of Calphlons;  clean out the "junk drawer' in the kitchen, keeping only the junk you actually use; sort through the camping gear and snow clothes tucked in your hallway closet or guest room and make sure they all still fit; hit the craft drawer next, and then the game / puzzle closet.  Get rid of everything that's not played with, used, or cherished.  

There has been an afternoon or two where I lost over 50 pounds in 30 minutes using this method of weight loss!

I have a friend whose family's motto is; "If you haven't worn it, played with it, or smelled it for a year... it gets tossed."  

We think of the weight we're carrying around our middle and thighs as cumbersome and unattractive.  When we finally shed it we feel light, sexy, and ready to move.  Now I don't claim this workout will increase how Sexy you find yourself (though if your husband sees you throwing out all your old junk, I guarantee he'll be turned on), but you will feel lighter.  This is the home you keep, all the clutter you have to organize at the end of each day, all of the STUFF that fills each cupboard and corner.  And like your desire to move and get active once you've lost those last few baby pounds, you will find yourself ABLE to move and respond to opportunities without so much STUFF tying you down.  

Another (older and even wiser,)  friend of ours just downsized their family home to a small condo. They've still two guest rooms for children and grandchildren, but they whittled their STUFF  down to the things that matter the most - what they use and the things they cherish.  I asked the wife why they did their move now when they are still so young and healthy and she responded, "We want to be ready to move if and when God calls us to.  We realized that if we wanted to go on a long term mission trip or if one of the kids needed us to come to help for a while, or if we needed some emergency money freed up, we weren't able to just go or give.  Even though we're retired and the kids are all grown, we had too much stuff to leave.  We were bound to our stuff.  I knew that God couldn't call us as long as we had so many distractions.  We don't anymore."

Most of us have young children, large mortgages, and at least one work schedule to manage... do we really want the weight and responsibility of everything else we've tucked away over the years?

Let's be lighten up and LIVE ready to MOVE.

Can you imagine losing 15+ pounds a day for 31 days?  That's 465 POUNDS of STUFF.    We just stuffed Christmas birds with stuffing; we stuffed stockings with stocking stuffers; our tummies and homes are now bursting with all this new stuff!   

I'm going to do this.  Who's with me?