..."Afterburn" and Amillenialsm.

Today was my first day doing the "Afterburn" workout - of course, I've mixed it up a little with "Turbulence Training." Anyhow, I've been part of the brainwashed masses that believed the more cardio, the better. Cutting my hard cardio down to 25 minutes seemed like a crazy idea - but hey, these guys had science behind them so ... what could I lose? I'm in it for the long haul - 16 weeks.

Caren and I met at the gym at 10am (it opened late for New Year's Day). We started off with a 10 minute warm-up on the treadmill, I was at 4.0 mph, 4% incline. Next came the full body workout....Hurray, supersets! The idea was to use a lighter weight than I normally do but do 20 reps, 3 sets. Also, the pattern of each rep would be 1 count up, 2 count pause, 2 count lowering.

dumbbell split squat - dumbbell incline press
dumbbell rear delt raise - dumbbell step up
pullover - hip-thigh extension (WOW! No weights and this impressed me!)
stability ball leg curl (another WOW!) - ab press (it was supposed to be stability ball jackknife but too many people showed up, a class started in the room we were using with the stability balls, blah, blah) This weight workout left us drenched in sweat. Absolutely drenched. If I were to believe the calorie burn gauge on the Octane, I burned almost 500 calories in that 25 minutes. My heart rate ranged from 145 to 161.

After this - right to the sprint intervals which we did for 25 minutes on the Octane ellipticals. 1 minute all out - 85-90%, 2 minute recovery, repeat, repeat, repeat. 10 minutes to cooldown on the treadmill (speed 3.8, incline 3.5%).

Now tomorrow will be a steady-state cardio day. Wednesday will be intervals and a completely different weight workout. Thursday, intervals and core work. Friday, intervals and back to Day 1 weights. Saturday - steady cardio & yoga. Sunday - a lovely rest day.

And for the amillenialism part of this. Ever since Pastor Mark answered some questions I had regarding the direction the church was going - and made a derogatory statement about disagreeing with Alistair Beggs' church, Parkside, regarding eschatology and amillenialism, I finally decided to look into . I've never been a fanatic about studying endtimes theology. I guess I feel, for me at least, that it is hard enough to try to live each day obediently so why concern myself too much with things that, well, I'll find out for sure when they happen. BUT this morning, I decided to go to Bible.Org (which I believe is sponsored by Dallas Theological Seminary or at least chock-full of graduates from that institution). This led me to Renewing the Mind ministries' Systematic Theology Program and then to Session 9: What is Eschatology? This session shows pros and cons for three different millenial viewpoints. Amillenialism is the traditional view - and after watching/listening, I agree with Alistair Beggs and whoever else may be in the amillenial camp. Actually, this was what I believed all along, I just wasn't really aware of the controversy.

We've been checking out different churches since making the decision to leave our very mixed-up one. We found one we like, but it is a long drive and right into the snowbelt. If winter ever really decides to stick around here, it would make it difficult - plus it would make it less cost-efficient gas wise for the 2nd trip up & back for youth group. Yesterday we visited a closer church that we've always meant to try - a Baptist church - and HURRAY, this may be it. A family that left our old church due to doctrinal issues (the same I've mentioned) is there now and the husband is teaching a "Sound Doctrine" Sunday school class. The pastor introduced himself before the service and in talking to him, I was very impressed. He's on the same page that I would hope he'd be on. Every year the pastors of that church head out to John MacArthur's pastoral conference - and that is a *good* thing. He is an expositional preacher and has been doing a series on Ephesians. Yesterday was the first part of Ephesians 5 and I felt it was exactly the exhortation that I needed to be hearing. "Wake up sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ shall give you light!" They have active AWANA and youth programs, as well as a flourishing college/career group.

Started back with Discipleship Journal's Bible reading plan... 2007 is off to a good start!