How’s Your Health?

Over the past several years my wife and I have been changing our lifestyle in the area of health and fitness. I have to be honest that early on I was not into it. I grumbled, complained and resisted. Yet, we pressed forward, not with the hope of just losing some weight, but with the goal of becoming healthy and staying healthy. We both decided that we did not just want to diet, lose weight and then go back to our old habits. So we worked hard at developing new habits, new tastes and new thoughts about food, rest and exercise.

Today I read this verse in 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20 from the Message – “didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you, God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.”

Over the years I have abused my body through overeating, lack of exercise and inadequate rest. When our lives are hectic and fast-paced, running here and there it is difficult to take care of ourselves. Stress begins to slowly build and it builds to the point of damaging us physically, emotionally and spiritually.

So, how do we counteract a frenetic lifestyle and work related stress?

First: Recognize that “Our body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit”. Part of growing spiritually is to become healthy physically. When we take steps away from our old habits of eating, bad attitudes toward exercise, bad habits of putting things into our body that damage it and thoughts that lead to the destruction of our body, we start growing more spiritually. It must be a decision to get healthy and grow closer to God, not just to go on a diet and lose some weight. We need to have a bigger perspective on how our physical health affects our spiritual and emotional health.

Second: Establish a fitness program. Vikki and I had to get some help early on to learn the right way to eat and the right way to think about food and exercise. God made some incredibly healthy food that can do wonders for our body, but if we don’t eat them it is of no value. Ten Healthiest Foods in the World.

It took being intentional about meeting with someone and sticking to a program called “Thin & Healthy” for us to start breaking away from the old ways of thinking and doing. Here are some things we learned:

1. Eat all the food groups every day: Protein, Grains/Carbs, Dairy, Veggies, Fruits. (No chocolate is not a food group)
2. Eat the right number of servings of each food group every day.
3. Understand how much one serving is – We had to measure and weigh a lot of our food
4. We learned to watch the fat grams in every food we ate
5. We started reading the ingredients of all the foods we ate
6. We stopped eating foods with little or no nutritional value
7. We learned that you needed some sort of movement every day
8. We began to do more research on our own – Mostly Vikki, she is amazing!

Three years later we have both lost weight, increased our metabolism, improved our overall health and just plain feel better. We also have learned a lot on our own by researching and studying how to eat healthy. We lowered our cholesterol, improved our blood pressure, reduced our body fat and have increased our strength and overall fitness. We still have areas to improve and we have setbacks like everyone, but we have chosen to stay on this path.

Basically you need a plan, you need a coach, you need accountability and you need to decide. Since my wife and I have made these changes, it has drawn us closer as a couple, it has actually helped us to grow more healthy emotionally and spiritually, because we are able to better handle stress.

Here is a link to a local Thin & Healthy Program. Remember that this program or any others like it are not the magic answer to super health. We need to take personal responsibility for our physical health. That means a new mindset of learning about healthy eating and exercise and then actually doing what we learn. That applies to our spiritual and emotional health as well.

If you think taking care of yourself physically isn’t “spiritual” think again! It’s just as harmful to let yourself become run down through bad habits as it is to abuse drugs and alcohol. Instead of saying, “I don’t have time,” make time. It could save your life! In the meantime you will feel better and be a lot easier to live with.

Focus on these three areas of your life – Physical, Emotional & Spiritual. Develop a plan to grow in each of those areas and you will begin the process of transforming your life and your relationships.