OUR BODY REFLECTS WHAT WE FEED IT

We need to ask ourselves: Is garbage "food" SOOO delicious that it's worth 10 to 20 years less on earth? Is it worth feeling lethargic & drained? Is it "living" to be shortening our life-span for the "joy" of the taste? Healthy food is NOT boring or flavorless or ALL vegetables. I LOVE food! I eat healthy every day, and refuse to eat bland food. What I eat is delicious. Healthy food has been given a bad rap. Living a healthy, fit life is not a hobby. It's a necessity for a fulfilling life. 

God gave us these bodies. Why should we be caring for these bodies that God gave us? I'll say more on this below. 

We only regret our poor choices after we've had a heart attack or two, or developed Adult-Onset Diabetes, or other serious health issues. And after experiencing these, some STILL continue with their life-shortening life-style. Why? I think it may be a lack of insight and proper understanding and education on health & nutrition. I also think it's all the garbage that sits in our stores labeled as "food" or disguised as "health food"! 

We are killing ourselves slowly in this country. It's my understanding that we're the fattest country on the planet! 

Do we realize that by eating garbage we're teaching our children to eat garbage, and thus shortening their life-span? Did you know it's been calculated that our children, due to the current American diet, will live shorter lives than us! 

Remember being a child with endless energy? Being healthy returns you to that state. Our overweight children don't even get to enjoy that pleasure.

Let's go to the mirror & remove our shirt. See that? That is the result of what we put in our mouth. The bodies of your children will, or already do, reflect what goes into their mouths. Our bodies reflect what we eat. 

Let me take a different approach, if I may: God gave us these bodies. Is it okay to take such terrible care of them? Maybe. Perhaps He's more concerned with our hearts & serving one another, than He is with our bodily neglect. But wouldn't we be able to do so much more if we were healthy? Isn't the point of our life to point to Him? How much better can we do that when we feel great? How much LONGER can we do that when we take care of the body He gave us, and live 10 to 20 years longer? 

If we are feeding our bodies neglectfully, is that not focus on our own desires, rather than on serving Him? What I mean is, could we consider it to be neglectful of service to Him if we're damaging the vessel of service? If we know that our life is for service to Him, to one another, and yet we neglect our body so that it's not up to par for quality service, are we not putting Him in second place in our lives? 

This is a very different look at our priorities in regards to God than what we're used to, I know. But I believe it's an important one and I think it deserves prayerful, and very serious thought. I had never considered this before, but I'm making some drastic changes in my priorities right now. 

God has been up to something with me recently, and I suspect it is service related on the surface and something else that is much deeper (which I haven't discovered yet). But I do know, that I've been wearing the Tina glasses for far too long and God wants me to toss them and put on the Everything Is About God and Service to His Kingdom glasses. And I know that I am 100 times more able now that I'm getting healthier daily.

 

One final thought: I've been feeling that God put this Health & Fitness business in my life for a purpose. First I thought it was all about me... of course. I thought it was to get me healthy, even though I'd previously hated exercise, and I thought it was an opportunity to improve my finances while I helped other do the same. Wrong! 

I then thought He gave it to me as a Tool to serve Him by helping others to get healthy and fit, and that my health and financial improvement would be a bi-product. Still not quite right. 

I now believe that He gave it to me as a Tool to serve Him by helping others to get healthy and fit, so that they too can more fully serve Him. So that we may ALL more fully further His Kingdom. 

Either you think I'm nuts, or this is your Aha moment. But as I said; I believe it's an important point and I think it deserves prayerful, and very serious thought.

Want to serve others to the fullest?
I highly recommend this amazing little book that I read in one day. This applies to all aspects of your life.

Thank you to the amazing woman who brought this wonderful book into my hands!

IT’S NOT OVER TIL THE FIT-LADY SAYS IT’S OVER!

Feeling defeated, we stand facing the stranger in the mirror. We choke back the overwhelming emotion. "What happened? THAT'S not me." What's the point in trying? Right? Wrong! It's not over till the fit-lady says it's over!

If the above description sounds all too familiar, I don't want you to feel defeated. Here are some things to consider:

1. You may feel that you're just too out of shape and/or have too much weight to lose.

It doesn't matter! It CAN be done! It HAS been done! I can show you people who've done it!

2. You may feel that it would take too long.

So what!? That exact time is going to pass anyway! Regardless of what you do or don't do! The only thing that will be different about it, is what you decide to do with it! Why not make good, positive, rewarding use of that time? Remember, it's going to pass regardless of what you do.

3. You may feel it's too hard.

Yeah, it's gonna be hard work. No magical pills that don't work. Just hard work, sweat & some tears of joy as you start to see the changes taking place in your body & on the scale! It feels amazing when you take on something hard and finally come out victorious!

You've probably heard that saying:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)

Or you hear people say, "One step at a time."

That's the key. If your staring down a thousand mile journey, that can be really overwhelming, and then it’s over before it’s even begun. But what you CAN do, is say, “I’m going one mile. I can go a mile!” And so you go that one mile. Then you say, “That wasn’t so bad. I can go another mile.” and you do. So you don’t look at the total time involved, you look at the day, or the hour. You can do that. And when you’ve done it, be pleased with yourself and say, “That wasn’t so bad. I can do that again tomorrow!”

I'm telling you, I looked for magic pills for a long time. Because I didn't want to do the work! I hated exercise! If I was gonna do it, it would be because the lawn needed raking or other such things. The problem was that all the exercise programs out there that I tried were boring, they didn't work & the ones for women were pretty lame. I don't about the ones for men. But it was those workouts and the boredom that made me hate exercise!

I'm a tiny-framed person. I can remember as an adolescent, weighing 78 pounds for years and was so frustrated because I was so tiny! I have a tiny bone structure with tiny little wrists. Back in the day, the most I had ever weighed was when I was pregnant. I weighed a whopping 135 lbs.! 

In March of 2010 I weighed in at 176 lbs.! How did that happen?! Where was I when all this weight was piling on?! I had all the familiar feeling that accompany an overweight, out of shape body: loathing, disgust, sadness, depression, embarrassment, frustration, anger, shame. I was even embarrassed to be intimate with my husband!

I used to cry out to God for help, like what? He was gonna be my magic pill? One day something just clicked in my head. If I wanted to lose weight, I was gonna have to do something about it! Me! Not a magic pill, not God, not my husband. Me. I guess I finally just got sick of hearing myself complain, and doing nothing about it. I realized how pathetic it was to cry out, complain, and blame but do nothing about it.

The first thing I did was to change the way I was eating. What you put into your body is so significant and many people have no idea what it means to eat healthy. They think that if it's home-cooked and not out of a box, it's healthy. Or they think that if the box says it's healthy it is! WRONG! 

I had bought a book back in 2004 called The South Beach Diet by Cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Agatston. In this book he teaches you about foods and how our bodies respond to different foods. I had no idea! I learned a lot. But in no time I was back to eating bad food again. Why? 

This is important, I had changed the way I ate, but I hadn't changed the way I thought! If you don't change your thinking nothing you do will ever last! Think about it. I had to change the way I thought.

What does that mean, to change the way you think? It means you change what you believe, what you know. It becomes your reality. It's something you know, like you know you need air to breath, like you know your name, know where you live. It's not just a good idea, or a vague fact. You know it in your core! 

If you know in your core that you need air to breath, are you likely to cut off your air? Clearly not! See what I mean? If you know in your core that there are foods that will keep you lean, nourish your body, sustain your body and that there are 'foods' that will make you fat, poison your body, slowly kill your body, which are you going to put in your mouth?

I used to love hotdogs! I recently was at a convenience store for fuel and noticed an overweight woman, probably about 190 lbs., eating a hot dog. I knew that eating like that was the main reason she was so overweight, but it occurred to me that I had no interest whatsoever, in putting one into my mouth. I thought about how I had loved the taste, but still, I just couldn't imagine putting that in my body. I just know all to well, in my core, what it does to my body, how bad it makes my body feel, how it makes my body look. I just have no interest in going there... ever again!

I've come to know my body. I know that if I eat just one piece of store-bought or homemade wheat bread, I'll be up one pound the following day. Fortunately, my husband thought I might do okay with spelt bread. He was right! No weight gain. 

I now know that when I eat too little, my body thinks there's short supply of food and thus that it's necessary to conserve, and starts storing fat right away! For two days, while I was sick, I had taken in a third of the calories I should have and put on one or two pounds. As soon as I increased my calories to the proper amount, (proper foods, of course) it started coming back off.

So, because I come to know my body so well, I know, to my very core, that I do not have any interest in putting garbage in my body! This is part of changing your thinking.

Saying, "I'm going on a diet." is a misnomer. Because 'diet' isn't a weight loss word! Diet is simply what you put into your body. His diet consists of hamburgers, potato chips and beer. Or,  His diet consists of lean meats, produce, and water.

Have you ever watched a nature show & the narrator tells the viewer what the animal's diet consists of? That's what diet is! Diet isn't a method for weight loss, it's whatever you consume. 

So when you change your thinking, you also change your lifestyle! It's an about-face in thinking AND thus, lifestyle.

To recap:

1. You may feel that you're just too out of shape and/or have too much weight to lose.

It doesn't matter! It CAN be done! It HAS been done! I can show you people who've done it!

2. You may feel that it would take too long.

So what!? That exact time is going to pass anyway! Regardless of what you do or don't do! The only thing that will be different about it, is what you decide to do with it! Why not make good, positive, rewarding use of that time? Remember, it's going to pass regardless of what you do.

3. You may feel it's too hard.

Yeah, it's gonna be hard work. No magical pills that don't work. Just hard work, sweat & some tears of joy as you start to see the changes taking place in your body & on the scale! It feels amazing when you take on something hard and finally come out victorious! Accept, right now, that it’s gonna be hard… but also, that it’s gonna be AMAZING!

4. You may be thinking, “It’ll never last. It never does.”

Change your thinking! Change your thinking, change your lifestyle.

Others have done it. I have done it! Go to my Facebook page and check out some of my before and after pix. Still a work in progress, but pleased with what I’ve accomplished so far! I feel good about myself again, because I look good, but mostly, because I made a decision and committed to that decision and now I’m reaping the rewards. That, feels amazing! I’m stronger physically and mentally.

Feeling defeated, we stand facing the stranger in the mirror. We choke back the overwhelming emotion. "What happened? THAT'S not me." What's the point in trying? Right? Wrong! It's not over till the fit-lady says it's over!

I HAVE YOUR SOLUTION:
I am going to show you how to make that mirror reflect the "REAL" you! You & me. Let's get started... right now!

TinaRandall@beachbodycoach.com
TinaRandall.net  (or simply Fb message me!: @Tina Randall http://www.facebook.com/tina.m.randall)