"Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body." ~1 Corinthians 6:19-20~
Y'all, I'm going to be honest. I had a totally different blog scheduled for today but I got so convicted by today's Bible verse of the day and needed to write about it.
Ever since I can remember, I've struggled with weight. Growing up, my family did not think too much about the food and what it can do to you. We didn't have to. That was before food became very industrialized so things that are horrible for you now weren't as bad back then. And kids did not sit for hours and hours on end. Our parents made us go outside to play which meant always exercising.
As I grew up, I discovered food made me feel better when I didn't know how to process what I was feeling and I became an emotional eater. This continued for years throughout high school, college and my early to mid 20s. I experienced a lot of rejection in college and would go back to my dorm, order a pizza and proceed to eat the entire thing. I also would eat entire boxes of mac n' cheese and whole sleeves of Thin Mints. Nutritious, right?
In 2011, I moved to Chicago to escape everything I knew about life. It was a fantastic experience learning about myself. However, I gained 20 pounds because I worked three jobs and ate what ever I could with the little time available to me. After moving back to Denver near the end of 2012, I was at my all time high weight. Ashamedly, I was just over 200 pounds, felt horrific and knew something needed to change.
I was introduced to the Paleo diet and found great success in it losing 30 pounds in just under six months. I never knew I had that much discipline or self-control. It helped that I never felt hungry on Paleo since you are not calorie restricted. Nearly four years later and I've managed to keep 20 pounds off consistently. My success can be attributed to being more in tune with my body knowing what foods make me sick and recognizing negative emotions and doing something healthier to overcome them.
Over the past six months though, I've had a lot of life things going on and fell off the bandwagon eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. Not only has that lead to quite a few migraines (thank you gluten), it's also lead to weight gain, feeling sluggish and being irritable.
This past week, God laid on my heart the verse above about how our bodies are temples of the Spirit and we need to protect them. That means giving our bodies the proper nutrition it needs, using chemical free cleaning products (this also protects God's environment, more on that to come:)), exercising, resting when weary and self-care. We as humans destroy our bodies with chemically modified foods in the name of convenience and it needs to stop! Seeing this verse on my phone this morning convicted me to renew my commitment to my health by saying no to certain foods, bringing my own food to potlucks, and exercising more. Will you join me?
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