Looking at my waistline after a series of Christmas parties and all day food and family binges, I know one of my goals will be losing a few inches around my gut.  Unhelpful fat is a dead weight.  It is unsightly, slows us down and impacts our health.   Too often we don’t even realise the full impact until we have been living in that state for several years.

The Bible tells us that while physical exercise profited a little, spiritual exercise profits us much more.     Years of living in the flesh can have a debilitating and even fatal impact on one’s spiritual life too.   The most common danger is not the ‘one-off sin’, but the subtle creep of apathy and general comfortableness with the world.  When considered in the light of eternity, we quickly see why our spiritual health is of upmost importance.   As painful as it is, what we need from time to time is a stark view in a spiritual mirror.

So how am I planning to get in shape and stay in shape?

1. Link my goals into one routine (jog and listen to the Bible at the same time 4 days per week)
2. Smaller eating portions.  More fruit and salad with meat only at dinner.   Only have soft drink once per week.
3. Pray with each of my family members each day (this worked well in 2011)
4. Turn off the computer, iPhone and TV from 6pm – 8:30pm.  To allow the voices of my family and my Lord the chance to speak without distractions.
5. Develop a new, fun and active hobby.  Learn a new skill while meeting new people.

Goals are only half the battle.  A principle is life is that we only get what we measure.   That is why I have built in and bolded realistic and measurable statistics into the plan.  I will not beat myself up, if I don’t see all these objectives through to the end of 2012.  However, my motivation is internal and I believe they will lead to more satisfaction and enjoyment.

My goals don’t have to be your goals.  But what is important, is that you assess where you are at, where you want to be, and how you will get there.   Will you join me as we lay aside every weight that besets us as we press towards the mark that Christ Jesus has set for us?

Blessings

-JC

A young couple in a church I attended in the US, claimed they did not need health insurance.  ”God would provide for their needs”, they firmly believed.   When they had a significant car accident and incurred hefty medical bills, the church asked its parishioners (who had been regularly paying their own insurance) to take special offerings to cover the costs of this couples medical bills.   This situation caused a fairly vigorous debate on “responsibility” vs. “faith”

In Australia, we are blessed to have a public health care system to fall back on.   But for how long is that sustainable?  As the baby boomers age, the percentage of our population who require expensive health services and aged care will dramatically increase.     This demographic change will provide fundamental challenges for our societies – particularly from a financial standpoint.

In previous generations, aging parents would have moved into their children’s homes to be supported.  However, with our increasingly busy, two-income family lives, along with advances in medical technology, we have shifted old people into clinical, but expensive aged care centres.   As a generation, the baby boomers did not have enough kids to support their population in old age.  So this issue will explode onto the scene in a few years.

50% of health care costs are incurred in the last 12 months of a person’s life.   All those costs achieve is delaying inevitable death.   The quality of life in those final 12 months is generally not good.    While I am not advocating euthanasia, I do wonder if it is responsible to be supporting an industry that is not sustainable.   There are also many other issues with locking away an entire generation in old peoples homes and villages.

Personally I think I would rather die at 80 with my bodily functions still operating, rather than at 85 in a machine-supported state.   I say that because I am confident in life beyond the grave.    For those who don’t know Jesus, it is understandable as to why they would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to push death back by a few months.

How should we as Christians approach these growing issues?

Blessings

- JC

The often quoted verse is ..  blessed is he whose quiver is full.     In Christian pop culture, the pressure is on.   Through their reality TV show, the Duggars have communicated their version of family life – and it is large.   While I appreciate some of the principles that large families espouse, we should be deliberate in how we filter some of those messages.

On the other side of the equation, our society has uplift the status of the deliberately barren.   Whether it be financial pressures or simply the desire for more time for selfish pursuits, the choice to remain single and build a career is growing.

An Australian politician once famously but accurately said that the west was aborting itself into non-existence.    The average birth rate in ‘Christian’ Italy is 1.6 children per woman, while ‘Islamic’ Yemen’s average birth rate is 7.3 children per woman.   Even a simply mathematician can extrapolate where these trends will lead.   If part of the purpose of having children is to share the gospel with future generations, then we are failing greatly.

While the Bible does not say how many children we should have, the command to multiply and fill the earth is still in force.   Continuing to ignore this will result in great changes.   So what do you think?   Should we be trying to have large families?

Blessings

- JC

Because Tim’s writing is Bible-based, his perspective is realistic, in the best sense.  Here’s an example:

No matter how mature you get in this area, the battle doesn’t end. Yes, detox is real. It’s needed, it’s critical, it’s an absolute must-have. But it’s no magic bullet or stake in the heart of your sin. Think of the purest, most noble, most mature Christian man you know. He is probably far more immune to porn’s enticements than most guys, but he is not completely immune. Neither will you be. Ever.

The wonderful transformation of a deep and thorough detox is necessary. Then, you will be stronger. There will be a new lightness and sense of freedom and joy in God as he pours out fresh grace. But none of us ever “arrive” in any kind of permanent way. We never become immune to this parasite of the soul.

So, getting free and staying free are different things but they involve the same process: Repentance, putting off the old, and putting on the new. You need to practice all three, on a regular basis, for the rest of your life.

You can buy it here in print or download the e-book.

Ben Kwok

No amount of weights, running, exercise or sports will make up for a person who has an appetite like the whale that swallowed Jonah.

So when my health campaign began, I was encouraged to start eating things like:-

-wholegrain breads;
-fresh fruit and vegetables;
-nuts;
-porridge.

At first I really resented these lifestyle changes.

For me a good day of eating consisted of waking up, skipping breakfast, having a blueberry muffin mid morning; hamburger and chips (or Chinese meal)  for lunch; biscuits or chips for afternoon tea; and two plates of whatever my wife cooked for dinner- plus dessert.

All this eating was interspersed with loads of coffee, diet soft-drink, and maybe a few more snacks.

So trying to move to a more healthy diet really took time with progress made grudgingly and in small steps.

At first it felt like I was doing nutritional penance for my former life.

Healthy eating was a punishment!

I was almost ready to go on a pilgrimage to some obscure village in India that harvests lentils to pay for those previous gastronomic indiscretions.

But something happened about 9 months into the process- my desires and appetites changed.

Not overnight, but from consistently practicing new habits, somehow or another the desires just changed.

My desires fell in line with my actions.

Now, my favourite meal of the day is breakfast of all things.

A strong coffee with a few thick slices of multi-grain toast with Vegemite, peanut butter or jam!

After a mid-morning snack of peanuts and almonds, then comes the wholegrain roll with tuna or ham plus fresh fruit or salad. Bring it on!

After an afternoon treat of more fruit or some homemade oatmeal muffins, dinner time comes but only one plate this time thanks dear!

There are some valuable nutritional messages here but let’s move to the world of the unseen.

We often talk about change coming from the inside first.

Yes, lasting change must come from the heart, and only from the heart.

But that is not necessarily how change begins!

Many Christians use the ‘heart change’ as an excuse not to make obvious and needed changes (even simple steps of obedience) simply because they do not yet want to.

A Christian husband need not wait till he feels sacrificial love for his wife till he starts showing love.

He chooses to obey God at this point, and God in grace, will ultimately give those loving desires as the man obeys.

The same can be said of many other arenas of life.

The right feelings and desires often follow our actions.

While we need to guard against acting mechanically or insincerely, tell the Lord about your struggles in motives and He will honour you for that and give you the right desires and motives in His time.

Whatever pain there is in obedience sooner or later gives way to real, lasting, and eternal pleasure.

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. 3 John 2

By Robert Apps

The great English Baptist, Charles Spurgeon, loved to allude to his second favourite book in his writing and preaching. One such allusion is found in Spurgeon’s statement below:

“There are dungeons underneath the Castle of Despair as dreary as the abodes of the lost, and some of us have been in them.”

Some of you know these dungeons well. The darkened corridors and stone cold floors are easily recognised. Within these dungeons, you move with a familiarity that could be mistaken for comfort by those less informed.

But others have made only brief visits to the upper rooms of the castle, often mistaking these for the dungeons below, and finding it tolerable to stay for a few short weeks at most. These know much less of the lower dungeons and for lack of knowing, offer little help to those who have dwelt there.

Come with me, then. I will show you these places…

The Castle of Despair

As we enter the Castle of Despair,¹ we find the light quickly recedes behind us and the darkening halls narrow and twist until it is hard to keep perspective for the odd turning of them. The rooms are dark with hardly a window or light and it is easy, in these rooms, to begin to forget the world outside the castle.

The upper castle contains many rooms. There are large halls for collective introspection and small halls for mourning one’s state. There are cells—many cells—where one may stay for short periods of time. Though there are doors in all the rooms, the locks are all on the insides of the rooms. In the upper castle, people may come and go as they please.

The dungeons below

Our tour of the upper castle complete, we determine to visit the dungeons below. In order to do this, we find that we must leave the castle by the way we entered it for we learn that there are no entrances to the dungeons from the upper castle. We also learn that there are many entrances to the lower dungeons in far and disparate locations, and only those who have a place in the dungeons ever find them, or we could say are found by them, for the entrances seem to swallow them up with no choice and little warning.

As we enter the dungeon halls, we find them so dark and so chill as to make us long for the shadowed corridors of the castle above. All about the stench of death permeates the darkness and memory of the world above quickly evaporates. The halls and rooms wander and coalesce in such a twisted tangle of darkness as to render all perspective lost. In these corridors, we struggle to faintly remember the sensations of warmth and sunlight.

As we enter the dungeons themselves, we find them dank, cold voids with heavy chains and impenetrable doors.  Amongst the dungeons are larger halls where tortured souls are prodded as demons scream and taunt, not content until they have driven every last vestige of hope from the souls of men.

Emerging from the darkness

As we emerge back into the light of day, our minds can only choose to believe that we have awakened from some nightmare, and so, convincing ourselves of our own well-being, we continue on our way.

We shudder to recall the blackness of that place and so we do not talk of it much. But in our hearts hides a quiet dread, for we know that at any moment we may stumble upon another entrance to that place.

.

I was pretending to be  a ‘runner’ but I doubt anyone who saw me move that day believed it either.

I had lost 5 kilos by that time but still had about 35kgs to go.

So I was out trying to get some more off.

I knew losing weight would be hard but there was one thing I hadn’t factored in.

It was the overwhelming sense of stupidity and sheer folly I felt trying to change that really hit me for six. (A cricketing analogy for our Trans-Atlantic readers).

The pain barrier was one thing, but the idiot factor to overcome was far worse.

Up to this time any changes of lifestyle, diets etc, only lasted a few days until I returned to the drive-thru of you know where.

So I had a solid track record of failure and cowardice to fall back on.

But let’s return to my crisis on Idiot Boulevard.

Not only did the folly of things overwhelm me but the thought that my old lifestyle would have to be abandoned was another bitter pill that needed to be swallowed then and there.

It was like the scene of a multiple fatality.

I had to move not only from physical inertia to mobility, but also from deep fried and choc coated to grilled and fresh.

Both went hand in hand.

This sounds pathetic I know but if I wasn’t so angry I probably would have cried.

What also kept the tears back was that my situation was mostly self-inflicted so hey I was not exactly a victim.

So why did I (and do I) keep going?

A good question.

I remember thinking that whatever pain and stupidity I felt was not as bad as things remaining the same.

If trying to lose weight killed me at least I could depart the earth knowing I had tried to do something about it.

God was incredibly gracious to surround me with accountability partners and friends to encourage and give good counsel.

I probably drove half of them crazy but that’s life.

You can’t do it alone. You need others.

Whenever I walk through a food court or am having a meal inside one, I watch people struggling with weight issues.

I see myself sitting there next to them not so long ago.

All the old tendencies and desires lie just under the surface- they can be awaked once again.

Much but little has changed. I try and heed these lessons.

Take each day as it comes and make the right choices meal by meal, snack by snack.

And make sure you get moving.

By Robert Apps

Postscript: Katie gave birth to our second son Joey Matthew last Saturday evening. The pictures in this post are 18 months apart, the first one being with our eldest son Michael when he arrived. I now have at least two powerful reasons to keep fit and healthy.

Unless you can unlock this mystery, long term change will always be harder.

This question has stayed with me for many months now as I have read widely and racked my brain about topics such as overeating, weight loss, exercise, etc.

There has been some recent published works on the effects of sugar on our eating habits, metabolism and general weight gain across western populations. There is likely a clear link between the rise in carbonated drinks, chocolates, sweet cereals over the last couple of generations and obesity.

One Australian lawyer, David Gillespie, lost 40kgs simply by eliminating sugar from his diet and wrote a couple of books in the process, the first one he called Sweet Poison. Gillespie has some thought provoking insights and has really done his homework.

I don’t advocate the elimination of sugar from the diet as I don’t think I can stick to it, nor expect others to limit their cooking choices around such restrictions. You do however need to decrease sugar from your diet if you want to slim down (in combination with other measures). That much is obvious.

But we get back to the central problem.

Why is it that some struggle with overeating (and what usually follows, obesity)?

Why were there times when I did my level best to eat so much that I couldn’t fit another mouthful in?

Is it simply about someone giving in to carnal lusts? Is it the idolatry of food rather than a God-directed devotion? These can be factors at times, but I don’t think they completely give us the answer.

We tend to use food not simply as fuel, but as means of celebration and indeed commiseration.

In the Old Testament God’s people were commanded to ‘feast’ (as well as sacrifice) for religious purposes.

In the New Testament, one way the father of the prodigal celebrated his son’s return was by putting on a huge meal!

Food, even glorious food, is one of God’s gifts for his children to celebrate His gracious dealings with us.

Now that doesn’t mean that we have a divine sanction to eat everything that is not bolted to the floor, but the point I make is that food was meant to be enjoyed!

We tend to blend special occasions, birthdays, church anniversaries, etc, around, you guessed it……food.

Well I better try and answer the question I have raised. At the end of the day, I believe these are some of the reasons for overeating:-

1. Habit. Perhaps we mirror our parents or those around us. If you don’t think habits are hard to break then just try writing with your other hand.

2. Desire. Delicious food is almost overpowering at times and guess what, there is nothing much better than chowing down with great food.

3. Discretionary eating. Have you ever thought about when you eat dessert? Usually when you are already full after a nice meal. The hundreds of calories you just stacked on (unnecessarily) are going to sit on you all night. Try to limit such occasions or go for a healthier alternative (fresh fruit, etc). Better still, leave some room for desert in the first place. No, there is no separate ‘compartment’ in the stomach reserved for desert.

4. Poor planning. If there are no plans in place, you tend to go for the cheapest and nastiest foods you can find. Take-aways, raiding the ice-cream tub, bikkie jar, etc.

5. Ignorance about the quality of foods. At least have a vague idea about what goes inside you. I know it is not what goes inside you that ‘defiles’ you as Christ said, but it sure affects your waist line and ability to be active! So buy a calorie book at Big W, watch what you eat, exercise and you may well add 10 years to your life.

6. Incorrect handling of conflict. We do eat for comfort. After all it brings immediate relief even if we are not hungry in the first place. Try prayer and/or read a Psalm instead.

7. Pleasing people. Some of us might upset others including our mothers if we stopped taking our second helpings. Explain kindly and graciously that you are trying to eat right and most will understand.

Anyway, this is not an exhaustive list. Please post some others if any come to mind. Any such posts will not be construed as admissions of guilt:)

Grace to you all this week!

By Robert Apps

I didn’t expect to lose 3.5kgs so 35kgs was really in the ‘never never’ land.

As of the date of this post I am narrowing closer and closer towards the goal.

There were 2 physiological reasons to take so much weight off:-

1. That would bring me down to 80kgs which is an appropriate weight for my height and build; and
2. The mirror told me there was definitely 35kgs there to shed!

I also wanted to lose something of that magnitude to try and ‘nail the fork into the road’ so to speak. There was no interest in losing a few kilos then putting them back on a few months later.

What was needed was some radical weight loss, but with the right structures and disciplines in place to keep them off.

Besides, putting the weight back on would involve buying another wardrobe. I would rather spend it on baby clothes for our second child expected later this year.

The memory of those early days of exercise, eating less and embracing lifelong strategies is still vivid. It was exciting but also meant death to my old ways.

It was like emigrating to a distant country with a new language and strange traditions.

Could I really fit in?

Preachers often talk about ‘falling into sin’.

Well for so long I seemed to ‘fall into food’. One US politician who lost weight put it this way: ‘I am a recovering foodaholic’.

It is of course the abuse of something God given and meant to be enjoyed.

Good things can easily become idols and emotional strongholds and food must be on the top of the list, particularly in the West. We have an abundance of tasty food that we struggle to enjoy in moderation.

It has been interesting to see the response of old friends and associates. Some almost didn’t recognise me while others thought I must be gravely ill.

One lark asked my wife if she had remarried.

At the end of the day it is not about weight or shirt size but stewardship of the body.

We don’t want to follow the world’s obsession with the body but a healthy lifestyle has so many positive spin offs. Regular exercise and fitness constitutes, in so many ways, ‘redeeming the time’.

The Apostle Paul told Timothy that bodily exercise had some value. Not as much as godliness, but some value nonetheless.

It is remarkable that our major contributor to the New Testament, on writing a pastoral epistle, would make that observation.

So there is value in every believer putting some premium on looking after their bodies. After all it is the only body God has given us to serve Him in. I can’t use yours and you would not want to borrow mine:)

While we may by default aimlessly surf the net for a hours at a time, why not spend 30 minutes a day going for a brisk walk or doing some sport?

The benefits will follow you the rest of the day.

For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. 1 Timothy 4:8

By Robert Apps

Enough introspection and online self-discovery has been shared by me these last few entries.

I want to just tie a few things together on this final post and then start blogging about other things.

When I began my journey my expectations were very low.

I didn’t expect to lose 5 kgs let alone all the kilos that have come off (so far).

So what happened? God was good, I had the right people around to help and I got hold of the right information.

The thought of quitting, for some reason that I still can’t explain, was worse than going through the agony of the first 6 weeks of exercise and new eating habits.

Quite simply staying the same was no longer an option. If it killed me, change was going to happen.

There is one myth I want to debunk.

This insidious myth is that fat people are weak-willed and don’t have the character or tenacity to lose weight. FALSE.

From personal experience I can assure you it takes a lot of determination to keep eating ‘in season and out of season’.

You need to push through a lot of discomfort and immobility to live life as a hard core over-eater.

The issue is more education, motivation and above all persistence to lose weight rather than a lack of character.

In other words I found a few things that worked and just kept doing them.

The other thing I want to give you are my 10 hot weight loss tips just to get you off to a good start this week:-

1. Drink a large glass of water at every meal (water in soft drinks, tea or coffee is not included);
2. Be accountable to someone about your eating (and no it can’t be the crew member at Macca’s drive thru);
3. Exercise 30 minutes every day;
4. Take the stairs instead of the lift; park the car a little further away and walk more- you get my drift;
5. Replace high fat or sugar snacks with fruit or nuts;
6. Limit junk foods to once per week (but remember to thoroughly enjoy the experience);
7. Avoid places of temptation and past failure (as much as possible);
8. Don’t go grocery shopping on an empty stomach;
9. Take up a sport or physical activity that you actually want to do;
10. Invest some money into exercise equipment, flash new runners or gym membership. It will be worth every penny.

So have an active Monday- I am off to pump some iron.

Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, more than I? Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

By Robert Apps