Why Nutrition + Fitness Only Isn't Enough...
Why Nutrition + Fitness Only Isn’t Enough
I’m blessed to get to talk to and help several other Busy Moms each month on their own health journeys. One of the similarities in our conversations is how they have consistently struggled with sticking to nutrition and fitness programs most of their lives. They will get super excited about a new program and even have good success with the program, but after a few weeks or months the excitement starts to fade off and the negative excuses start to fill their heads eventually start slipping back into their old negative habits.
Can you relate to this? I know I can because I have had this happen to me so many times in the past. This is why I know from personal experience that nutrition and fitness ONLY… isn’t enough!
The bible says this about our bodies.
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s dwells in your midst.
1 Corinthians 3:16
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31
For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value of all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
1 Timothy 4:8
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness.
Matthew 6:22
God encourages us to strive for a healthy body that is nourished with whole foods and frequent physical activity. Our bodies are the temple that God lives in, but if we are only focusing on the physical needs of our temple we will become spiritually weak.
Think of it like this… If your current church home was only using it’s resources to keep the outside of the building up to date, the lawn beautifully landscaped and would only focus on the decor aspects of the inside of the classrooms and hallways. They wouldn’t focus any of their time, energy or resources on the people who attended the church. This would cause the church members to start feeling unwanted, going to church was just a habit instead of emotionally rewarding, and eventually member by member the church would lose it’s congregation.
This same concept is true in our lives. When choosing to strive towards a consistent healthy lifestyle it’s important to become fit in 3 areas…faith, food, and fitness!
The missing piece in most nutrition and fitness journeys is the spiritual/mindset piece. Everyone struggles with something that causes them to be over weight, stressed out, and unhealthy. It could be emotional eating from past emotional damage that has left unhealed wounds with in us. It could be high levels of stress or worry that keep us crippled mentally and physically each day.
Did you know that stress is one of the leading causes of belly fat weight gain in women?!?!
When we don’t give our hurt or struggles to God to heal, they just continue to fester in the background of our lives. Working out is a great way to relieve stress, but if that is the only thing we are doing to relieve our stress then the work outs are just temporary stress relieving bandaids. We will feel better during the work out and a little bit after, but once we step back into that stressful situation later in the day our peace is lost quickly. The hurt or struggle can eventually cause us self doubt, a negative mindset, and possibly giving up on our healthy lifestyle habits all together.
So, how are we supposed to balance and maintain a healthy relationship with faith, food, and fitness as a Busy Mom??
Early morning “Me Time”! This has become one of my favorite parts of the day because it allows me to start my day off right. As Busy Moms we don’t get much alone except for when the kids are asleep. Waking up an hour to a hour and half before my kids wake up gives me enough time to focus on myself with faith, food, and fitness.
My morning me time includes these top 3 things…
Devotional/Bible Study and Prayer
Good Nutritious Breakfast + Superfoods Shake
At Home Workout
For me it’s important to complete each tasks in this order too. Allowing God to be have the first parts of my day gives me mental peace, more patience for my kids, and healing for any hurt or struggle I am going through at the time. Actually eating breakfast and fueling my body with amazing superfood nutrition allows me energy, mental focus, and physically healthy avoiding chronic disease. Finally, working out allows me to push myself past my comfort zone, become stronger mentally and physically, and achieve goals first thing the mornings motivating me the rest of the day.
Having a morning routine in this order…faith, food, and fitness, has allowed me to stay committed to a healthy lifestyle with out giving into old habits and excuses for several years now. God can strengthen us on days we have doubt and feel weak if we choose to focus specific time each day to growing our relationship with him. These are some of my favorite devotionals that have helped me dive deeper into God’s word each day.
God truly wants to heal any broken, damaged, or struggling parts of our lives. The only way he can do that is if we choose to carve out time for him each day. Treating our temples well with good foods and exercise is important, but it’s not the total package to honoring God with our temples.
Each month I host a virtual health + fitness accountability group. I teach other Busy Moms how to be successful with their clean eating and fitness routines in the midst of the crazy. We have also started doing group bible studies together because we felt this was such an important aspect of being the best version of ourselves as Moms. It’s been a wonderful experience to grow more “spiritually fit” together.
I pray this week that you are able to carve out time for faith, food, and fitness each morning with your “ME TIME” with God.
COACH HELP
I am a Certified Nutritional Health Coach and would love to help you get started on your clean eating journey with an awesome accountability group or even “one on one” specific health coaching to meet your current needs.
If either options interests you please click the link below.