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The more I read about nutrition the more I am convinced that balance is the key. All these lowfat, lowcarb, no meat diets are unbalanced and that is where they fail. Many of these give instant results of weight loss, but bring along long-range problems.
Lowfat diets can lead to mineral deficiencies, hormone imbalances, and mental imbalances, such as anxiety, and depression.
Lowcarb diets are often too low in fiber and many people on them don’t distinguish between good fats and bad fats. Eating mostly protein and very little carbs can upset your acid/alkaline balance as well.
Vegetarian diets are deficient in the 8 essential amino acids, our bodies building blocks, these only come from animal protein. Most vegetarians are mineral deficient. They also tend toward the lowfat so they can have the same problems as the lowfat people.
Weight loss should be a by-product of healthy eating, it should not be the goal. We should be thinking big picture here and making decisions based on the long-term effect it has on our bodies. When you are eating a proper diet you will arrive at your ideal weight. I’m not saying this is done overnight, real success will take diligence. Saying this, I know it’s easier said than done. I know many people don’t find the motivation to eat right unless they want to lose some pounds. Likewise if weight is not an issue with you it’s so easy just to eat anything you want. I think it boils down to the fact that anything worth having in life takes hard work. Maintaining an ideal weight and living healthy won’t come from yo-yo diets or low “anything”. You may lose some pounds in the short-term, but reap destruction later on. Balance and consistency are the keys.
We all need protein, carbs AND fat. We must be eating a balanced diet of all three. Now this does not mean that a Big Mac is a balanced meal because you have your protein (meat), your carbs (the bun), and fat (plenty of different fats in this food). We must be choosing the RIGHT protein, the RIGHT carbs, and the RIGHT fats. There are good and bad in all three categories.
You may have heard me say that I think lowcarb eating is best and that I lose weight and feel the best when I eat lowcarb. I need to re-phrase myself – I believe in “good” carbs and “bad” carbs and feel the best when eating the good ones. In the coming weeks I will go into further detail on good and bad protein sources, carbs, and fats. For now, as you take your babysteps, be thinking about BALANCE.
I’d like to elaborate on my philosophy – If God created it, it is good for me; if man has changed it then it is bad for me.
If we start to think in those terms choices become clear and we can end all this confusion. The more you read about nutrition the more you will see contradicting opinions. One group says saturated fats will kill you, another group says they will heal you. Who do you trust?
I Timothy 4:1-5 says that in the last days a great apostasy will take place and people will preach that we should abstain from foods that God created. Well, the vegetarian/vegan movement has been preaching that for a while now, that we shouldn’t eat meat, some go as far as abstaining from anything remotely associated with animals such as honey (because it’s made by bees). That really narrows your choices. Doctors are telling us that saturated fats and cholesterol will clog our arteries and that we shouldn’t eat red meat very often. Many people won’t eat eggs because of the cholesterol. Nutritionists will tell you that you can increase your protein intake with protein powders and protein bars. If we have ailments we are given pills, be they drugs or mega-vitamins. How can we cut through all the nonsense? Verse 4 and 5 – EVERY creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
Now I think that a lot of people have taken these verses to mean that they must pray at every meal and ask God to bless the food they are about to eat and they think that this means it won’t harm them. There are natural laws of sowing and reaping, just like the natural law of gravity. We can’t throw a ball up into the air and pray that God will keep it up there. It’s going to come down because of the natural law of gravity. We can’t ask God to bless our processed non-food and expect that we won’t reap unhealthy lives from consuming it. Deuteronomy 6:16 says, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God”. Jesus quoted this verse when the devil tempted Him to throw Himself off the pinnacle of the temple. We can not knowingly do things that we know will hurt us (or bring us bad health) and expect God to protect us. God will not be mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap (Galatians 6:7).
I don’t know about you, but it’s nice when someone agrees with you. I have been formulating this thought for a while, with this specific passage in mind. So it made me feel good when I checked out one of Sue Gregg’s books and she said basically the same thing. I Timothy 4:1-5 applies to God’s creation, not man’s adulteration. When we choose foods, we must ask ourselves, “How far has this food (or supplement) come from God’s creation?” In your babysteps toward healthier eating, try to start thinking in those terms.
Last week I encouraged you to put your trust in the Lord and the only way to do that is to know what His word promises you. This will take some study. So I thought I would pass along some of my favorite study tools.
Interestingly enough, as I was planning this article I received an email newsletter with an article that says 60% of Christians world-wide know that they don’t give enough time to their relationship with God, this survey included pastors! You can read the article here. This was me a few years ago. I have been in church all of my life but up until a few years ago I didn’t give any serious time to Bible study. I am so glad I have made this a habit. I have learned more the last few years doing my own study than I did in all those years in church. I am not against church. The church serves many purposes, but we have a responsibility to study God’s word for ourselves. Study to show yourself approved (II Tim. 2:15).
I think the biggest reason most of us don’t read our Bibles regularly is that we think it’s too complex and don’t know where to start and/or we don’t understand it when we do read it. I know this was my problem. I knew the basic tenets of my faith from my years in church, but every time I opened up the Bible to read it, I didn’t really understand what I was reading.
My motivation came when I ran across a yearly Bible reading schedule and decided it was time to make Bible reading a habit. It had selections daily from the Old Testament and the New Testament. After a while of following this schedule I was starting to see the big picture and really beginning to understand. I did not finish the entire Bible in the year. I fell out of the habit for a bit and then picked it back up. But the matter is not how much you read, it’s how often. There have been times that I tell myself I’m going to sit down and study for 15 or 20 minutes and when I’m through I have only studied one verse. But interestingly these seem to be the times I’ve received the most out of the study.
Bibles
As far as Bibles I really enjoy my Thomas Nelson New King James study Bible. It includes commentary, cross reference verses, concordance, selected Greek and Hebrew word definitions, and much more.
Many people like the Message Bible because it’s written in modern language. While you wouldn’t be able to do a word study with The Message since it is a paraphrase instead of a translation, it does make certain passages easier to understand than the King James.
I have recently found the Narrated Bible. It is a NIV translation presented in chronological order with commentary interspersed to read more like a story. We are going to use this soon for our family reading time. I think it’s important to see that the Bible is more than just 66 books written by 40 authors. It is an integrated whole divinely inspired by God. There are no parts of it that should be glossed over, everything is there by design.
For children I really like The Comic Book Bible from Barbour Publishing. It’s for 8 to 12 year olds. Ty has read this Bible from cover to cover more times than I could count. I like this Bible better than the typical storybook Bibles because it covers more territory. It follows the order of the Bible with Old Testament first and then New Testament. It includes maps and verses to learn. I like that it includes the prophets, both major and minor and places an emphasis on Paul’s ministry that is usually absent from storybooks.
Study Tools
www.esword.com - Free download of various Bible versions, Strong’s concordance, Webster’s 1828 dictionary, and numerous commentaries and extras (like Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, for example).
www.biblegateway.com - Great tool for looking up passages in other translations. They have every translation here that I’ve ever heard of. Sometimes it’s helpful to see the NIV or the Amplified translations, for example. They also offer commentaries and study helps.
www.eliyah.com – Online concordance available on this site.
www.khouse.org - Chuck Missler’s website. He offers commentaries, if not on every book of the Bible then close to it. His commentaries are available on CDs, MP3 download and some of them are even available to listen to, streaming from his website. I downloaded his MP3 of the Spring and Fall Feasts, it was fabulous. I had skimmed over details of these feasts in my Old Testament reading, but now see how relevant they are. Learning about these feasts has helped me to understand numerous things in the New Testament. I’m in the middle of his Philippians commentary right now. His radio broadcast, 66/40, is broken up into 25 minute segments. They make a great size for a nightly Bible study. These commentaries offer so much depth, they take you through the Bible verse by verse. And, if you’re interested, you can even get college credit for listening to these.
www.jcstudies.com - Center for Judaic-Christian studies. I signed up for the free weekly study from the Torah. I have really enjoyed it. It’s very interesting to see the Jewish perspective.
I hope this information helps you get started. You can’t trust in the Lord unless you know what His Word promises you. You will reap many rewards for diligence in this area – see Matthew 6:33 and Hebrews 11:6.
Now let’s talk about the most important step in changing habits – trusting in the Lord. It can get overwhelming when you dig into a subject, be it nutrition or anything else. Sometimes I feel a little helpless and want to throw up my hands. But then I’m reminded to trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). I think it hit me when I was reading about how many toxic chemicals are out there that we breathe and eat and even absorb through our skin. I felt powerless in the fight to stay healthy. I think that was a good place for me to get to because I had done so much research I was starting to feel in control of my health. This is a hindrance, when we no longer rely on God, but feel we’ve got it under control.
I heard someone say about a year ago that there is a problem with being too intellectual. I bristled at this thought! I LOVE to learn and am always reading and trying to educate myself. But I see, now, what this speaker meant. The problem with intellectualism is that you feel like you know it all and can solve all your problems and as a result you lose a trust in God. There is nothing wrong with learning, we should in fact be learning all the time. But the problem comes when we lose trust in God. This applies to all areas – healthy eating, finances, raising kids, etc.
God was reminding me that first and foremost I must always put my trust in Him. So I started to dig into that passage that we’ve all heard so many times in Proverbs. I noticed something. The verse that tells us to trust in the Lord is prefaced by promises. Verses 1 and 2 tell us that if we keep God’s laws we will have a long and peaceful life. Verses 3 and 4 tell us that if we are merciful and truthful we will have favor with God and man. This tells me that God does not expect a blind trust, but rather faith in the promises in His word. So we must find out what His promises are if we are going to put our trust in Him. This will take a little study.
So whether you want to change your eating habits or are believing for healing in your life, first put your trust in God and do not lean on your own understanding (intellect). Acknowledge the Lord and He will direct your path (verse 6). God wants to direct our path in all areas, not just the big life decisions, but our everyday life as well. And finally verse 7, do not be wise in your own eyes – never reach a place where you think you have it all figured out and you’ve got it under control and don’t need God’s help. As Barnes commentary puts it, “The great hindrance to all true wisdom is the thought that we have already attained it.”
As you do your research, know this, man does not have all the answers. The doctors and scientists have not figured it all out yet. Our bodies are intricately engineered machines and only our Creator knows everything about them. So trust in God’s wisdom as you learn more about nutrition. Test all things against the Word of God.
We are obligated to do what we know to do. I try to make the healthiest choices I can. Sometimes, I’m sure, I’m ingesting toxins and don’t even know it. God promises us protection from unknown toxins in Mark 16:18 – “If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them”. So rather than be overwhelmed by the knowledge of countless toxic carcinogens out there, I will trust that God will protect me from them if I am unknowingly in contact with them. I will make healthy choices based on what knowledge I have and know that my life is in God’s hands and He cares for me (I Peter 5:7).
Find out what God promises you in His word and put your trust in Him.
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