Launch out into the deep

Aloha! Thanks for stopping by to check out my blog :) It's a long one, but totally worth your time. If you have an extra six and a half minutes, please watch the video from Steve Harvey. He encourages the audience to 'jump' and take a chance at pursuing their dreams. The 'jump' is a great analogy to what I am doing with Faith Building Fitness and what this blog is all about. Enjoy!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILVFRlUtT8

Well friends, it's time once again for me to jump. After all, He does take us from glory to glory, from strength to strength and from faith to faith. Just when you start to get comfortable, it's time to grow and go deeper. After playing sports throughout childhood and adolescence this lifestyle of exercise and fitness was very much a part of my life and my personality. I excelled in team sports and received accolades and awards for physical fitness during my service in the military. This love for exercise and God's people was consummated in a passion to teach others about health. Becoming a personal trainer was a desire God put in my heart as an avenue to reach His people. I first started working as a personal trainer at Gold's Gym in the spring of 2014.

Business was going well and I was especially enjoying the many relationships I had built with new clients during the first year at work. My job as a health and fitness professional soon took on a whole new dimension when I fully devoted my purpose to being used by the Lord in full time ministry and enrolled in Victory Bible College (VBC) during the spring of 2015. During the same season I was lead to enroll for classes at VBC, the Holy Spirit started convicting me about the environment at Gold’s Gym. Secular music was played throughout the gym. I had several supervisors that were not believers. There were antagonizing spirits of lust and pride that pervaded the place where I spent most of my time during the week. Now, don't hear what I'm not saying; we are called to be a light in this dark world and to shift the atmosphere wherever we go, but for my time of preparation at bible school I knew that my place of occupation had to change.

I began to pray for an exit outside the corporate wellness industry and an open door into a church wellness program, a non-profit fitness ministry or a faith based health organization. God answered my prayer and gave me an opportunity to move to Oral Roberts University's Aerobics Center. I was not only blessed with an open door to work as a personal trainer, but I was also given a team of trainers to lead as the program director. Many of the skills and abilities I had learned as a leader in the military were put to use again as I managed a non-profit, faith based fitness organization; Living Well Ministries.

In the last year, my belief system has undergone an extreme makeover. Bible school will do that sort of thing to you. The public education system and military training did a really good job teaching me how to be a leader with worldly knowledge and to confidently trust in myself. Although I was raised in a Christian home and attended church during my upbringing, I had not yet learned about spiritual laws. During this last year at bible college I have been taught about the kingdom of heaven (God's system), being led by the Holy Spirit (not the mind or flesh) and how to walk by faith (not by natural sight).  Throughout this journey I have discovered with firsthand experience not to lean on my own understanding, but to seek God in every decision and to trust Him with my whole heart. As I seek His will, He shows me the path of life and leads me besides still waters. God speaks to me in the secret place during devotions, through visions, in my dreams and most often through the Holy Spirit.

After taking a break from personal training over the summer of 2016 and working full time at John's school I needed to hear from the Lord. VBC would be starting again at the end of August and I knew God wanted me there full time. Regular, full time employment would not be a viable option for me; bible classes occupy the morning, John gets out of school at 3 and then homework has to fit in there somewhere. Many of the working adults pursuing higher education with families can relate to my dilemma. I could easily pick up where I left off in May with my clients and resume part time personal training at ORU, but was that the 'right' choice or the 'easy, comfortable' choice. If this health and wellness business is really a part of God’s plan then I want to rest assured that it's by God and for God. None of me, all of You Lord.....

"God's plans are blessed.

Where He guides, He provides.

What God directs, He protects.

Blessings untold, are waiting for you.

As God guides and directs the things you do."

Pastor Billy Joe

I woke up at midnight on July 1^st, 2016 and clearly heard in my spirit that I was to contact a friend and purchase the fitness equipment he had for sale. The Holy Spirit not only told me to get the equipment, but confirmed that personal training was a part of my calling and that I was to move my fitness business to the garage of my house. This was quite an unusual idea because I had no extra money at the time and to my knowledge the equipment had already been purchased by another mutual friend. The next day I emailed my friend to ask if he had sold the equipment to which he replied "No, it's still available."

About a month after I received confirmation to resume working in the sphere of physical health and wellness the Lord showed me both the name and the mission statement for my business. I was sitting in front of a smart board watching VeggieTales with about 20 first graders during the second to last week of my summer job. In my spirit I heard Jude 20 and saw the words faith and fitness back-to-back. Once I grabbed a piece of paper I began to doodle the image in my head; the cross was standing up boldly in the center with faith and fitness on either side. I sent my rough draft to a friend who shared it with a graphic designer and created the logo that you see branding the business today.

"But you, beloved,

keep building up yourselves

on your most holy faith,

praying in the Holy Spirit."

Launching out into the deep has been a journey for me along the road less traveled. He is with me always; He will never leave me or forsake me. Even though it's a little scary to launch a personal business and leave the security and benefits of working for another organization, I can rest in His plan for me. I can trust that, like Billy Joe said, "Where God guides, He provides." I can't help but giggle when I think about the tenacity and grit God has placed on the inside of me. He did knit me together in my mother's womb after all and He has directed my every step even when I didn't acknowledge His leading in my life. 

Have you ever met one of those people who like to think they are the best at everything, they're indestructible and they won't back down from any challenge? It's not self-confidence but a God confidence. Some call them brave and bold, others label them young and dumb. Maybe David the shepherd boy was thought of in this way? I'm sure Jim Elliot carried a similar label. One of my favorite quotes from Jim embodies his complete devotion to the call of God on his life;

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot

keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

All of life is a balance of grace and truth, love and law, work and play. From the farm lands of Foyil, to the training grounds of leadership in the military, and now as a nurturing mother in bible school. He is molding me and shaping me into a tailor made vessel for the outpouring of His love. As I look back over the last 29 years I can see the fingerprints of God on different events of my life. Now as I cast the vision for my ministry, His fingerprints start to take on the image of a painting.  We are His beautiful masterpiece, even when we can't see the whole picture.

Veterans of war, among many combat related issues, have difficulty leaving the service because they have been taught to give their life (figuratively and literally) to defend the country for which they serve. When you take on the identity of your profession and start to downplay your identity in Christ alone, it's easy to let the temporary trappings of the world distract you from God's perfect calling in your life. The Lord had to take me through a season of breaking before building me up. Just like a horse has to be broken before they are ready to carry a rider safely, God has to teach us to submit and obey.  This breaking can also be considered a time of separation as the Father teaches us to rely on Him alone for our every need. He desires that we are freed from all things and that He alone is our source. I have been torn down, broken hearted and stripped bare of the self-securities my life was created upon.

If anyone desires to follow Christ, he must deny himself and take up his cross. I am now a new creation in Christ Jesus, built up on my most holy faith by receipt of a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Sometimes we have to lay our promise, our beloved baby down on the altar. God wants a surrendered heart, fully obedient to His Word, His ways, His voice. He is faithful and He will always provide, just like He did for Abraham. 

Faith Building Fitness is not just my business, it's my story; a testimony about establishing my house on the rock and sharing the journey I have traveled to lay the foundation. I invite you to join us during the week for classes and for community. Come out to the garage gym, share your story and become a part of our fun, fit family. We aren't just working out together, we are doing life together; accountability, encouragement, exhortation, edification, compassion and cooperation. Time is short and quickly slipping through our fingers. Make your health a priority and invest time into stewarding your physical body; the temple of the Holy Spirit.  It’s time for you to jump!  

Though one may be overpowered by another,

two can withstand him,

and a threefold cord is not easily broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:12

Check out the website here: https://www.facebook.com/faithbuildingfitness/?notif_t=page_fan&notif_id=1476221198644083 and come join us for weekly fitness, fellowship and faith building.

Foods Effects on Emotions

Food’s effects on your body; from emotions to energy.

We have all heard the “thall shall not’s” of dieting:

·         Thall shall not consume sugar and dairy

·         Thall shall not eat fried or processed foods

·         Thall shall not eat GMOs and gluten

Besides the number on the scale, or the dress size we wear, why should we watch what we eat? How much do the foods we eat really effect our bodies; emotions, energy level, complexion, hormones, heart health, etc.?  When we eat or drink something our body receives it as either a nutrient or a toxin. Food and drinks can help or hurt your health. The choice is up to us, as always God sets before us life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life that you and your seed may live (Deuteronomy 30:19). We have a responsibility to learn what foods contribute to life and what foods will lead to death, then to eat nourishing meals that will strengthen our body to complete God’s assignment for our life here on earth.

I cannot overemphasize how important nutrition education is during this fast paced, ever changing millennial generation.  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). If we do not have knowledge about which foods can cause disease, and which can cure disease, we run the risk of destroying our bodies by consuming harmful substances. Food is not just calories but information – instructions that control your gene expression, hormones, immune system, and brain chemistry and provide the raw materials to build every cell of your body. The food you eat even determines which gut bacteria flourish in your digestive tract – good guys or bad guys. Each bite is literally controlling every function of your body.

Chronic disease affects half of all Americans and accounts for 84 percent of our $3.8 trillion health care bill. This would be depressing except for one simple fact: Most of these chronic illnesses are lifestyle-related diseases. That means they’re preventable, treatable and often even reversible through changes in lifestyle factors like proper diet, adequate exercise and managing stress. More specifically, the food we eat (or don’t eat) is the single biggest driver of chronic illness – everything from heart disease to diabetes, cancer to dementia, arthritis to autoimmunity, and more. The beauty of the human body is that if you take out the bad stuff and put in the good stuff, the body heals. And it doesn’t take long – often just 10 days. And if you are really sick, you can continue. Then in 40 days most chronic problems will dramatically improve or go away entirely.

As early as medieval times, people started to take great interest in how certain foods affected their mood and temperament. Many medical culinary textbooks of the time described the relationship between food and mood. For example, quince, dates and elderberries were used as mood enhancers, lettuce and chicory as tranquilizers, and apples, pomegranates, beef and eggs for fertility. The past 80 years have seen immense progress in research, primarily short-term human trials and animal studies, showing how certain foods change brain structure, chemistry, and physiology thus affecting mood and performance. These studies suggest that foods directly influencing brain neurotransmitter systems have the greatest effects on mood, at least temporarily. In turn, mood can also influence our food choices and expectations on the effects of certain foods can influence our perception.

Complex Mood-Food Relationships

The relationship between food and mood in individuals is complex and depends “on the time of day, the type and macronutrient composition of food, the amount of food consumed, and the age and dietary history of the subject.” In one study by Spring et al. (1983), 184 adults either consumed a protein-rich or carbohydrate-rich meal. After two hours, their mood and performance were assessed. The effects of the meal differed for female and male subjects and for younger and older participants. For example, females reported greater sleepiness after a carbohydrate meal whereas males reported greater calmness. In addition, participants aged 40 years or older showed impairments on a test of sustained selective attention after a carbohydrate lunch. Furthermore, circadian rhythms influence our energy levels and performance throughout the day. “Early birds” feel most productive the first part of the day and their food choices become particularly important during lunch and throughout the afternoon. “Night Owls” feel most energetic later in the day and should pay attention to their breakfast choices as they can increase or decrease energy levels and influence cognitive functioning. For example, according to Michaud et al. (1991), if you are an evening person and you skip breakfast, your cognitive performance might be impaired. A large breakfast rich in protein, however, could improve your recall performance but might impair your concentration. This illustrates the complexity of relationships between food and mood and the need to find a healthy balance of food choices.

Studies have found that diets low in carbohydrates increased feelings of anger, depression, and tension and diets high in protein and low in carbohydrates increased anger. Diets high in carbohydrates have a generally uplifting effect on mood.

As much as food can affect our mood, our mood can also affect our food choices. In a study by Macht (1999), female and male participants were asked to report how their eating patterns changed with emotions of anger, fear, sadness, and joy. When experiencing anger and joy, participants experienced increased hunger as compared to feelings of fear and sadness. Anger increased comfort and impulsive eating, and joy increased eating for pleasure. Another study found that people eat more less-healthy comfort foods when they are sad. Participants either watched a happy or a sad movie and were provided with buttered popcorn or seedless grapes throughout the movie. The group watching the upbeat movie consumed significantly more grapes and less popcorn than the group watching the sad movie. In addition, when participants were provided with nutritional information, the sad people consumed less popcorn than the happy people and the happy people did not alter their consumption.

Psychological effects of food consumption

Cognitive factors are often more powerful than physiological factors. For example, if a group of dieting individuals is asked to eat foods high in calories, they might experience anxiety and other negative emotions because they are afraid of gaining weight. These effects have nothing to do with the ingredients of the foods themselves. In addition, learned appetites can also influence our experience of foods. For example, our favorite foods usually trigger positive emotions. Even the smell of food can evoke a strong emotional experience. Furthermore, the situation in which food is consumed and our past experience with particular foods also affects our emotional response. For example, a person who thinks that drinking a cup of coffee will increase alertness might feel more alert even after drinking decaffeinated coffee.

Fat is good for you

Omega-3 fatty acids can influence mood, behavior and personality. Low blood levels of polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids are associated with depression, pessimism and impulsivity, according to a study by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In addition, they can play a role in major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, substance abuse and attention deficit disorder. In recent decades, people in developed countries have consumed greater amounts of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, contained in foods such as eggs, poultry, baked goods, whole-grain bread, nuts, and many oils, that outcompete omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), both members of the omega-3 fatty acid family, contribute to the fluidity of the cell membrane thereby playing an important role in brain development and functioning. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fish, other seafood including algae and krill, some plants, meat, and nut oils. Many foods such as bread, yogurt, orange juice, milk, and eggs are oftentimes fortified with omega-3 fatty acids as well. Fish oil pills are sold as Omega-3 fatty acid supplements.

Sugar is bad for you

According to the USDA, the average American consumes anywhere between 150-170 pounds of refined sugars each year. That breaks down to more than 20 teaspoons of the added white stuff per person per day. And our collective sweet tooth is growing. For the past decade, Americans’ sugar consumption has edged upward at the average rate of nearly 2 percent a year. Why the sugar obsession? The vilification of fat may be partly to blame. During the low-fat frenzy of the past couple of decades, oils were squeezed out of processed foods – and sugar was pumped in to make reduced-fat foods tastier. It seems clear now that we effectively traded one dietary evil for another. New research is revealing disturbing links not just between sugar and obesity, but also between sugar and inflammation. Inflammation, of course, has been implicated as a major factor in a number of vitality zapping diseases, from cancer and diabetes to atherosclerosis and digestive disorders. Whether you’re concerned with managing your weight, your health, or both, it makes sense to evaluate the impact your sugar habit could be having on your body.

On the spectrum of dietary dangers, processed sugars are on a par with unhealthy fats. “High-fructose corn syrup is the primary cause of obesity in our culture,” says Elson Haas, MD, author of Staying Healthy with Nutrition (Celestial Arts, 2006, New Edition). “Our bodies simply aren’t built to process all that sugar.” Common sources of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) include: drinks like juice, soda and processed coffee varieties like lattes and frappes, condiments like ketchup and mayonnaise, breakfast cereals, yogurts and breads. Still, to date, sugar doesn’t have nearly as bad a reputation as it probably deserves. One of the reasons it slips under the radar is that connecting the dots between sugar and disease requires widening the nutritional net to include all refined carbohydrates (like processed flours, cereals and sugars of all sorts). This may seem like a fine point, but it’s an important distinction.

Most dietary sugars are simple carbohydrates, meaning that they’re made up of one or two sugar molecules stuck together, making them easy to pull apart and digest. Complex carbohydrates, like those found in whole grains, legumes and many vegetables, are long chains of sugar molecules that must be broken apart during digestion, therefore offering a longer-lasting surge of energy. The presence of naturally occurring fiber, protein and fat in many whole foods further slows the sugar-release process. The more processed and refined the carbohydrate, as a rule, the faster it breaks down in the digestive system, and the bigger the sugar rush it delivers. That’s why refined flours, sugars and sugar syrups pose such a problem for our systems. The body is exquisitely designed to handle small amounts of sugar. But refined carbs deliver a larger rush than our bodies were designed to accommodate, or even cope with. In ancient times, hunter-gatherers coveted the occasional piece of fruit or slab of honeycomb as a rare treat and source of rapid-fire energy for, well – hunting and gathering.

Today, sugar lurks behind most cellophane wrappers, and the energy it provides is more likely to get socked away on our hips than burned while stalking dinner. Being active goes a long way toward vanquishing excess sugar in the bloodstream, but it doesn’t negate the need to watch your intake. To make matters worse, unlike the fruit sugar (fructose) our ancestors savored, today’s sugary treats are made with refined sugars (usually some derivative of table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup), which can overwhelm the body’s ability to balance blood sugar. A newly understood phenomenon, inflammation underlies modern health scourges, from heart disease to obesity to diabetes. “Sugar can play a role in inflammatory diseases,” says Dave Grotto, RD, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “Poor regulation of glucose and insulin is a breeding ground for inflammation.”

Under normal conditions, inflammation helps the body rebound from injury. For instance, if you cut yourself shaving, white blood cells race to the scene to mop up the wound, destroy bacteria and mend tissue. But when the injury is deep inside the body, such as inside the blood vessels of the heart, hidden inflammation can trigger chronic disease, and experts are only beginning to understand how sugar fans the flames. The best way to reduce unhealthy sugars in the diet is to consume fewer processed foods and drinks in general, and refined carbs and sugars in particular. Fuel your energy demands with a slower-burning balance of proteins, healthy fats and whole-food carbs. For a healthier alternative to sugars that you add at the table or kitchen counter, dietitian Grotto suggests switching to sweeteners that are higher in naturally occurring fructose, such as agave syrup or malted barley, which have a less dramatic effect on blood sugar and insulin. Still, you should limit your intake to no more than 3 teaspoons a day. “These sweeteners won’t elicit the glycemic response of table sugar,” he says, “but you shouldn’t eat them by the gallon.” For sweetening tea or cereal, you might also try stevia, a natural calorie-free herb made from a South American shrub. It’s sold at health-food stores as a dietary supplement and is widely available in both powder and liquid forms.

So where do I go from here?

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness (2 Peter 1:3). God has given us everything we need in the earth and in His word to live an abundantly blessed life. He has provided the bread of life for the health of our spirit and body in Jesus Christ and He has provided the sustenance we need for the health of our bodies in nature. When we make the right food choices we contribute to the consecration of our personal temple of the Holy Spirit, we equip our body to complete every good works and the Lord is able to use us to reach the world without any hindrance or ailments in physical health. God cares about every little detail of our life. I hope you realize after reading this blog that your food choices do matter and even physical issues of life have implications for the spiritual realm and our spirit man. Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you." (Joshua 3:5).

Stay tuned for my next blog about how emotions and trauma from your past affects your physical and spiritual health. Shalom!

For a more exhaustive list of HFCS containing foods check out this website: http://www.celestialhealing.net/Food_contain_HFCS.htm

Citation: http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/2011/02/you-are-what-you-eat-how-food-affects-your-mood/#.VzKfDfkrLIU