The Whole30 Adventure!

The Whole 30 Adventure!

An Adventure to a Healthier & Holier Lifestyle

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]? You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own]. So then, honor and glorify God with your body.”

This verse is the Apostle Paul teaching the Corinthians (and us today) about why we need to take care of ourselves. We need to take care of ourselves so that we can honor and glorify God in all that we do. While Paul is speaking specifically to sexual misconduct, I believe he is also talking about anything that could keep us from honoring and glorifying God with our bodies. That includes drugs, alcohol, and any other thing that take us away from doing what God has called us to do. For some people it could be the some sort of addiction, over consuming something, a job, or laziness. For me, it is food. More specifically sugary foods.

My whole life I've been a big guy. I've eaten what I wanted, when I wanted to, and how ever much I wanted. When it came to sugary foods it was different. Once I started eating that piece of chocolate, that donut, the scoop of ice cream or whatever it happened to be, I couldn’t stop until the entire package was completely empty. Sometimes it even lead me to the grocery store to buy more. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines addiction as: a compulsive physiological need for and use of a habit-forming substance characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly :  persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be physically, psychologically, or socially harmful. For me sugary food is an addictive substance, that physically and psychologically harmed me by adding on the pounds and a depressive mentality. If you do some research you’ll find that unnatural Sugar is just 1 small compound different from Cocaine, and according to webmd is an addictive substance. You’ll also find that food companies purposely add more sugar into their food to keep you buying more. Well enough of sugar bashing, you can do your own research on it.

For several years, Bethany and I have been talking about changing our eating habits to become healthier. You see, according to my doctor I'm over 100 pounds overweight, pre-diabetic, have enough uric acid in my system that I should have gout, and I had a stress fracture in my foot last year simply because of my weight. On top of that, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, among other things, run in my family. Go figure, the cure for it all is eating healthy and exercising. I’ve read tons of books, been on tons of different diets, and in college was an avid weight lifter. But none of it stuck.

A few months ago, a few of our friends told us about this program called The Whole 30 Challenge. Basically it’s a 30 day challenge to give up all forms of sugar, grain, dairy, legumes & a few other things. So knowing that I needed to make a healthy lifestyle change we started the Whole30 Challenge on April 5th 2016. Honestly, taking this challenge was one of the best decisions I have ever made in life falling just below the decisions I made to follow Christ, accept my calling and marry Bethany.

The past 30 days have been an adventure to say the least. At first, it was kind of difficult. The first week of this challenge, just about every day someone offered me donuts or sugary foods of some sort. My brain, my body, and my mouth were telling me “eat the foods, it won’t hurt.” But that was a lie straight from the pit of Hell! At the same time God was whispering in my heart, “you don’t need that, you're better off without it.” Then something amazing happened, God moved in the hearts of a couple in our church. Seeing that I wasn’t eating enough on this diet, and how much temptation I had, this couple baught us over $200 in Whole30 approved groceries! It was then that I felt that it was really God asking me to change my lifestyle. From that point on it got really easy. Don’t get me wrong, I still had some major cravings. But the thought that God asked some of our friends to invest in our health and they did, helped me to push through. After our friends brought us the groceries and we did more research, I was never hungry, and the 6 smaller meals / snacks per day left me more than satisfied.

For us this challenge was over on May 5th. But, I have decided to make it a lifestyle for myself. I’m going to start treating sugary foods like the black plague, like the addictive substance it really is. It's time to start making better choices about what goes into my system.

Here are the results: I started out at just over 305 lbs, and finished at 280lbs. Thats over a 25 lbs loss of weight in 30 days. I have been sleeping better and harder that ever, my back pain has almost gone away, I have more energy throughout the day and no longer need coffee to get started in the morning, depression has almost completely gone away, I no longer have irritable bowel issues, my allergies have gotten a little better, and I have started to like healthy foods that I once hated. To top it all off the best thing of all is that I feel good about myself emotionally & physically.

One really cool thing is that I was talking with a pastor who use to be a missionary in Madrid, he said that people are more health conscious in Spain, and it will be easier to eat that way when we get on the field. Now when you support Bethany and I as missionaries, you are also supporting what God is doing in our lives through this adventure through food and healthy lifestyle change.

You may be thinking, “Well good for you, but I could never do that.” Let me be the first to tell you, “YOU CAN DO IT!!!” If I can do it, than anyone can do it. And if God is for you, and wants your body to be a temple for the Holy Spirit then who on earth can be against you? Don’t look at it as a diet, look at it as an adventure in food.

I will say, if you have any health problems, I would recommend to be under the care of your physician. I also recommend for you to watch the documentary on netflix “Eating To Live” and read 2 books, “It Starts with Food” by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, and “The Gabriel Method” by Jon Gabriel.

Thank you to all of you who encouraged us through this food adventure. We love and appreciate you.