MAY THE STRENGTH BE WITH YOU
For starters, it's good to have a body that can be in motion. "A body in motion tends to stay in motion."
Due to mental restrictions, we often don't see how great we have it physically (compared to quadriplegics, or anyone who suffers a physical catastrophe).
Setbacks are the name of the game for the whole human race, and I am deeply saddened for those who lack knowledge about proper nutrition and exercise.
Daniel's popular diet from Daniel Chapter 1 is today's vegan diet. You can't go wrong with only vegetables and water, and fasting is a great practice as well.
Remember the gifts God gave to Daniel and his friends when they didn't defile themselves with the unhealthy foods of those days?
Food is Discernment
You may have heard "you are what you eat," but that simply means this: eat healthy, and be healthy.
The practice of choosing the right foods translates into choosing other things that you consume: friends, wholesome speech, and Internet and television content.
Reject foods that are wrong (unhealthy for your body), and put off all gossip, evil speech, unnecessary complaining, etc.
The Body Shop
Comparing the body to a race car, it's a gift from God that should be properly fueled. Healthy foods will reshape the body, effectively tuning it up for better performance (short-term and long-term).
One popular body shop is the grocery store, where you can pick up non-GMO vegetables and organic spices.
Another great place to do some body work is any place that you can be active: at home, the neighborhood, the gym, or anywhere that allows you to move your body freely. Even fidgeting is an exercise that burns calories!
INGREDIENTS (Restrictor Plates)
Proceed with caution when picking up what have been voted as the most popular food items. There can be more debris than you think. Many of the grocery aisles should have their unhealthy foods cleared, with red flags in front of the lanes that carry such product placement. The Produce section should always have the green waving.
READ BEFORE YOU PROCEED. INGREDIENTS MATTER. WHAT YOU HAVE ON YOUR PLATE CAN RESTRICT YOUR PERFORMANCE.
Some packaged foods are very healthy, and Brad's Planet-Based and Amy's are amongst my favorites. There are many other manufacturers that care about your health, and that is made evident by the natural ingredients they list on their labels (and more importantly, what they don't put into your foods).
FLUIDS
Oil and water don't mix, and unless it's a protein powder or similar health supplement, nothing else should mix with your water intake. A good friend once told me that it takes dozens upon dozens of cups of pure water to flush out one cup of Coca-Cola.
FAST FOOD
Racers love to be fast, but fast food can be a detriment to the body and its performance. Even though it can taste great, the habit was one that I could never break (no matter how much I tried and prayed). We trust God's perfect timing for an addiction to break, and I was given just enough strength to wean off of a lifelong problem.
Driving past drive-thrus is the best thing you can do for yourself and God, as you're making the choice to honor His body.
Keep the gas down when you see a bad food spot, and get the Victory by beating an unhealthy temptation.
SUPPLEMENTING
The majority of this generation has not been educated about eating for health, long-term mobility, and greater enjoyment of life. Supplements are great ways to ingest and absorb nutrients that highly processed and fast foods are devoid of.
While developments are constantly being made, many of the best supplements use herbs that have been here for thousands of years. In the Book of Ezekiel (Chapter 47), it states that healthy foods and herbs will be medicine and healing for the body.
Some of my favorite brands are NatureWise, Inno Supps, Toniiq, Male UltraCore, and Om Mushrooms.
Supplementing will speed up your results for weight loss and muscle gains, and I've written recent articles about their effectiveness: Too Much Gas In The Tank?, and Until the Ships Come In (Food Shortages).
RPM BANDS
I enjoy using resistance bands to break through personal limitations that once slowed me down. They are a great way to work on your complete and total body.
FASTING
You may or may not be surprised to hear that we eat much more than we need. By water fasting, people will flush out so many of the toxins that were built up from unhealthy and excessive eating.
MEDICATION
Any food or drink that enters into the body causes a chemical reaction, and there is no pill to take away circumstance.
As a child, I was medicated by my parents for "ADD." This occurrence was based on the recommendations from so-called teachers and nurses. (I suppose I didn't fit the mold for classrooms that mandated you to sit still in their seats, while they indoctrinated you with useless propaganda.) See post: It doesn't ADD up
Later in life, I was unwillingly subjected to treatments for "depression," while the attitudes and human treatment causing it were ignored.
The "medicine" I was forced to take contributed to lethargy, weight gain, and a worsened mental state.
Thankfully, I am medication-free, and no longer subjected to improperly judgmental people who wanted to shove brutal pharmaceuticals down my throat.
This poem echoes the damaging effects many children face from their school and home lives, and I can relate to anyone who has felt helpless and suicidal in a system like this.
IN CLOSING
Unfortunately, many people's lives are crippled and shortened due to a lack of knowledge. They were not taught the importance of healthy eating and exercise in school, which was a place that was strict in enforcing "rules." Grandparents, parents, and children pass down the habit of unhealthy eating, worsening the condition of everyone down the line.
Sadder still, there are those who lack clean drinking water, facing horrible diseases and deformities due to bacteria. Please see: charity: water
It's proven that a healthy diet prevents diabetes, and cures it in existing patients. Medication is made to treat the effect, when the cause is the other chemicals going into the mouth (processed, fried, and other unhealthy foods).
The companies which produce and sell junk food are guilty of murdering an uneducated population.
If only Coca-Cola and Pepsi would donate their money to cleaning up the drinking water in third-world countries, instead of poisoning uneducated people who can afford to buy their products...
Daniel 1:8-20: "But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank; so he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself. Now God granted Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander of the officials, and the commander of the officials said to Daniel, 'I am afraid of my lord the king, who has appointed your food and your drink; for why should he see your faces looking more haggard than the youths who are your own age? Then you would make me forfeit my head to the king.' But Daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, 'Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king’s choice food; and deal with your servants according to what you see.' So he listened to them in this matter and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days their appearance seemed better and they were healthier than all the youths who had been eating the king’s choice food. So the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and the wine they were to drink, and kept giving them vegetables. As for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom; Daniel even understood all kinds of visions and dreams. Then at the end of the days which the king had specified for presenting them, the commander of the officials presented them before Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and out of them all not one was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s personal service. As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in all his realm."
Ecclesiastes 10:17: "Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility, and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!"
Ecclesiastes 11:10: "So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy..."