How Does God Help People Lose Weight?
Faith in God can play an extremely important role in weight loss
In the discussion of diet, health and weight loss, there is a subject that I haven't heard too many people talk about that I am constantly hearing from many of my readers.
It goes a little something like this:
"Can God help me lose weight?"
"If I pray for weight loss, will it happen?"
"I have tried everything I can, so God has to help me shed the pounds."
Do any of these statements sound familiar to you? I know I have said them myself many times throughout my life.
As a believer in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, I know that the Bible makes it very clear that we should give God complete control of our lives to lead us in the direction that He wills for us. Unfortunately, some of us Christians can be rather stubborn when it comes to this because we try to maintain control over the "little" parts of our life such as our weight. But God said He wants EVERY area of our life so we really should obey Him and let Him help us with weight loss, too.
So, if we allow God to help us in our weight loss efforts, what can He do to help? The answer to that question is PLENTY!
Since God offers comfort to those who are suffering, He will be there every step of the way offering encouragement and strength to help His children get through the most difficult times. I know there were times when I felt like giving up during my weight loss experience, but God provided me with an extra dose of strength and determination to help see me through.
Additionally, whenever I felt that I was doing well on my diet and foolishly thought that I may not need God's help anymore, He had a gentle way of humbling me and reminding me that He is still in control. I don't know why we try to fight God when we know He loves us and only wants what is best for us. Once you learn to trust God in all things, He will be that friend that sticks closer than a brother and will never leave you nor forsake you in weight loss and in every area of your life.
I give God the praise and glory throughout my book "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" because He was an ever-present help whenever I needed Him during my weight loss and now that I'm maintaining my weight. I haven't gotten discouraged by any setbacks in my weight loss efforts because God is there to get me back on track with His caring conviction. You can almost feel His loving arms wrapping around you like a father embracing a child who is needy and hurting. That right there is a MAJOR part of how God helps people lose weight.
Before you ask it, let me do it for you -- Do you have to believe in God to lose weight? The answer to that question is absolutely not. In fact, the physical aspect of losing weight is just that -- PHYSICAL! If you strictly implement the principles of low-carb, low-fat, or whatever other nutritional approach you choose to help you shed the pounds and do it according to whatever plan you are following, then you will most likely lose weight.
However, people of faith have an advantage from an emotional and spiritual standpoint because we believe in a higher power that goes way beyond our physical bodies.
As anyone who is overweight or obese will tell you, being fat is quite a traumatic thing for many people because it brings on the intense ridicule and scorn of people who may or may not know just how hurtful they are being. The scars from these experiences can be very deep-rooted and cause very real pain to linger on for many years and many times drawing these people into serious depression, lonliness and even suicidal. It breaks my heart to see this happening in a society that is tolerant of virtually every group of people -- EXCEPT THE OBESE!
Thankfully, God can reach down through this sea of pain and into the souls of people like this to begin the healing process from within these beautiful people so they can finally deal with their weight problem in earnest and restore the temple of the Holy Spirit, their bodies, to their proper weight and get their life back.
I honestly don't know how people who do not believe in God can deal with these kinds of struggles they face, such as being overweight and all that comes with that, without Him! Jesus Christ is the anchor of my life and I would literally be lost in this dying world and very likely would be obese today without God in my life! I wholeheartedly believe that to be true.
Having faith does not require you to know everything there is to know about Jesus, God and the Bible. Nope! All you need is an open heart to the One who gave His life for your sins, including the sin of gluttony that so many of us have been guilty of for most of our lives. Handing your life over to Jesus and allowing Him to control your life forever can be the start of a long, happy, and healthy life knowing you will never have to worry about being alone in any struggle that comes your way ever again. He will always be with you and will never leave you nor forsake you when you believe and trust in Him.
If you have any questions about God or how He can help you lose weight, then I am more than happy to talk with you further about it. Drop me an e-mail at livinlowcarbman@charter.net and I'll do my best to answer your questions. It is my sincere prayer that everyone who desires weight loss can see it happen in their lives just as it has in mine. May God bless you all with his abundant blessings!
posted by Jimmy Moore at
4/25/2006 08:20:00 PM
5 Comments:
I actually began first exercise and then Atkins at a very dark time. I had been unceramoniusly asked to leave a ministry I had been working with; I was not wanted anymore. I was even locked out of the forum that I had poured so much of my time and my heart into.
Needless, to say, life seemed out of control and God was more or less silent on the matter, adding to my feelings of loniliness.
It was in this environment of feeling like my life was out of control that I decided to take control of the one thing I could - my weight. I was kicked out of the ministry January 1, 2004 and joined Curves mid-February. I started Atkins the end of March.
It gave me a measure of control. In a life that I felt was being dictated by others, I found something they couldn't control, which was what I needed at that point - a feeling that my life was my own and that some bi-polar woman 3,000 miles away wasn't the captain. The breakup with the ministry was very painful and I needed something positive to channel my anger into.
I don't really feel God helped me lose, and I feel like the people at church thought I was crazy to put that forward as a prayer request.
When did I say I was forsaking God? All I said was I don't feel He helped in my weight loss.
God was the only way I ever managed to get started on losing weight.
I was a sugar addict. If they'd had a sugarholics anonymous group available, I'd probably have been there, but I don't think for one minute that I could possibly have given up sugar with just the support of a group of mere people - God really needed to intervene in my case, and I begged him to do so, after trying numerous times to change my eating habits myself.
It can only be described as a miracle that one day (about 4 years ago) I woke up and managed to avoid eating sweets the entire day. The next day, the same thing happened. After a few more days of this, I realized God had done something in me that I couldn't possibly do for myself, because there I was, someone who couldn't go more than a couple of hours without searching out some cookies or candy, and suddenly I didn't even want sweet things any more. After a couple months, if I accidentally ate something that had even a little sugar (in any of it's guises), it would taste sickeningly sweet to me.
Nowadays, I only use splenda when making things that would be unbearably bitter without something to take the edge off (like cinnamon nuts, or extremly strong chocolate brownies), and even then I have trouble adjusting the recipe so that it's not too sweet for my tastes. I can tolerate drinking Fresca only because the grapefruit juice in it offsets the sweetness of the aspartame in it. Fruit tastes unbelievably sweet to me all by itself, so I stick mostly with the less sweet berries. I had a piece of cantaloupe last night, which was almost sickenly sweet.
Giving up sweets and sugars - all by itself - led to an approximate 50 lb weight loss over the course of a couple of months. (I don't have exact figures because this started at a time when I hadn't weighed myself for a couple months, so it could have been even more.) At the time I was still eating starchy vegetables and grains, and continued to do so until just a few months ago. Then I gave up the rest of it, with the exception of corn, which I continued with for some time, but have now mostly cut out.
I've been stalled on the weight loss for about 3-1/2 years (bouncing back and forth in a 10 lb range), although I have great hopes that having cut out the starchy stuff, I'll start to see my weight drop below that 10 lb bounce-around range. Between that and working out at a gym that provides much more variety in machines than my former one, and that I can go to daily, I'll hopefully see some significant changes soon.
[My former membership was at a hotel that sold pool memberships to the locals - we also had access to their tiny fitness room, but weekends and holiday times were so crowded with hotel guests that it was impossible to swim, and the only eliptical machine in the place was often occupied when I arrived, so I often ended up cutting out parts of my routine, or cutting my routine very short because it was too crowded. It was a fine place to start, since I was still able to exercise 5 days a week most weeks, It really got me in the habit of working out, since I really missed it on the weekends and holidays, but I think LA Fitness will work so much better for me now.]
If I would start to really count my carbs and stick below a certain number every day, I feel certain that I'd probably lose weight very quickly... but as with getting started losing weight by cutting out sugar, I'm trying to let God guide me into what's the best amount and types of non-starchy carbs to eat.
What I've learned so far is that I seem to need to have large enough amounts of protein and fat in my diet to feel really good, and the days when I manage that, I seem to be towards the bottom of my 10 lb bounce-around range, even though my calorie intake is probably way higher than the days when I eat fewer calories and more carbs.
It'll be exciting to watch God work this out and help me figure out what's right for me.
I think I'm bitter because my church really didn't understand what I was doing and therefore tried to sabatoge me with good intentions. "Oh this is brown rice so it's okay." "These are whole wheat noodles so you can eat them." They truly didn't GET IT and didn't seem to WANT to get it. Thankfully I'm strong willed so it didn't reter me, but they sure made things harder.
They've gotten to the point now where they realize I won't eat that stuff and don't make me try. They still aren't supportive per se, but at least the sabotage has stopped.
great read there,
i can relate to that experience i to have had great support from god with my weight loss goals.. when times get tough god is like my intuition, encourages me to push on thank you..
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