It’s time to enjoy some of the amazing beauty of northern Thailand while we are on vacation. When most people think of Thailand and “beauty”, they think of the beaches of Koh Samui. But Alissa and I are both mountain people. We LOVE the mountains, and we’d rather be hiking in the mountains ANY day of the week!

On top of that, we want to go somewhere simple. Northern Thailand is mountainous and laid back, and while the rest of the country is developing fairly quickly, northern Thailand is much, much simpler than the rest. And Alissa and I LIKE simple very, very much.

And, yes, we’ll be going to the place pictured below. 

While we’re there, we are going to be shooting some video for the Fit For Jesus transformation project, as well as finishing up the FREE Spiritual 7 Movement Guide. So, be sure to signup on the upper right side of the website for your free copy of the Spiritual 7 Movements. It will take a few weeks after we get back from Thailand to get the video and website ready for the downloads, so be patient… we want it to be valuable for you!

I’ll work on getting another post or two up before we go, but in the meantime, leave me a comment below.

Comment!  Answer the following question:  How would simplifying your life help you become more Fit For Jesus?

Related posts:

1. Welcome to Fit for Jesus!
2. The Fit For Jesus Daily Prayer Post

1)       Want you to enjoy the site and feel absolutely at ease and “comfortable” here.

2)      We want to know what you are thinking about when it comes to Christian weight loss and Fitness Focused on Eternity, so that we can write blog posts that help YOU!

So, we’re going to have fun with a new section called Fit For Jesus Questions, Quizzes, and Queries!

Sometimes, we’ll ask you for YOUR questions.  Usually, though, we’ll ask a question and then check out all the answers!  Like we said, we want to get to know you.   The questions may or may not be related to fitness, nutrition, and weight loss, so heads up for anything! 

And, every now and then, we’ll create a fun quiz.  Who knows… down the road, there may even be some fun prizes involved!

So, get ready for the first official Fit For Jesus Query below!

Comment on this Query!  In the Comment box below, answer “If you could only eat ONE vegetable for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

Related posts:

1. Fit For Jesus – Question and Prayer Combo!

There are a lot of great ideas out there, like taking the stairs instead of an elevator or escalator, or taking a longer route whenever you have to go to the bathroom. Of course, I’ve also written about some crazy stuff you can do IN the bathroom!

One idea that pops up over and over is to find the farthest spot in the parking lot of your destination, so that you can walk a little bit more each day. It doesn’t matter if you are going to work, church, or the grocery store, parking in the farthest spot is a great way to add more activity to your life.

But, hey, why not add an idea that is Focused on Eternity at the same time? After all… if you’re going to walk, you may as well pray, too, right?

At Fit For Jesus, we call them “Parking Lot Prayers”.

Paul says to “pray without ceasing”, and this is a great way to add more prayer to your Fit For Jesus Lifestyle. We all have more things that we could pray about. All of us could spend more time praising and thanking God for His immeasurable blessings. In addition to prayers for ourselves, we all have more prayers we could pray for our church leaders and national leadership, no matter what country you are reading this from.

So, decide now that from now on, YOU will not only park in the furthest spot in the parking lot, but that you will pray on the way to your destination! And YOU will truly be getting Fit For Jesus!

Comment! In the comment box below, share the NEXT time you are going to pray a Parking Lot Prayer!

No related posts.

I know, I know… the world has made nutrition extremely complex and confusing.  Some diet book says eat carbs.  That diet book says don’t eat carbs.  Another diet book says eat fat.  A different diet book says don’t eat fat.  And, of course, there are diet books that talk about protein, cabbage soup, cleansing, grapefruits, organic foods, and more.

From a worldly perspective, it is exhausting, confusing, and actually quite annoying.

But… good news!  YOU are a Christian, and so it is very simple!

There is a combination of two Bible verses that really clarify a Christian’s perspective on what to do about their nutrition.  Here they are:

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

~ 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

~  I Corinthians 10:31

Pretty simple, right?  Let’s look at the verses in a little more detail.

In the first verse, the Bible is clear that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit and that we are to honor God with our bodies.  The second verse explains that no matter what we do, we are to do it for the glory of God.

So, a quick summary before we move on.  Ready for it?  It’s not rocket science…

Take care of your body, and do it for the glory of God.

Now, I need to clarify something right away.  The context of the second verse in the Bible is from a portion in I Corinthians where Paul is discussing the concern that early Christians had about eating food that had possibly been sacrificed to idols.

Paul explains that we are to eat and drink with a clear conscience, doing everything to the glory of God.  However, if a non-believer told you that the food had been sacrificed to an idol, then Paul made it clear that it should not be eaten.  The reason why may surprise you, though!

Paul said the reason we should not eat food sacrificed to idols is technically not because something is “wrong” with the food.  Instead, the reason is because in the mind of the non-believer who offered it, the food and your participation in eating it would be glorifying an idol.  Obviously, as Christians, we want to be a witness and testimony to Jesus Christ, so we would need to politely (or boldly) refuse.

Let’s read the verse again, and note the emphasis this time that I have added.

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

~  I Corinthians 10:31

Remember the summary earlier?  “Take care of your body, and do it for the glory of God.”

That is it, in a nutshell.

Any confusion after that is created by the craziness of the world.  And since I’m aware that there IS a lot of confusion created by all the billion dollar food corporations and diet marketing gurus out there, I’ll leave you with two more questions that will help you clarify what to do about nutrition as a Christian.  Here they are:

Question #1:  “Is what I’m about to eat or drink in the form that it was created by God?”

Alternative Question:  “Is what I’m about to eat or drink unaltered by some giant, profit-seeking company who could absolutely care less about my health?”

Here are a few example answers to either question:

Water and natural green tea:  Yes

Just about every other drink:  No

Cooked cuts of meat, directly from the animal:  Yes

Processed, chemical-laden, preserved meat:  No

Raw Nuts:  Yes

Sugar- and chocolate- and other assorted- coated nuts:  No

Natural vegetables:  Yes

Fried vegetables:  No

Raw fruit:  Yes

Processed and canned fruits and fruit juices:  No

Whole grains:  Yes

Processed, refined grains stripped of vitamins, fiber, or minerals:  No

Finally, I’ll leave you with one final note, which will be expanded on in the coming Fit For Jesus program.

If you answer the two questions listed above with “Yes” 90-95% of the time you eat, then you will be WELL on your way to getting Fit For Jesus.

God bless you, your health, your relationship with God, and get Fit For Jesus!

Related posts:

1. Where Does Nutrition Fit In With Christian Weight Loss?
2. Temple Fuel – The Foundation of Christian Nutrition
3. Christian Weight Loss Without Exercise

And to be fair, although it is extremely rare, weight loss based on proper nutrition and no exercise can technically happen.  However, there are three problems with this scenario.

1)      Losing the weight would have been accomplished much more quickly by adding exercise to the overall program.  So, in a sense, the person that chooses to refuse to exercise and maintain a strict diet all the time can achieve her goal, but she would have achieved it much more quickly with exercise.

2)      Losing weight without exercise is a guaranteed trip to a slower metabolism and a physically weaker body.  Even under perfect conditions, the body almost never loses bodyfat without also losing some muscle.  And remember this rule:  when you lose muscle, you have created a slower metabolism.

Let me rephrase that a different way, because this is important.  With rare exceptions, your body will lose a little muscle when you lose a substantial amount of bodyfat.  About the only way to prevent this from happening is to be a “beginner” to the weight room and not reduce calories too drastically.

But if you’ll notice, the exception depends on exercise!  Exercise is the ONLY option that gives you a fighting chance to keep your muscle while you drop bodyfat.  In other words, you WILL lose muscle if you restrict calories too much and refuse to stimulate the muscles enough to make them stick around and stay for a while.

Weight loss by dieting without exercise equals muscle loss, which equals a slower metabolism and weaker body.  Period.

3)      The third problem with weight loss without exercise has to do with Scripture.  Read this verse:

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

~ 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20

The Bible is clear that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and that we are to honor God with our bodies.  The reality is that there is no greater way of honoring God with our bodies than to take care of them to the best of our abilities.  This includes both healthy nutrition and exercise, since both have been proven to provide countless benefits to our health and longevity.

And longevity is important.  Why?  Because the longer we are around in a healthy body, the greater amount of service we can provide to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So, while it is certainly possible to lose weight without exercise, it isn’t the most efficient option.  More importantly, it isn’t the healthy option that honors God with our very best!

Decide today to honor God with your body and get truly Fit For Jesus!  Make sure your health and Fitness is Focused on Eternity!

Related posts:

1. Where Does Nutrition Fit In With Christian Weight Loss?
2. How Many Days Per Week Should You Exercise?
3. The Importance of Goal Setting for Christian Weight Loss

Why is that?

For the longest time, when we were working with the “world” as NELMS Fitness, we tried to overcome the problem by helping a client focus on goals.  To be fair, goals are extremely important and valuable, and they are an integral part of the Fit For Jesus system.  They help a lot of people finally make the change that is needed to succeed with their weight loss.  But, for too many clients, it still isn’t enough.

Another factor that we try to assist our clients with is Lifestyle.  Simple tips, tricks, and methods used in your everyday life can help make a health improvement and weight loss program much more permanent.  Again, teaching this to our clients increased the percentage of people that were ultimately successful, but we wanted to help even more.

So, what is the solution?

Honestly, not very many Christians “get” it.  And even writing now about the topic, I’m going to have to openly tell you that I am fully aware that I don’t personally get it, either.

But what I can tell you is that this topic is, in my opinion, one of the most under-preached and “missed” topics for both new and seasoned Chrsitians, alike, yet it has astoundingly profound implications on every area of your life.  In fact, this topic is the key to lifelong, permanent, change… especially in the area of health and weight loss.

What complicates the topic further is that it is probably impossible for the human brain to comprehend it completely.  And what we can’t comprehend is difficult to assimilate.

But the good news is that understanding just a little of the truth behind this concept can radically change your life, even if it never fully sinks in.  The other piece of good news is that the Holy Spirit will help you understand it!  So, with that said, here it is…

As a Christian and God’s most amazing creation, you are infinitely valuable.

That is it.  Grasping the full meaning of that sentence will change everything about your life, in every area.  Obviously at Fit For Jesus, we want to explain how it applies to your personal health and weight loss.

We ultimately discovered that a person’s “value”, or self-worth, is the missing link.  The brain will not support a healthy body, a positive outlook, or a low stress mindset and lifestyle if it continually tells you that you aren’t worth it.  It will literally tell you, subconsciously, that you aren’t valuable enough to deserve all of the great things happening in your life.

But God, the creator of the universe, mankind, and YOU, completely disagrees.

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?  Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.  Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

~  Luke 12:6-7

Read the Bible verse above again.  Understand that this isn’t just one of the disciples talking.  It is JESUS talking.  Jesus, the son of God, is explaining how valuable you are.  And last I checked, it is tough (and not very wise) to argue with Jesus.

Take time to let these words of Jesus sink in.  Your value is not determined by the world.  It is not determined by your past.  Your value is not determined by what your parents, friends, co-workers, or enemies, did or didn’t think about you.  Your value is not determined by your intellectual or physical skill level, and it certainly is not determined by your appearance, the car you drive, the house you own, or the clothes you wear.

Your value is determined by God, and through His son, Jesus Christ, He made it very, very clear how valuable you are.  Embrace it and believe it, and your life will change beyond your wildest dreams.

Question to answer below:

What is one area in your life that makes you feel less than amazingly valuable?

No related posts.

The Fit For Jesus philosophy is massively different, but more importantly, it works.  Today, I thought I would take some time and tell you the story of how the Fit For Jesus process and mindset came to be.  The change from worldly to heavenly has made a huge difference!

NELMS Fitness vs. Fit For Jesus

It all started with NELMS Fitness.  I was having a little fun with our last name, and suddenly it clicked.

N – Nutrition

E – Exercise

L – Lifestyle

M – Mindset

S – Success!

Eventually, whether I was presenting to an audience or a single client, I explained that it was “Nutrition, Exercise, Lifestyle, and Mindset for Success!”

The philosophy actually worked really well and addressed much more than what the world normally talks about.  To most “experts”, it’s all about diet OR workout.  But the reality is that it is both… AND the proper lifestyle AND the proper mindset.  Teaching clients about the additional factors allowed us to get much better results that were much more permanent.

But, even though we brought to light additional, highly important factors for effective fat loss, it still just wasn’t enough.  We still had too many clients that couldn’t make the switch and make it happen.

And so, as hard as it was to admit, especially because NELMS Fitness was helping people see much more of the big picture than most weight loss programs, we learned that the saying wasn’t entirely true…

Sometimes Nutrition, Exercise, Lifestyle, and Mindset does NOT equal Success.

And so we realized that it wasn’t enough. We had to make a paradigm shift, if we truly wanted to help our clients achieve lifelong, permanent health and weight loss success.  Of course, it didn’t take long to realize what was missing.

Or, technically, WHO was missing.  Because at some point, every Christian who is trying to make a serious change in any area of their life will come to the realization that it will not happen without Jesus Christ.  And with that truth in our hearts, we knew that NELMS Fitness could no longer be our focus.

It was time to reinvent.

The first thing we tackled was the acronym.  Obviously, the NELMS acronym would no longer apply.  As we played around with it, we soon noticed that keeping all the letters would be a great way to teach a lesson.

You see, the world teaches that Nutrition is the solution.  And to be fair, it is a major factor in the weight loss equation.  But although it plays a major role, any competent fitness professional will tell you that you can’t start there.  And since we had learned our lesson that the old NELMS fitness acronym wasn’t going to work, we knew we couldn’t continue to start their, either.

But what about the S?

S for Success… the worldly view.  S for Spirituality – the Fit For Jesus Solution!

After analyzing the situation, we knew that S needed to stand for “Spirituality”.  Simply stated, Jesus is needed in our life.  The Holy Spirit needs to be the leader of our efforts.  So, now we are looking at Nutrition, Exercise, Lifestyle, Mindset, and Spirituality, right?

Yes, but NELMS is all out of order.  And using NELMS is both worldly and has a hint of pride to it, since it is my last name.  NELMS Fitness can be no more, which is great, since “He must become greater.  I must become less.”  (John 3:30)

We look to Jesus, who said,  “So the last will be first…”

(The rest of the verse, of course, says “and the first will be last”.  But, I honestly can’t say that Nutrition is last on the priority list, so we just won’t be able to use that part.)

“So the last will be first…” puts us at Spirituality, Nutrition, Exercise, Lifestyle, and Mindset (SNELM) but there is still one more issue that I’ll bet over 98% of weight loss coaches and personal trainers are getting wrong.

Most trainers don’t even address it.  The issue is Mindset.  Sure, some trainers talk about goals, but the reality is that it is the mind that has to change the most and involves much more that just goals.   In order for the mind to change, we need Jesus and true, sincere Spirituality.  There is much, much more to this than will fit here in a single blog post, so we’ll leave it at that for now.

And that is how the new acronym, Spirituality, Mindset, Nutrition, Exercise, and Lifestyle (SMNEL) used in Fit For Jesus came to be.

Goodbye, NELMS Fitness.  Hello, Fit For JESUS!

“He must become greater.  I must become less.”  (John 3:30)

Related posts:

1. Where Does Nutrition Fit In With Christian Weight Loss?
2. The Power of a Positive Mindset for Christian Weight Loss
3. The Spiritual Goals of Fit For Jesus

1. Realize your value.  Read Psalm 139:13-16 and truly discover in your heart how much God thinks about you, loves you, and cares for you.
2. Realize God’s sacrifice.  Read John 3:16 again.  And then read it again.  He did that for YOU.  He loves YOU!
3. Love yourself.  “Love your neighbor as yourself” originated from God, was repeated often by Jesus, and reinforced by Paul.

   Think about it:  it not only means that we are supposed to love others, but that we are supposed to ALREADY love ourselves!  GOD said so!

4. Forgive yourself:  others have messed up before you.  Moses murdered.  David committed adultery and sent a husband to his death.  Matthew was a thieving tax collector.  Paul persecuted and killed.  Thomas doubted.  Peter denied Jesus in His very presence.

   Last I checked, they all turned out ok.  You can, too, if you’ll just ask for God’s forgiveness and realize that He has forgotten about it, already.

5. Move on.  Eating yourself to death because of the past is not forgiveness (either of yourself or others), and it is a horrible, ungodly coping mechanism.
6. Forgive others.  Bitterness is stressful.  Chronic stress increases cortisol.  Cortisol leads specifically to increased abdominal fat and inflammation.  Abdominal fat and inflammation lead to heart attacks that kill prematurely.
7. Seek Him first.  Face it.  Life will be a struggle.  Stop seeking the world and seek Him, first.  “His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.”

It is a lot easier, and it becomes automatic to take care of your body (the temple of the Holy Spirit!) when you realize that you are valuable, God loves you, you are forgiven, you can forgive others, you can forgive yourself, you can move on, and you can love yourself as God commanded!

Related posts:

1. The Spiritual Goals of Fit For Jesus
2. 11 More Bible Verses for Your Body and Christian Weight Loss
3. Christian Weight Loss Without Exercise

Be sure to leave a comment, as well as any prayer requests that you may have.

This Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster uses 30 seconds each of: 2-ft side/side hops, band bent rows, band stiff-leg deadlift, and band shoulder press.

Pray for the safety of all of the holiday travelers this weekend as they return from a long weekend and Labor Day!

Related posts:

1. Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster #3 for Christian Weight Loss
2. Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster #2
3. Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster #1

Be sure to leave a comment, as well as any prayer requests that you may have.

This Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster uses 30 seconds each of: 2-ft forward/backward hops, band pullaparts, praise squats, and t-pushups.

Pray for the safety of all of the holiday travelers this weekend as the United States enjoys a long weekend and Labor Day!

Related posts:

1. Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster #4
2. Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster #2
3. Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster #1