Energy is awesome.  Feeling energetic… even better!

As a Christian, the personal benefits of feeling energetic are numerous.  But not only are they plentiful, the benefits of feeling great are powerful and even potentially eternal!

Consider these benefits and advantages:

• Feeling physical energy makes you happier.  When you are happier, you will naturally smile more and laugh more.  Smiles and laughter are attractive and contagious (no matter what your worldly appearance may be).
• Being energetic helps you be more active.  Believe it or not, more activity creates more energy.  It’s a powerful, positive cycle that becomes self-motivating.  And, of course, more activity equals better health!
• Your mind thinks more clearly and intelligently when you experience high energy.  When your mind is clear and intelligent, you are more productive, positive, and naturally lift more people’s spirits.
• Greater energy equals greater confidence!  Confidence helps you achieve more (even with small, daily activities), speak more, reach out and influence more.  Again, confidence attracts people who need strength and support, which leads to opportunities to be a shining example of Jesus Christ to the world.

Energy is powerful.  And because of the natural opportunities that being energetic attracts, possessing high levels of energy can have eternal rewards.  Now, obviously as Christians, we have to respond to this higher energy appropriately when God places opportunities in front of us, but we are going to assume, for this article, that your heart is filled with the desire to be like Christ in everything you can do.

So… possessing high levels of energy is important for our health and potentially for the eternal future of someone God places in our path.  The question, therefore, is this:  what can we do to get it?

Consistent, high quality energy comes from 3 sources:

1. God, through Him, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit
2. Temple Fuel
3. Activity

So that this article doesn’t turn into a literal book, you can get a quick overview of the first and third source in the article “Spirituality and Weight Loss Made Simple“.

For now, though, let’s look at the second source:  Temple Fuel.

I can hear some of you now:  What in the world is “temple fuel”?  Well, temple fuel is food!

Since our bodies are the temple for the Holy Spirit within us, we must look at food in a whole new light.  The food that we put into our mouths is literally fueling the temple of the Holy Spirit.  When you truly stop and think about that concept, and if you can even begin to fully realize the gift that has been given to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through His sacrifice and resurrection, the impact of the concept of “Temple Fuel” can be nothing short of absolutely powerful.

In fact, it should be life-changing.

Our nutrition has a tremendous impact on our energy levels.  And while books and books have been written about the topic, the idea of nutrition changes when we look at its potential impact on eternity.  When you look at nutrition in the light of heaven, you realize the importance of steady, consistent energy levels.  The status and priority of nutrition is elevated when you take into account the impact that both your daily actions and your longevity have on your experience in eternity.

Nutrition just became a whole lot more important to you, didn’t it?

Now that you are truly aware of the benefits of healthy Temple Fuel, here are 7 tips for creating consistent, high-level energy.

1. Eat your breakfast!  Time and time again, real-world experience and scientific research proves that people who eat a healthy breakfast have more energy, burn more calories during the day, achieve and maintain weight loss, and are simply healthier.
2. Eat protein at each meal.  Protein revs up your metabolism in 2 ways.  First, it actually takes more calories to digest protein than it does to digest carbohydrates or fats.  In addition, protein helps maintain and repair your muscles, which are responsible for the vast majority of our daily metabolism.
3. Eat fibrous vegetables at each meal.  Fibrous vegetables all have a few things in common.  First, they all have high levels of vitamins, minerals, and/or antioxidants.  Next, because they have a higher fiber content, they excel at making sure you have a nice, slow, steady release of energy from your meal!
4. Fuel your workouts with carbohydrates.  Eat most of your carbohydrates around your workouts.  They will provide Temple Fuel for a high-energy, productive workout, and they will also help refill your carbohydrate stores after a workout.  If your carbohydrate stores in your muscles are at least moderately filled, you should have no problem providing enough fuel to your brain, as well, so that you feel energetic all day long!
5. Avoid simple carbohydrates.  Simple carbohydrates like flour and sugar cause a sudden rush of energy… followed by a drastic LOW in energy.  All those simple carbs cause a surge in insulin levels, which initially helps refill carbohydrate stores.  But, it happens so fast that TOO much carbohydrate is pulled from the blood stream (and either stored as glycogen or fat), and we experience lower blood sugar levels.  Our brain will respond to low blood sugar with feelings of lethargy, laziness, and our ability to concentrate and be positive and productive suffers.
6. Eat healthy fats.  Healthy fats are tremendously important for our energy levels.  Since we are avoiding simple carbohydrates and timing our healthy carbohydrates around our workouts, the balance of our calories should come from healthy, energy-creating fats.  Fats also have a dramatically important role in proper hormone production, which, when factored in with our calorie-burning furnaces of muscle, combine to directly influence the amount of calories we use and energy we “feel”.
7. Drink a gallon of water throughout the day.  Water is essential to every system and chemical reaction in our body, either directly or indirectly.  When our bodies are running optimally, we have and experience the feelings of being energetic.  When our bodies are missing ingredients like water, calories, vitamins, minerals, and more, we are tired, depressed, dull, and down.  Water is a HUGE factor in your energy levels

Look at the concept of nutrition in a new, heavenly light.  In fact, from this moment onward, it would be best for you to acknowledge nutrition for what it truly is:  Temple Fuel.

Take care, and God bless,

Jeremy and Alissa Nelms

Related posts:

1. Temple Fuel – The Foundation of Christian Nutrition
2. Spirituality and Weight Loss Made Simple
3. The Simplicity of Nutrition for Christians

“Simple” is good, especially when the goal is to get closer to Christ and/or lose weight.

Way too many people try to make a relationship with Jesus Christ difficult and complicated.  Weight loss and fitness is no different, proven by diets that require an exact percentage of macronutrients at each meal or exercise programs that require complex programming, sequencing, timing, etc.

Albert Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”  In other words, “simple” is good, but you must, at the very least, have the mandatory ingredients for success.

As with most topics in life, the application of a few basic, simple principles or skills will bring about the vast majority of your results.  If I had to summarize what I feel are the top 7 action steps you and I can do to get closer to Christ right NOW, they would be:

1. Read God’s Word daily and actively obey.
2. Keep a prayer journal and use it daily.
3. Attend church weekly and actively learn.
4. Listen to Christian music throughout the day.
5. Find a Christian support group and friends that you interact with during the week.
6. Read from Christian authors and mentors who clearly follow Christ.
7. Remember that the Holy Spirit is WITH you while you are watching TV, surfing the internet, and talking with your friends.

Here are the top 7 action steps we can do to improve our health, lose weight and fat, and live longer, more productive lives.

1. For nutrition,

• Eat protein and fibrous vegetables at every single meal.
• Eat most of your healthy carbs within the meals before, during, and after your workout.
• Include healthy fats at all the other meals.

2. Drink a gallon of water each day and take a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement.
3. Perform intelligently designed functional, full-body resistance training 2-4 times per week, depending on your skill level.
4. Get 20-40 minutes of moderate to intense exercise on all the other days per week, depending on your goals.
5. Recover weekly by taking 1 day off per week, sleeping at least 7-8 hours each night, and having 1-2 cheat meals.
6. Have a workout partner, coach, mentor, and/or social support and accountability group.
7. Make the priority of your fitness efforts focused on the Holy Spirit and heavenly rewards, instead of worldly desires.

Pretty simple, isn’t it?  Yes, it takes planning.  Yes, it takes effort and action.

Ultimately, if you take an extremely brief amount of time to actually create a plan that incorporates each of the 7 action steps and ACT on them, you will become closer to Jesus.  You will get healthier and lose weight if you implement your plan.

But, we’re not finished, yet.  Remember what Einstein said?

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Look back over both lists.  Even our basic, fundamental summaries can be simplified!  In fact, what if we could summarize our overall list of 14 action steps into just 7?

1. Fill your mind with God’s word, His music, and Christ-led knowledge.
2. Fill your body with healthy protein, vegetables, and water, and properly time your healthy carbs and fats.
3. Move your body.  Intelligently.  Frequently.
4. Recover spiritually with prayer and physically with rest.
5. Enlist support.  Actively participate in a Christ-centered support group and health-minded social community.
6. Find experts and mentors.  Learn from them.
7. Focus on Jesus Christ with everything you do, including your fitness!

So there you have it:  7 Steps For Making Spirituality and Weight Loss Simple!

Leave us a comment below.  Share with us your plan for implementing these steps, as well as your thoughts about whether there are more ingredients to a successful relationship with Jesus Christ or successful weight loss.

Related posts:

1. 3-6 Lifestyle Tips for Christian Weight Loss
2. The Certainty of Christian Weight Loss

In the first Fit For Jesus blog post, I mentioned the following scripture:

This is only the beginning, but what a clear beginning it is!  Our body is the literal, physical temple of the Holy Spirit. By taking care of our bodies, we are taking care of our wonderful Holy Spirit’s temple.  Our body is a gift from the Lord, and we should all, in a simple act of thankfulness and love, take care of our body and the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Are we required to? Technically, no. Salvation through Jesus Christ is a gift of God’s grace.  Our salvation does not depend on our actions, but don’t you want to give something back to our gracious Heavenly Father, who gave His Son for us?

(In the coming weeks, we will get into a lot of detail about how, while our actions here on earth have NOTHING to do with “deserving” salvation, our actions here on earth – including your levels of health and fitness – potentially have MUCH to do with our reward in heaven!)

Here is more scripture:

Jesus states that His body is a temple.  I know when I first came across this scripture, my gut response was, “Yeah, but that is Jesus.  I can’t compare myself to Him and call my body a temple!”

It almost seems uncomfortable to compare ourselves to Jesus, doesn’t it?  Yet, in the Bible, it clearly states that we are “made new in Christ”, and through the Holy Spirit “conformed to the likeness of His Son.”  Yes, we are conformed into the likeness of His character and His righteousness and holiness, but Jesus was also very human.

Jesus was exceptionally clear:  His human body was a temple!

This really seals the point, doesn’t it?  We are, both individually and collectively, becoming a “dwelling in which GOD lives by His Spirit!”.

I think we can all agree that the Bible is conclusive: our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  In the Old Testament, a tremendous amount of resources, including time, talent, attention, and money were devoted to the building of God’s temple.  The temple of the Holy Spirit – our body – should be no different!

Pray today for the Lord’s strength to help you build a temple worthy of the Holy Spirit.  Ask for strength to choose the right foods, the desire to plan your meals, the shift in priorities to create time to exercise.  Start with the clear scripture, and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you in more detail about His desire for you!

Take care, and God bless you richly,

Jeremy Nelms

P.S.  Stay tuned and watch out for a post later this week about the social networking side of Fit For Jesus!  I will need 10-20 testers, so be ready!

Related posts:

1. Spirituality and Your Temple of the Holy Spirit
2. Health, Fitness, and Reward in Heaven
3. 11 More Bible Verses for Your Body and Christian Weight Loss

We have a lot planned for the Fit For Jesus website.  For now, we are going to start sharing some of the Biblical principles behind having a fit, healthy body.  And in case you’re wondering, it goes WAY beyond 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20, which says,

Powerful motivation, isn’t it?  But this is truly just the tip of the iceberg, and we will spend a lot of time digging deeply into… scripture and the promised rewards of a healthy body… all with a focus on Jesus Christ!

In addition to scripture and discussion, we will also have videos, workouts, recipes, and more!  But, truly, that honestly isn’t even the best part of the Fit For Jesus website.

In the background, Alissa and I are working with and finalizing an absolutely amazing piece of software that is going to bring the best features of MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter… all into one package.

• Your own personal profile page, so you can let people know what is going on in your life and receive support.
• Ability to follow friends, so you can keep up with them and provide encouragement.
• Ability to upload videos, pictures, and music, so others can give suggestions on your exercise form (or you can simply upload some positive, inspirational messages for others!).
• An easy-to-use, categorized forum for interaction, so that your discussions can help thousands of others.
• Your own blog and journal, so you can provide week by week, or even daily updates on your progress with your fitness or personal spiritual efforts.
• Ability to create your own groups (perfect for churches, small groups, fitness groups, etc.) and even a private group forum!
• Live chat
• If you are interested, there is even a place where you can submit articles that you feel will benefit the Fit For Jesus community!

It’s an exciting time, for sure!

So, here is the best thing to do for now, while we finish up the social networking side of Fit For Jesus.

1. Put your name and email in the form below, which will make sure that you are notified as SOON as the social networking site goes live.
2. Become a fan of Fit For Jesus on Facebook.
3. Start following Fit For Jesus on Twitter.
4. Send an email to your friends about the site.
5. Leave a comment below, and tell us what you’re looking forward to the most! 

Enjoy, and you will hear from us again soon!

Sincerely,

Jeremy and Alissa Nelms

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