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My Body, God’s Temple

  • December 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Did you know that your body is God’s temple? His Holy Spirit resides within you. As God’s temple, we may feel that we are not deserving of God to reside within us. We view ours bodies  as cracked or broken — not the perfect place for God’s temple. We may be look at ourselves as overweight or underweight; too tall or too short; plus many more imperfections that we see in ourselves.

However, God does not see our imperfections but rather He see us as a treasure to be valued. God has always wanted to dwell among His people and He always did it in style. Rather than dwelling in a building, God has chosen to dwell within our hearts, lives, souls and bodies.

Isaiah 33:6 He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? Your are not your own;

Isaiah 33:6 tells us that God is our foundation and 1 Corinthians 6:19 tell us that our body is His temple. You are incredible in God’s eyes. You are an expression of His glory, created in His image to know Him personally and to make Him known.

As we continue on this weight loss journey, we are in the process of rebuilding or restoring the temple. Therefore, you must honor and trust your body when it comes to food and eating. You should continue to build your body with the finest materials — eat  only the authentic foods. It is not necessary to eat diet foods or anything artificial or unauthentic.

Within us there is a desire that pushes us to eat even when we are not hungry. We have conditioned or habitual responses that tell us to eat such as when we are watching TV. We also have beliefs that we have instilled in us since childhood such as eating 3 meals each day and cleaning our plate. In addition we have past stories of experiences and situations that have influenced our eating and our weight issues. We allow food to control us and become our God. Finally we have had failures with diets in the past. Diets deal with symptoms rather than the true cause of overeating.

Rely on the grace-based approach to lasting weight loss to  help you conquer the overeating issues in your life. Don’t continue to give up or view yourself as a failure. Each time you fail, observe your failure, make corrections, and then move on. Remember that it takes about 20 minutes for your brain to register that you are full. Therefore, eat slowly and take note of your fullness before continuing to eat. Remember you should not eat until you are at a “0″ or empty and you eat only to a “5″ or until satisfied. Why not allow God to accompany you on this weight loss journey?

Thin Within Wisdom: Consider what could possibly happen if you wait for a 0? You might experience the joy of eating your meal when you are truly hungry!

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Thin Within 5 . . .

  • December 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm

God uses the storms in our life to teach us ways to trust him more. After the storms in our life, we feel a calm and steadfast love in Christ. Overeating can be one of the storms in our life that we must face. If we include God in this area of our life, we can feel the calm and steadfast love of Christ in our eating as well.

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My Body — Fearfully and Wonderfully Made . . .

  • December 2, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Job 10:8-9 Your hands shaped me and made me… You molded me like clay.

Psalm 139:13-16  For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

If we only allow God to be present within us and to help us on our weight loss journey, it is in His strength that we are made strong and are able to resist temptations that come our way. God created each of us, therefore, He treasures us . He loves us no matter what. If we try to achieve something in our own strength, we are always struggling to measure up and facing failure and defeat. However, if we are able to accept His love and grace, we are more capable of fulfilling the role that He has designed for us. When we sin, it breaks our fellowship with Christ, but not our relationship.Our relationship continues as we accept His grace rather than facing continued guilt and giving up.

God has created each of us with a plan and a purpose. He created each of our bodies in intricate detail. We know that our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made but due to our mishandling of the foods that we eat, our bodies are not becoming in our sight. God still loves us but we know that we could be a better testimony to Him if we could better control our eating and eat according to the godly principles in Thin Within.

God can do amazing things in our lives if only we will allow Him.  Are you willing to turn your food and eating struggles over to God and watch what He can do?

Thin Within Wisdom: Praise God for your body. It is fearfully and wonderfully made. You are His masterpiece.

Our Body — Facts taken from Thin Within Medical Moment:

75 to 100 trillion cells make up our bodies

Our intestinal tract extracts the necessary vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats from our diets for proper fueling, maintenance, and repair of the body’s tissues.

Excess energy consumed in the form of food is stored in the body as fat.

The cardiovascular system delivers nourishment to every cell in the body and removes waste products  to be excreted from the body.

The heart pumps 5 quarts of blood throughout the body.

The heart beats 60 to 70 times per minute; about 100,000 beats per day; about 40 million times per year.

206 bones and hundreds of muscles, tendons, and ligaments all for the most delicate movement in contrast to the larger body movements.

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Thin Within 4 . . .

  • December 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple 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 body.

Accepting Our Bodies as Temples

How many of you grew up in a family that ate large meals?

How many of you love to eat?

How many of you grew up with the concept of dieting?

Many of us grew up in a similar situation — a family eating large meals and loving to eat. Many of us also were introduced to the dieting concept early in our lives. We grow up wanting to be thin but never having the will-power to stick with a diet program. We diet and lose the weight and then we return to our old eating habits. Thus, the weight gradually returns. This cycle tends to repeat itself and you create the yo-yo dieting effect.

Have you ever thought of giving this area of your life to God? God wants to be a part of your entire life. He doesn’t want you to hold on to any part of it.  We can begin to honor God by establishing godly eating habits.  1 Corinthians 6:19-20 tells us that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us. Therefore, we should honor God with our bodies. Allow God to help you identify your hunger and to help you know when you are satisfied. Pray for His guidance to help you abide by godly eating principles rather than eating until you are stuffed.

Listen as Jan shares her story about food, dieting, honoring God, and more.

Thin Within 4a

Jan continues her story…

Thin Within 4b

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Path of My Performance

  • November 27, 2009 at 12:00 pm

My Path vs. God’s Path

Have you ever thought about your daily life and the things about your daily life especially those dealing with food choices? Many times we make ungodly choices when we are stressed, we feel sorry for ourselves, or we feel like we deserve it.  Sometimes I find myself not listening to God as I rebell against the godly choice that I know I should be making.

When we do not rely on God, we find that our weight loss is based on our performance. We either feel good about ourselves because we lost weight or we feel sorry for ourselves because we did not lose weight. We find ourselves either trying harder or eventually giving up. We tend to follow rigid diet rules for a while and then eventually grant ourselves a license to eat whatever we want. Once we indulge in a delicious hot fudge sundae, we tend to feel guilty and if we are not careful we will continue on the path towards self-destruction.

We already know the truth about our eating. We are only deceiving ourselves. If we are in denial about our eating choices, we are only keeping us from moving forward on our weight loss journey. So, why not accept God’s grace now. God already knows the truth yet He does not withdraw His love from us when we make ungodly choices.  His grace is available for us to accept now. Let God help you on your weight loss journey.

Thin Within Wisdom: Rejoice in the grace of our God. Put away the club of condemnation.

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Thin Within Video — 3b

  • November 24, 2009 at 12:00 pm

The Scales

Pam Sneed shares another video with her thoughts on weight loss and God that may help you embrace this grace-based approach to lasting weight loss. Pam released 100 pounds using the principles taught by Thin Within. Pam relates a story about the bath scales that many of us may share. Personally, I use the scales as a guide for myself and I never associate the results with rewarding myself or eating because I was discouraged. If you use the scales as a means to eat, then it is best to put them aside at least for awhile.

Relying on God

By relying on God for our food issues throughout our Thin Within journey, it  will lead to you  to including God in all areas of our lives and relying on Him for other things as well. God wants us to live the abundant life which is depending upon God moment by moment all day long. Thin Within will help to lead you to this abundant life as you learn to seek Him throughout the day for your food struggles.Rely on God and seek to make the choices that God would have you to make.


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Holiday Celebrations and Eating . . .

  • November 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm

With the Thanksgiving just around the corner and Christmas fast approaching, we will soon be in the full swing of the holiday season. There will be Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas parties to attend, Christmas goodies, Christmas Eve celebrations, Christmas dinner, and it seems that the list goes on and on. It is often difficult to continue to follow the godly principles of eating that we have learned in Thin Within.

We do not want to add an additional 5 or 10 pounds that we must then release later. We have worked to hard and it just doesn’t make sense. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves in advance by setting boundaries and making a plan before we attend the holiday events.

  1. Survey all of the foods that are available before filling your plate.
  2. When filling your plate, allow yourself to enjoy some of your favorite foods, but limit the portion size. Sometimes a taste of something is all you need.
  3. Plan your hunger so that you will be hungry when you attend the event. This may mean skipping lunch and having a light snack to hold you over.
  4. Focus on the reason for the event and others present at the event rather than focusing on the food.
  5. Pray and ask God to be with you and to help you make godly choices as you attend these events.

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4 — A Path of My Choosing . . .

  • November 18, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Relying on God as We Continue Our Weight Loss Journey

As we continue on our weight loss journey, we must repeatedly choose to remain on the path that God has provided and rely on Him as we seek to make godly food choices.  This is not an easy choice and often we will make choices that are not godly. However, it is what we do after making those ungodly choices that determines the final outcome of reaching our desired weight. Do you continue repeating those ungodly choices or observing and making corrections? Do you continue to condemn yourself or do you accept God’s grace? Do you rely on your effort or do you rely on God? The choice if up to you!

As we observe our ungodly choices, we must make godly corrections in order to move forward in our weight loss journey. God freely offers his grace and forgiveness if we just confess and accept His forgiveness. Making godly choices will lead to peace, joy, and the abundant life. Continuing to make ungodly choices leads to a life of denying, rebelling, or always striving to do better.

Romans 8:1 There, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When we walk in the path of God’s provision, we accept God’s grace and rely on Him in the present moment. We focus on God rather than the things in our life. He enables and empowers you to make the godly choices on your journey to freedom — freedom from the foods that have controlled our eating.

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Thin Within Video 3a . . .

  • November 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm

The Hunger Scale

This video features Pam Sneed who released 100 pounds using principles taught in Thin Within. Pam shares that the most difficult part of Thin Within is eating according to the hunger scale from 0 to 5 with 0 being empty and hungry and 5 being satisfied. We do not want to overeat to a point of being stuffed. Learning to eat within these parameters is a big challenge.

Focus on enjoying  the experience rather than just the food.

Be prepared when you eat out or attend special events. It helps to be prayerful and plan to be hungry. This may mean that you skip a meal or eat a light snack.

It’s not about what you eat. It is when you eat and how much.

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1 Corinthians 3:16

  • November 15, 2009 at 12:00 pm

1 Corinthians 3:16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

Our Body — God’s Temple

When Dave and I began Thin Within — the grace-oriented approach to lasting weight loss, this simple scripture inspired both of us by making us realize that our body was God’s temple. We were appalled that we had taken such poor care of  His temple. We had never understood this simple fact. I knew that as a Christian, God’s Spirit was present within us but I had never thought about our bodies being the temple of God —  it just didn’t register. This simple fact alone inspired me to believe that I should take better care of my body by losing weight, beginning to eat according to the godly principles in Thin Within, and to make my body better fit.

I read about the the temples in the old testament and how ornate and magnificent they were. I read about the intricate details in which God instructed them as they built the temple. If God chose to reside in these magnificent temples, how does my body compare? God created me — he shaped me and formed me in my mother’s womb. God cares about the intricate details in my life as well as my body. He delights in everything about me. I was created to give him glory. But, how am I giving God glory when I do not eat according to godly principles and my body is so out of shape?

As these thoughts continue to go through my mind, I realize that I do not always eat according to the godly principles, but with God’s help, I will do better. I cannot do it in my own strength but through God’s strength. God does not condemn me when I veer from His path. His love is unconditional. So, with these thoughts in mind, I persevere in seeking to do His will and calling on Him to help me eat according the the godly principles in Thin Within as I seek to reach the size that He designed me to be. I want God to be proud of my body — His temple.

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