Transcript & Slides: Physical Fitness (Part 1)

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Physical Fitness (Part 1)
By David Feddes

I had an uncle on my dad's side of the family who was a very big man. He was tall, he was heavy, he was a sheriff in our part of Montana—very big, intimidating-looking guy. He weighed over 300 lb, weighed somewhat more than he should have. And my Uncle Hank, at the age of 65, about two months after he retired, suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack.

On my mom's side of the family, my Uncle John was in his early 50s when he had a massive heart attack. He survived the heart attack, and after he was out of the hospital and recovered, he changed a lot of things. He changed his diet and the kind of food that he was taking in, and he also got himself an exercise machine and began to exercise regularly. My Uncle John lived to be over 91 years old and was still working the day he died. He worked in the hardware store in the morning, was planting flowers in the afternoon, and died while he was planting flowers—and was in great health right up to that last day of his life at age 91. But he had already had a massive heart attack when he was 52.

Well, when you have uncles on both sides of the family who have had heart attacks, and then you start getting into the middle years, you start thinking about it more. And I looked at some of the tests for me, and my cholesterol—the fat in my blood—was getting higher, and my weight was a little bit more than I wanted. So I thought, well, maybe I ought to change a few things. And so I changed how I ate a little bit and lost 15 or 20 pounds and thought that I needed to take those steps for my physical health.

I mention those things just to say that, hey, I have had to give some thought to my own physical fitness. And I want to share with you some of the overall principles that are important for caring for your health, for your physical fitness as well. I'm going to look at six areas. In Part 1 we're going to look at nutrition, exercise, and rest. And then in another talk, Part 2, we'll be looking at caution and not taking needless risks, as well as checkups at the doctor and practicing total fitness as part of maintaining physical fitness.

So first let's talk about nutrition. And when we talk about nutrition, the first thing I want to say is: don't fall into nutritionism. Author Michael Pollan has defined nutritionism as an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. That may sound strange, but there is no country in the world besides the United States that is quite so crazy about eating healthy, with so many unhealthy eating practices. And sometimes nutritionism actually can do more harm than good.

There are four myths that Pollan highlights in nutritionism. One is to think of food as a delivery vehicle for nutrients. It's no longer just an orange—it's this much vitamin C, that much fiber, this much of this, this much of that—and all it exists for is to deliver little packages of nutrients.

Another myth is that you won't know how to eat unless you have a whole panel of experts telling you exactly what to eat at all times and telling you all the components of your foods.

A third myth is that the only point of eating is for the health of your body. We're going to see that there's some other reasons to eat too.

And a fourth myth is: there are evil foods that are bad, bad, bad, bad, bad and always bad, and then there are good foods that are virtuous and you should feel like a saint if you eat lots of those foods.

So we don't want to, as we think about nutrition, fall into nutritionism and into these myths.

What does the Bible say? Food is your friend. Food is God's gift. If you have food, don't see it as this enemy that's out to get you, which is the way some people in nutritionism can see food—"Oh, there's this food that could ruin my health." But the first perspective to take on food is simply be thankful for it. Be glad that you have food to eat, because there are many people in the world whose main threat to health was they didn't have enough food to eat. So if you're in a situation where you have ample food, be thankful.

The Bible says of God, "You give them their food at the proper time. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights" (Psalm 104:27–28; Psalm 36:8). That each person may eat and drink—this is the gift of God (Ecclesiastes 3:13). Be thankful for God's gift of food.

Food is not just a vehicle that hauls nutrition into your bodies. That is one purpose of food, and a very important one—to give you nutrition and to help your body. But food also has other purposes: pleasure—it’s enjoyable, and that's a good purpose. It's there for celebration. Festive occasions often involve food. That's why we call them festive—because they involve feasting. Food contributes to fellowship. Food is a part of faith.

I'll explain what I mean a little more. When you eat a bite of candy, it's not giving you much nutrition, and too much candy could be bad for you. But if you take pleasure in eating an ice cream cone or a bit of candy or something else that's not great nutrition, you don't need to feel guilty about it—because one purpose of food is pleasure.

Another purpose is celebration. When you're at a birthday celebration, don't say, "Oh, I'm on my diet." If there's a nice big piece of chocolate cake, take an extra big piece and eat it—and don't feel guilty about it because today you're celebrating. Now, if you turn every day into a celebration of three pieces of chocolate cake, that's another matter. But there are feast occasions—and enjoy them.

When you're at a wedding celebration, enjoy the big meal that's provided or the cake that's there.

Fellowship is a wonderful purpose of food. Your conversation with somebody always goes a little better if you're having lunch together, if you're having supper together, if you're having a cup of coffee together. Food and drink just seem to go with fellowship. And it certainly was the case in the Bible.

When it comes to celebration, the book of Esther—when the Jewish people were rescued from somebody who wanted to wipe them out—says there was joy and gladness with feasting and celebrating (Esther 8:17). That feasting and celebrating wasn't just so that they could have a little bit of nutrition—it was to be glad and be joyful together.

When people in the book of Acts broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, they weren't doing it just to get a bit of nutrition. Part of what they were eating was the Lord's Supper; part of it was a fellowship meal just to be together and enjoy each other's company (Acts 2:46).

So fellowship and faith are nourished by food. In the book of Revelation, Jesus even uses that picture. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20). Eating with somebody is fellowshipping with them. And at the Lord's table, we eat with Christ and he with us.

So don't have too narrow a view of food. As we talk later on about nutrition, it's there for pleasure, for celebration, for fellowship, for faith, as well as for nutrition—and God gives it for all of those purposes.

All food is good. The Bible talks about people who have the doctrines of demons. Now, one of the doctrines of demons was this: they order people to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it's consecrated by the Word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4:3–5).

So don't feel that this food or that food is some villain and it's evil and it's guilty ever to have it. All food is a gift from God and can be received with thanksgiving from God.

And yet, having said all of that, we do find ourselves in a situation where our relationship with food can get a little tricky. When you live in a wealthy society, you're in a different situation than many of the people of the Bible were living in, or even different from people up until more recent times.

In wealthy societies today, there are advantages. You have better homes that are climate-controlled—you're not going to freeze to death, you're not going to get way overheated. There's clean water—not the kind of water that's going to get you sick. In many of the wealthier societies, there's sanitation, sewage disposal, and all of that that helps people to remain healthy. There's superior medical technology, excellent doctors, nurses, medicines, surgical techniques and skills that help people to overcome deadly illnesses and give them many more years of life. And so these are some of the advantages for health of living in modern wealthy societies.

But in these societies, it's a blessing in one sense to have a constant supply of most foods in grocery stores and available to you. But there's constant supplies of most foods and then also sugar—which was not something that would have been readily available to everybody all the time—or tobacco or alcohol or drugs. You can get those things, and they're readily available in affluent, wealthy societies. But too much of them is not good for you.

We live in a society—if we're in a wealthy society—where there are restaurants, where there's a lot of processed foods. And restaurants and people who sell processed foods are in it to make money. I mean, that’s their business. I'm not knocking it that they're in it to make money. But their main purpose is not just to give you what is most healthy for your nutrition. The restaurant wants to serve foods that it can make a good profit on, and they also offer you processed foods. Or, eating in a restaurant is always easier than cooking for yourself. So there’s ease that comes from that.

And sometimes foods are designed to make you want more—to crave more and more—because hey, you make more money if you sell more stuff. So my point simply is that in the whole food industry, there is a motivation to get you to overeat, because it means they sell more stuff.

Also in a wealthy society, we have machines for travel. We ride around in cars or on various kinds of machines—trains, planes, and so on. We can get a lot of places without needing to use our feet and our legs. We can get a lot of work done by driving big tractors or other heavy equipment that people used to have to lift with their own hands. And that's good in many ways, but it also means that we don't get as much exercise as we used to.

There are a lot more desk jobs—a lot more jobs that are spent with most of the day sitting or moving very little—rather than moving around a lot. And that can have a negative impact on people's health. So we need to know the times that we're living in and some of the health challenges that come from living in such times.

There are many advantages that come from living in a wealthy society, but there are also some new threats to your health that might not have been there previously. Sitting around too much, overeating, having too much sugar, and just eating more and more of it than is good for you—those weren't problems if, in order to get anywhere, you had to walk 10 miles. You got a lot of exercise.

If in order to get a meal, you first had to catch the chicken, then kill it, then pluck it, then gather the wood to make a fire, and then roast it—by the end of all that process, you'd already put in quite a bit of exercise. The chicken you probably started out with was fairly lean in the first place, and it was very different than just stuffing your face with all kinds of ready-made food that you didn't have to do much to prepare. So living in a wealthy society will tempt us more toward overeating and under-exercising than would have been the case in other societies.

Many foods that we eat are processed foods, and any one of them may be very delicious. And we don't need to consider it a villain. But if we have a steady diet of sugars and highly processed foods and restaurant foods, it's not necessarily going to have a good impact on our health. And one of the results is obesity.

Obesity is being quite a bit overweight, and it has a variety of effects. Obesity raises your risk of diabetes—type 2 diabetes in particular. It raises your risk of heart disease. It has been linked in some studies with cancer. And heart disease and cancer are the two leading causes of death. Stroke is another of the leading causes of death that is a possible side effect of obesity.

Hyperlipidemia is a big word. It's more often called high cholesterol—or too high a concentration of fat in your blood—which can lead to heart disease. Hypertension is high blood pressure, which is another side effect of obesity. Osteoarthritis is the impact on your joints of obesity.

I have a very good friend, and he had struggles with his weight already from a very early age. This friend was vastly overweight. His mother also had it, and then she died fairly young. And when my friend was in his 40s, he had to have both of his knees replaced because those joints were ruined by carrying too much weight. And he also had an episode where he nearly died because of complications from his obesity. He lost some weight. He's still—he's doing well today. But obesity can have a bad impact on your bones and on your overall health.

As I mentioned, heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and in other affluent societies and is very closely linked with obesity. Stroke is also heightened by obesity. Diabetes is one of the top ten killers, and it is very closely linked with obesity—type 2 diabetes in particular.

So again, let me just grant this: you know what? If you don't die of one thing, you are going to die of another. The thing that's not on that list that's provided by one of the government health centers is sin. We all die because we're in a sin-shattered world. So my point is not that you're not going to die if you avoid this or that cause of disease, but in caring for your body, you can perhaps prevent premature death.

And not only that—not only do you keep your life a bit longer—but perhaps also it'll be a healthier, more vigorous, energetic life where you can make more of it, enjoy it more, and also accomplish more.

Anyway, these are some of the main causes of death. We'll see in another talk about accidents and drugs and suicide and the impact that carelessness can have in those areas. But for now we're talking about nutrition—and in particular, how the wrong kind of approach to nutrition can lead to obesity and then to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other killers.

Your weight would be perfect if you were 7 feet tall. Well, for some of us, we're not 7 feet tall, and our weight isn't perfect. And one of the main reasons is sugar. Refined sugar is something that modern societies have that previous ones didn't. And sugar not only adds calories without giving you a whole lot of nutrition, but sugar also stimulates your appetite. It does quick storage of calories and of fat into your liver, and it hikes your production of insulin, making you hungrier—because that regulates your appetite.

So sugar not only gives you the calories that come in that will add to your body weight, but it will make you hungrier for more. And if you don't understand that, you may just feel guilty—"Oh, I'm one of those people that doesn't have strong enough willpower." But you've got to understand the impact that sugar and refined flours can have on your appetite. And if you learn to manage your nutrition a bit differently, you may find that your appetite is also quite a lot easier to control.

One of the main things that delivers a lot of sugar in a hurry is soda, or pop, or whatever word you like to use for that kind of soft drink. A 20 oz. cola will give you 16 teaspoons of sugar. And many people get a lot of calories through what they drink. If you just drink one 12 oz. can of soda a day, in a year that'll mean 5 pounds—not counting the fact that it stimulated your appetite and probably made you want to eat other stuff as well. You'd gain 5 pounds just from one can of that per day.

And you can't just say, "Well, I'll leave the pop alone and drink more fruit juices." The fact of the matter is that grape juice has even more sugar and calories than Mountain Dew—and that's not because Mountain Dew is low-calorie or low-sugar. Apple juice has more calories and almost as much sugar as Coke—and that's not because Coke has so little sugar, as we've just seen. Orange juice has more calories and almost as much sugar as Sprite. So you're not going to solve the too-much-sugar problem by leaving pop alone and just drinking fruit juices—they've got just as much.

So what you need to do, really, is eat more fruit—real fruit—and drink less juice. Because juice just takes the sugar out of it and leaves the pulp and the other stuff behind. When you get the natural sugar in with the pulp and everything else, it doesn't go straight to your liver and it doesn't jack your insulin the same way. So one little tip in keeping healthy in relation to sugar is: just eat more real fruit and drink less fruit juice.

Again, sugar is not the villain. It's not the evil food. Just to quote from the Bible briefly: "If you find honey, eat just enough—too much of it and you'll vomit" (Proverbs 25:16). It's not good to eat too much honey. So honey was proverbial in the Bible for something that's sweet—it's delicious, oh it's good—but don't overdo it. And then it often uses that comparison to say, "And don't overdo staying at a friend's house too long," or "Don't overdo this or that."

But honey is something to be enjoyed in limited amounts. And that principle would apply to sugar as a whole. It's a delicious gift of God. It's not bad, it's not harmful—unless you eat too much of it. And most of us in rich societies do eat too much of it. So I'm not treating it as a villain. I'm treating it as something that's delicious but that we overdo.

Related to that—not just sugar but also how we handle grains and flours. Grain can be ground up and made into bread, and you can have white bread or you can have bread that still keeps the whole grain ground up.

What's the difference? Well, in whole grain, the kernel of grain has bran around the outside; it has germ on the inside. The bran is very, very healthy, and so is the germ. It's just filled with nutrients. Then there's the other part. When you get white bread and white flour, they've stripped out the stuff that is best for you and kept basically the calories and some protein. So I'm not going to be too harsh—there's proteins and other good stuff in it. It's not that that stuff is all bad for you. But it was meant to be consumed in combination—as a whole thing—not as one part separated out.

White rice, white flour, pasta that's made from wheat that's got it all stripped out—those things are going to give you a burst of sugars that again go straight to your liver and are going to have that more negative impact than if you ate whole grain. So added sugars and refined grains are two of the things that are in our diets in way larger quantities than they ever would have been in previous eras and different societies. They give you more calories without nutrients, they’ll spike your blood sugar levels, they'll increase your insulin, and thus they'll also increase your appetite.

So the suggestion is simply this: enjoy such food—don't feel guilty about it—but enjoy it as a special treat, not a constant habit. It's not bad for you unless it's just constant all the time.

Jason Fung is a kidney specialist who lives near Toronto. He's kind of on the cutting edge of some things related to diet and to the health of the kidney, and to dealing with diabetes in particular—that's what he's a specialist in. He speaks of an approach to diet and to weight that can make things worse for people, where everything is blamed on your personal choice and on your behavior: "Hey, you're a person who eats too much, you don't exercise enough, it's no wonder you're so fat. If you just control yourself and eat less and exercise more, then you'd be all right." That's the model that Dr. Fung describes as the “Calorie Reduction As Primary”—CRAP for short, in his terms.

He says for a lot of people, it's not the lack of willpower—that they just choose to eat too much or they choose to exercise too little—but instead, with certain kinds of foods, you build up high insulin levels. And sometimes the medical industry will even make it worse. They'll give you insulin to help with that, but then your body will react by building up more insulin resistance. So then you need even more insulin added—and more. And as more insulin is added, you get hungrier. And what happens when you get hungrier? You eat more. And your obesity gets worse.

So he suggests that the high insulin levels may cause the obesity that in turn drives eating too much and exercising too little. There are no doubt people who eat too much because they're a little too gluttonous, and who exercise too little because maybe they're a little too lazy. Okay, there are choices that figure into it. But Dr. Fung argues it's not just that. Your body is fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), and if your body has something in it telling it it needs to eat more—which is what increased insulin does—you're going to just crave and need to eat more. And so you'll have to be able to deal with this somewhat differently than just a guilt trip about eating too much and exercising too little.

Nutrition: eat mostly whole, unprocessed foods—real food. Don't drink too many of your calories, as we saw before with fruit juices and pop and the like. Eat mostly whole, unprocessed foods. Have plenty of vegetables and fruits—they're great for you. Some meat, eggs, dairy, nuts.

You know, in the past some nutritionists have said, "Oh, too much meat's really bad for you," or "Too many eggs are really bad for you." Well, maybe too much of anything is bad for you, but it turns out that meat and eggs are really pretty good for you after all. The main culprits are overdoing trans fats, overdoing sugars, overdoing processed meals. So candy, cookies, donuts, drinks—you know, those are okay in very limited quantities, but they're going to drive your appetite higher and contribute to obesity if you have too much.

White bread, French fries, pizza, cereal—again, they're not sinful, wicked foods. They're foods that you need in limited quantities. Or if you don't like them, of course you don't need them at all—you can eat other stuff. But if you like them, eat them in limited quantities. These are ways that, when we enjoy foods, we can also be nourishing our body without driving our insulin way out of whack by having artificially high amounts of sugar that the body was never meant to process.

Dr. Fung and others have found a lot of success for their patients who have type 2 diabetes with intermittent fasting. And not just somebody who has diabetes. If you have a weight problem, if you choose not to eat one or two days a week, or to skip a meal a couple days a week, one of the things that does is it resets your body sugars somewhat.

Of course, if you are diabetic, you need to talk to a doctor about what is wisest and best to do, and not just use this video—because I'm no doctor. I'm simply reporting what people who specialize in this have found.

Fasting, as we see when we consider spiritual fitness, is very important in the Bible. But it also can have a physical benefit. And if you're fasting just for the sake of the physical, then it probably isn't going to have the spiritual benefits. I'm just saying that for physical reasons alone, laying off of food for a bit can be good for controlling body weight and for keeping your overall body levels of sugar and insulin healthy.

When we think about this, think about it in terms of some gradual lifestyle changes—not in terms of changing everything at once. It's been found that when people do need to lose some weight, they're best off if they're losing it very gradually—maybe one pound, maybe two pounds per week.

Make some changes and say, "I think I'm going to eat at restaurants a little less often." If you've been eating at restaurants a lot, one of the best ways to dial back on weight gain is just eat in restaurants less and eat less processed food. That doesn't mean you never eat in a restaurant or never eat anything out of a box. But eat more home cooking, and it'll be healthier for you.

Drink more water. Less pop, less juice, less lemonade, less energy drinks. Water is a God-given drink—it's great for you. Dial back on those other things.

And here's another one: watch less TV. Because when people watch TV, it's almost automatic that they snack and snack and snack. And there's a lot of commercials for food on TV while you're watching as well. And of course, while you're sitting there in front of the TV, you're not doing very much. Get out there—walk. Get some exercise.

Those are some gradual lifestyle changes that will relate to nutrition and to maintaining a healthy weight.

And in all of that, remember what I said before: don't get into nutritionism, where you're all obsessed with every calorie and looking at every box and all its ingredients and so on. I do recommend: look at the box once in a while. If there's a whole bunch of ingredients that you have no idea how to pronounce, put the box back on the shelf and actually eat a piece of fruit or a piece of meat or something real that your body can have.

But in all of that, don’t pick on any one food as some terrible villain. Eat and drink, and whatever you do, do it to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). “If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?” (1 Corinthians 10:30). Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Nutrition—that is a key element of caring for your health. And another is exercise.

Why exercise? Well, the Bible says, "Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come" (1 Timothy 4:8). So physical training has its value—and then there are some things way more important—but it does have some value.

And here’s some of the value: physical exercise helps your heart, it helps your lungs, it helps your circulatory system. And as we've seen, one of the leading killers is heart disease. Another one is respiratory problems. So anything that’s good for your heart and lungs is a great idea.

Exercise helps to maintain muscle mass and tone, especially if you do some bodyweight exercises or some lifting. Did you know that after age 30, people can lose 3 to 5% of their muscle mass each decade? And so as the decades go by, you lose more and more muscle. There's the principle of "use it or lose it." And with aging, you might lose a little muscle mass anyway just due to the aging process, and lose some muscle tone as well. But if you use it, you'll have your muscle mass maintained a lot better.

Hey, you'll lose 3 to 5% of your muscle mass each decade—you won’t lose weight, it'll just get flabbier over time—and you'll lose strength. And very closely related to that, exercise helps to protect your joints and your bone density. When you're exercising, you don't lose bone density as quickly. Your bones don't get as fragile. You don't get osteoporosis—something especially important for women to be aware of, but also for men.

So exercise helps your bones to stay strong. And your joints—the joints are made healthy, the muscles around the joints are stronger so they can support you. And you're able just to move around better for a longer and longer period of your life.

Part of it too is just how you feel every day and how much energy you have. You're going to feel more energetic and more upbeat. It's just a fact that sitting around makes you feel a little more down than getting out there and doing something. When you're moving around, when you're exercising, it gives you more energy.

If you're wanting really badly to lose weight, don't count on exercise to do the job. Exercise will have an impact on body weight, but it's kind of a minor impact. The main impact if you want to lose weight is changing your nutritional practices. Exercise can help some, but the main benefits of exercise for your health are the ones listed above—healthy heart and lungs and circulation, your muscle mass and tone, your joints and bone density, and just your energy and your outlook. And then it will help a bit in dealing with body weight as well.

So those are some reasons why to exercise. And we live in a society with fitness centers, with exercise places—and with escalators to take you in the front door. You can walk right up the steps and get some great exercise, but they’ve got escalators leading in to a place so you can stand around in order to get to your exercise place.

So, first thing about exercise is: don’t just think about your exercise session each week. Just walk somewhere instead of trying to catch a ride. Take the steps instead of the escalator. Move around. You can have your special exercise sessions, but also just move around and walk somewhere. Get up and stretch and walk around. Take some breaks when you're at work.

Here’s a little bit more of an exercise program, and I'd divide that up into three areas:

1.     Cardio, which is to help maintain your heart and lungs and just your overall health in that respect.

2.     Strength, which is more for your muscles.

3.     Stretching, more for your flexibility and staying limber so that you don't suffer injuries too easily.

Cardio is something you do three to five times a week. It can involve walking, biking, running, swimming. And you do that for 20 or 30 minutes, three to five times a week.

Your strength training is something you do a little less often—two to three times a week maybe. You can work on your upper body with some exercises: push-ups, pull-ups, curls. Your lower body: squats and lunges. I’ll talk a little bit more about those. And your core: with planks and other types of exercises.

There are a lot of different kinds of exercises you can do. I'm just going to give you a few samples. You can find out more by looking around on the internet, watching a few videos of how they’re done.

Cardio is very important—and it's especially important for the time we live in. I have a desk job mostly. I'm working at a desk when I'm putting together messages to preach in a church or videos to do online. When I'm visiting with people, I'm usually sitting in a chair across from them. I don't have one of those jobs that makes me work and work and work in a physical manner.

And I remember a good friend of mine who was my mentor—Dr. Joel Nederhood—when I first went into broadcast ministry. He was there ahead of me, and one of the first things he told me was, "Dave, get into the habit of jogging." Now, he loved to run. I hated to run. He ran five miles a day for most of his life. And then, when he got into his 80s, he dialed it back so that he only walked five miles a day. So that’s the kind of exerciser he was. I'm not like that, but I did take his advice.

Already in my late 20s I started doing some jogging three or four times a week. I played basketball sometimes as well. But I did some cardio. And cardio is again moving around 20 to 30 minutes several times a week. And it helps your heart and lungs and just helps you feel better.

Here’s a little cartoon with a good question: "What fits your busy schedule better: exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?" Well, that’s overstating it a little bit, but you might say, "Oh, I'm too busy. I don't have time for that exercise stuff." And the question is, well, do you have time to be dead?

Because for some people it really is that simple. For some people, exercise is going to make the difference between heart failure and living a much longer life. It was for my Uncle John. He had that massive heart attack when he was 52. But he got into exercising. He lived to be 91. So just for the sake of your survival—for some people—that exercise is very important.

Here’s some strength exercises. Again, this is no longer the cardio, but just to keep your muscles strong. Push-ups: you just lower yourself up and down to the ground. Curls is another exercise. When you hear about curls, you might misunderstand. Here's the guy in the gym saying, "Hey dude, when I said curls might help, that’s not what I meant." And the little skinny geek’s got his little curlers in his hair. Now is that what curls are? No. Here's what curls are: it’s just taking a weight and lifting it up and down, and up and down, so that it works the muscles in your arm.

Pull-ups and chin-ups: you grab a bar, you lift yourself up so that your chin’s up to above the bar, and back down again. It's kind of hard to do. So if you haven’t done it before, then it’s wise to maybe start by standing on a chair and getting a little help. And then after a while, you get more and more strength and you can do several of those. I know a year and a half or two years ago I could do zero pull-ups. Now I can do about eight of them. So I built up a little bit over time. And it's going to vary from person to person how many they can do or what they want to do. But they are excellent exercises for your back and muscles.

A squat is good for your lower body. You just lower yourself down with your arms out to maintain balance and up again. Watch a video if you want to know proper technique for that. But again, it's good for lower body strength.

A lunge is another one for lower body strength and flexibility that you can use.

And then a plank: you just hold yourself stiff—either resting on both elbows, or a side plank is resting on one elbow. After you do that for about 10 or 15 seconds, if you've not done it before, you'll probably start shaking. And then you just build it up a little longer each time. And that strengthens your abdomen—the core of your body.

So those are just some exercises you can do: cardio for your heart, strength training for your upper, lower, and core. And then remember, before and after workouts, it’s good to stretch so that your muscles and tendons and so on don’t get injured—and so that you’re more limber and more protected against injury.

You might feel like the lady in this cartoon: "I work 12 hours a day, I exercise seven days a week, I prepare healthy meals at home instead of going out—and it’s all paying off. I'm finally too tired to care about being perfect." You might feel that way when you learn a bit about nutrition and about exercise: "Oh boy, that sounds like a lot." And you can get just exhausted trying to be perfectionistic about that.

So that brings us to our next guideline: rest. God commands rest. In the Ten Commandments, he said, “On the seventh day you shall rest” (Exodus 20:10). Every seven days, we just need to take a break and relax and rest in the Lord—worship him and take time away from our regular duties. We need that.

We also need sleep each night, and the Bible speaks of sleep as a great blessing from God. Here’s just one verse—there are several about it: “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me” (Psalm 3:5). Psalm 127 says, “In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves” (Psalm 127:2). If you’re not building on the Lord, it's in vain. But if you are building on the Lord, then he also grants sleep to those he loves.

So take a day off every week. I know that's so important for me. And if you're in ministry in particular, your day of worship is not your day of rest, because you're putting out that day. You're preaching, you're interacting with other people, you're working. So you need a different day to rest and to be just refreshed. And make sure you're getting your sleep.

And then—recreation. Recreation is doing something fun. That may not sound very spiritual, but you can turn into a spiritual wreck if you never do anything you enjoy and if you never just take a break to laugh, to play some games, to hang out, to go someplace that you really enjoy, to be in nature, to see beautiful sights.

“A cheerful heart is good medicine” (Proverbs 17:22). Sometimes the medicine you need is not the kind that comes out of a bottle or is found in a pill. What you need is to do something that's fun—and that’s what’s involved in rest. So:

·       The Sabbath: once a week, a day a week.

·       Sleep: every night—try to get at least 7 to 8 hours. Some people need more than that. Not very many should have a lot less than 7 hours. You might be able to function with less, but it's not necessarily going to be good for you.

·       Fun: make sure you have enough of it.

Okay, so you may have thought this talk was a real drag with all those things that maybe you shouldn't eat too much of, or that exercise you should do. Don’t forget to have a little fun.

And be realistic. Don’t just say no to something. Replace it with a better option.

When I was trying to lose a little weight, I had been eating ice cream with a brownie every night. Some of you say, “Oh man, that's a terrible way to be eating.” Hey, I like ice cream. I like brownies. I didn’t feel guilty about it, but I thought, well, I maybe better dial that back. So instead of ice cream and brownie every night, I would eat something else. I’d have a bit of popcorn, or I’d have a bit of yogurt and blueberries. You might not like it, but I like that. So find something you like that’s a little healthier to replace something if you’re trying to cut down on sugar. If you're trying to cut down on drinks, enjoy some good water or find a drink that’s healthier than the one you’re giving up.

Instead of just saying “No, no, no, no, no,” another pointer: don’t try to change everything at once. Even in this talk, there may be two or three things that you said, “You know, I think I’d like to do that. I think that’d be good for me.” Well then, do those two or three things—and track yourself.

Don’t say, “There were 14 things or 23 things, and I'm going to try them all. I’m going to do them all right now.” You’ll probably end up doing none of them. So do one or two or three—just a few small changes at a time. And over time, those add up.

In my own life, when I was in my late 20s, I started jogging. That was a change. Very shortly after I was married, I found myself gaining weight really fast because my wife was making bacon and eggs and a huge, delicious breakfast every morning. And oh man, I was packing on the pounds. So we cut that down to having a big breakfast once a week, and then I’d just have grapefruit or something else like that for my breakfast meals.

So just making one change—and for me, it’s worked to just make one change now and then, to tweak something now and then. For others, you may have to take a little more drastic action. But in most cases, a few little changes here and there will do the job.

And don’t wallow in guilt and defeat. In the first place, all foods are given from God. So don’t be feeling guilty about this or that food. And if you find you’ve been overdoing here or there, then rest in God’s grace. Ask forgiveness if you think the actual sins of gluttony or laziness have been involved. But rest in God’s grace. And then make some progress. Change this little thing here, or that thing over there. Exercise just a bit more. Eat just a little differently here or there.

And be glad when you see positive changes. And when your health is improving, make sure you go to bed on time—that’s one change you could make. And as you make those changes, and as you feel better and your health flourishes, just rejoice in the progress. And then make the small changes here and there as needed.

So: nutrition, exercise, rest—we’ve seen what’s involved in that. In our next talk, we’ll talk about caution and checkups, and how total fitness affects your physical fitness.

Physical Fitness (Part 1)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

The body is meant … for the Lord, and the Lord for the body… Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? 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 bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:13-20)

Why care for your body? (summary of previous talk)

• Your body is a marvel of God’s creation.
• Your body is linked with Jesus’ body.
• Your body is the Holy Spirit’s temple.
• Your body is your offering to God.
• Your body is your gift to your spouse.
• Your body is your equipment for action.
• Physical fitness affects total fitness.

Main causes of death

• Heart disease
• Cancer
• Respiratory
• Accidents
• Drug/suicide
• Stroke
• Alzheimer’s
• Diabetes
• Flu
• Kidney

Physical Fitness
: Caring for your health

• Nutrition
  
• Exercise
• Rest
• Caution
• Checkups
• Total fitness

Four myths of Nutritionism (Michael Pollan)
(Unhealthy obsession with healthy eating)

• Food is a delivery vehicle for nutrients.
• We need experts to tell us how to eat.
• The only point of eating is bodily health.
• There are evil foods and good foods.

Food is God’s gift

You give them their food at the proper time. (Psalm 104:27; 145:15)

They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. (Psalm 36:8)

That each of them may eat and drink… this is the gift of God. (Eccl 3:13)

Multipurpose food
Not just nutrition–also pleasure, celebration, fellowship, and faith.

There was joy and gladness… with feasting and celebrating. (Esther 8:17)

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. (Acts 2:46)

All food is good

They order people to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:3-5)

Unlike Bible times

• Constant supply of most foods, sugar, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs
• Restaurants and processed foods designed for profit, ease, craving
• Eating while in car or watching TV
• Machines for travel and labor
• Stress of faster pace, constant input

Unlike Bible times

• Better sanitation, cleaner water, more foods, climate-controlled homes
• Superior doctors, nurses, surgeries, medications, and technology

Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions. (Eccl 7:10)

 
Obesity (too fat)

Increases risk of heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, osteoarthritis, and obstructive sleep apnea

Too much sugar

Candy, cake, doughnuts, alcohol, soda, and other drinks are loaded with sugar.

Juice vs. pop

• Grape juice has even more sugar and calories than Mountain Dew.
• Apple juice has more calories and almost as much sugar as Coke.
• Orange juice has more calories and almost as much sugar as Sprite.

Eat more fruit; drink less juice.

Moderation

If you find honey, eat just enough— too much of it, and you will vomit… It is not good to eat too much honey. (Proverbs 25:16, 27)

• Sugar is a delicious gift of God. It’s not bad or harmful—unless you eat too much of it.

Added sugars 
and refined grains

• More calories without nutrients
• Spikes blood sugar levels
• Increases insulin and appetite.

Enjoy such food as a special treat, not a constant habit.

Nutrition

• Mostly whole, unprocessed foods
• Plenty of vegetables and fruits
• Some meat, eggs, dairy, nuts
• Less trans fats, less added sugars (candy, cookies, donuts, drinks)
• Less starch, less processed carbs (white bread, fries, pizza, cereal)
• Intermittent fasting

Lifestyle changes

• Lose 1- 2 pounds per week (slow and steady, not quickly)
  
• Eat more home cooking (less restaurant and processed food)
• Drink more water (less pop, juice, lemonade, energy drinks)
• Watch less TV (less urge to snack, more time to exercise)

Eating and drinking 
to the glory of God

If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:30-31)

Physical Fitness
: Caring for your health

• Nutrition
  
• Exercise
• Rest
• Caution
• Checkups
• Total fitness

Why exercise?

Physical training is of some value. (1 Tim 4:8)

• Healthy heart, lungs, circulation
• Maintain muscle mass and tone
• Protect joints and bone density
• Feel more energetic and upbeat
• Minor impact on body weight

 
Exercise

• Cardio: 3-5 times a week
• Walk, run, bike, or swim 20-30 min.
• Strength: 2-3 times a week
• Upper body: pushups, pull-ups, curls
• Lower body: squats, lunges
• Core: planks
• Stretch: before and after workout

Rest

• Sabbath: On the seventh day you shall rest. (Exodus 34:21)
• Sleep: I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. (Psalm 3:5)
• Recreation: A cheerful heart is good medicine. (Proverbs 17:22)

Be realistic

• Don’t just say no to something. Replace it with a better option.
• Don’t change everything at once. Start with a few changes.
• Don’t wallow in guilt and defeat. Rest in grace; rejoice in progress.

Be realistic

Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. (1 Tim 4:8)