How to Glorify God through Your Health & Fitness

As a registered dietitian, I am passionate about health and fitness! As a believer, I am also passionate about Jesus and glorifying my Heavenly Father through all that I say and do! I truly love educating others about how to eat well and treat their bodies well. This post is all about how we can learn to glorify God through nutrition and working out. I pray that the Lord uses my words to speak to you about how you view food and fitness. I pray that you seek God and seek to honor Him through the stewardship of your body. I pray you find your identity in Jesus, and not in what you eat or what you look like. Amen.

Being a good steward. This is talked about a lot in the church in relation to money and our time. But we don't hear it talked about in relation to our bodies. Did you know that who God is and our relationship with Him actually has a connection to how we choose to steward our body? How we steward our body translates into other areas of our life as well. If you are being a good steward, you are able to do things with excellence, which is what we are called to do.

Romans 12:1-2 says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Caring for, and nurturing your body allows us to carry out the roles and works that God has called us to do-this means we are being good stewards of the bodies that God has gifted us with.

Besides being a good steward, it is also important not to idolize our health.

"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven or in the waters below." - Exodus 20: 3-4

Growing up, I always thought having an idol was possessing a literal statue of something, someone, that I would worship besides the Lord. But as I got older, I began to realize that idols can be anything-money, success, a career, food, working out and even the way we look (or don't look).

"If only I could lose 10 more pounds...then I'd be happy with how I look."

"If I could just look like her..."

What happens when we don't look like "her"? When we can't lose the 10 pounds? Typically what I see is, we start to obsess. We become obsessive over those 10 pounds. Then, we obsess over the food we eat. We restrict. We work out. We tell ourselves "no". We diet.

No, I can't have that food (or food group).

No I can't go out to eat because it's "bad", or that restaurant doesn't have any healthy foods.

We tell ourselves we are "bad" for eating a certain food, or not eating certain "good" foods. We feel guilt.

Can you relate?

If we start to become obsessive over our bodies, sometimes this can take precedence over our walk with the Lord. As believers, our pursuit is glorifying God. Many of us likely don't connect our walk with the Lord to our bodies. We want to look fit (which is fine), and we may even feel better and like how we look better if we eat well and work out. However, our emotions are not dependable, and they are not a good foundation. But the good news is, is that we can overcome our emotions with the truth. The truth is, we are children of God. We can (and should) find our identity in Him, and Him alone.

Let's talk about sustainability. The definition of sustainability is "the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level." So when we are talking about the way we eat and work out, it must be sustainable or we may be tempted to obsess, restrict and will ultimately feel guilty if we are not able to sustain our lifestyle.

Have you ever tried a fad diet? Whole30, Keto, Atkins, detoxes/cleanses, Paleo.

Have you ever counted your calories? Your macros?

How do you feel when you're on a diet or restricting yourself?

It might make you feel good or healthy for a short time, maybe a couple of weeks. But what about long-term? Are you able to stick to that regimen for months, years? The answer is probably not. Why? Because it's not sustainable! It's hard to deprive yourself of food that you enjoy and that your body is craving. This is also where we tend to make our new diet/food regimen part of our identity. We idolize it. You are living within the bondage of our diet culture and all the pressure it has put on you to be perfect and "beautiful" in the world's eyes. But if you want how you eat to become something that is sustainable, it cannot be something that you idolize or make your identity. This cannot be where you find your worth.

If you know who you are and whose you are, then you have a freedom where you can approach food and fitness in a way that glorifies God. You don't have to live in fear of food and the bondage mentality that it can create.

So how do you do that?

Your health and fitness goals have to be sustainable and attainable. They must be realistic.

I encourage you to really pray and ask the Lord what your health goals should be. What is your "why" behind your goals? Is it because you want to look like "her"? Or do you want to do this to glorify the Lord?

Y'all, I'd like to say that diets are really hard on your body. The Lord made your body and He designed it to function well (unless you have a medical condition that causes it to function otherwise). These fad diets that exist are just that-fads. They only last for a period of time, and they typically promise fast weight loss, among other things. So why don't these fad diets last long? Because they don't work.

But also, if you know who you and whose you are, you know that you are beautiful in the Lord's eyes. Your worth is found in Him, and not in how you look. You don't need to lose those 10 pounds just to look better. In fact, did you know that your body knows what weight you should be at?

As a registered dietitian, I am a big proponent of Intuitive Eating. Listening to our body and feeding it foods that we enjoy, and also foods that are going to benefit our body nutritionally, is sustainable. You aren't obsessing over what you put in your body. You don't feel guilt or shame because there are no "good" or "bad" foods. There is only food. Food that gives us energy. Food that nourishes us and tastes good. It's not about weight loss, because you have learned to accept your body and you have learned to glorify the Lord through everything that you do. If you are no longer obsessing over food and happen to lose a few pounds in a few months, then that's great. And if you gain a few pounds, who cares? You are likely happier and healthier (mentally and physically), for it.

1 Corinthians 6: 18-20 says, "Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body."