Maintaining A Healthy Lifestyle

Hello ladies, as you all know that for the next few months we will be focusing on maintaining a healthy lifestyle spirit, soul mind and body. I want to thank all those that have joined in the discussion and have left tips for other to help them on their journey to a healthy lifestyle. If you want to join in just scroll to the bottom of the page, we welcome your input Thanks.

This months meeting was awesome. We as a group this year are focusing on implementing healthier lifestyles as mention.  At our last meeting, the women  had various input on how to embark on healthier eating choices, weight loss victories, and testimonies on how they overcame eating challenges, disorders and unhealthy habits! 

I particular shared with the woman my testimony on how I lost 47 lbs and kept it off for some years. I would like to lose 40lbs more and I know it  will be by the grace of God and living a disciplined life! A couple of years ago the Lord started speaking to my heart about taking better care of my body. You see I have always been overweight as a child and was used to making bad eating choices. As a result, the wrong eating choices I made as a child carried over into my adult life.  As I reached my 40’s my weight was at an all time high of 267lbs! Needless to say I did not like the way a looked or how I felt. I would smile on the outside but on the inside, it  was a different story. God began to show me how to make health changes first to my mind and then to my physical appetites. You see we will never lose the weight physically until we lose the weight in our minds first. Losing weight starts first with mental changes in our thinking process. We must change our thinking and see the vision on the inside of us that it is not impossible to lose weight or to make healthier lifestyle changes. Proverbs chapter 23 verse 7 says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If we think we can’t or say in our heart’s it’s to hard we won’t change! 

The Lord also ministered to my heart and said Laverne you are in need of eating my word more but you are feeding that craving by continuous overeating and being filled up with natural food, only my word can satisfy your spiritual hunger!  I said, “Lord I repent”, that began my journey to a healthier lifestyle. He said I must begin to judge my thoughts because the enemy wants to bring you into a place of self indulgence of the flesh and to make you operate without restraints when eating food! When your mind is telling you to go get that second, third, or fourteenth piece of something, it is not because you are hungry it is because you are not yielding to self control or the Holy Spirit who is telling you to STOP. We have all said I know I should not eat this but I'll just have this last piece and that’s it! Someone I heard made this statement, “We are digging our own graves with our forks”, very sobering thought isn’t it! If you think about what the word of God says about us been the temple of the Holy Spirit, you will want to make sure that you are careful what you take in (physically) and not just when it comes to spiritual thing but also your eating habits. If you can not control your eating habits and have dominion over your unhealthy eating choices and your flesh, how can you control and have dominion over spiritual things? I believe this is what the Lord was telling Laverne and Like Laverne I would like to encourage you to take that bold step and start today.

If you think about the word of God in John 10:10 "The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)" Amp. These words can be applied to maintaining a healthy lifestyle too. The live Jesus give is abundantly rich and full. It is eternal, yet it begins immediately. How? By making sure that you take care of your body and health, by eating right, getting enough sleep, exercising and feeding your soul. The Bible lets us know that God wants us to prosper and be in good health as we feed our souls. Alot of Christians today focus on just one aspect of this word- prosper. The truth is you can not prosper in what you do if you do not have good health, you need to have a healthy mind, spirit, soul and body to prosper financially. Your good health is what makes it possible for you to be productive in every area of your life i.e

• to serve God
• to be  an effective witness for Christ
• to fulfil God’s plans and purposes for your life
• to be a living testimony for God
• to be productive on your job  

Over the years I have adopted lifestyle changes in renewing my mind according to God’s word, choosing the right types of food for my body’s nourishment, exercising on a regularly basics and confessing daily in prayer my victory in maintaining a lifestyle of a healthier me! Below is a exert of “The Fourth Dimension ” by Paul Yonggi Cho. The principles listed below is what helped me in my journey to be a healthier me! I took these principles and applied each one to help me reach and maintain my weight loss goals.   
Incubation: A Law of Faith

1. Envision a clear-cut objective- We must have a clear and defined faith goal. Be specific about what your asking God for and not vague in your request.
2. Have a burning desire- If we have a red-hot burning desire for the clear cut goals or desires we ask God for then we are going to have results. This desire in us should be so much that we live with it, sleep with it and walk with it until we see the manifestation.
3. Pray for assurance-Pray until you get the substance! Substance = title deed, or legal paper on the inside of your spirit! When you leave your pray closet there should be substance on the inside of you and complete assurance that you have it
4. Speak the Word – Calling those things that be not as though they were. Our words is the material which the Holy Spirit uses to create. What becomes pregnant in your heart and mind is going to come out in your circumstance.

This is a copy of the weight loss confessional prayer the Lord had me compose. I pray it will be a blessing to you also.  He also ministered to me on how I do not have to be bound by overeating or to eat any and everything when the thoughts come into my mind to go for seconds, thirds, or fifthteens!!!!!!!!(smile) The Holy Spirit open my eyes to the fact that these were thoughts from the enemy trying to get me to self indulge in the flesh.  The word says we are not debtors to the flesh and to make no provision for the lust of it. Rom8:12 & Rom13:14.  After the Holy Spirit exposed the enemy to me I repented and begin to declare the word over my appetite and the word has been really working for me. When ever the thought come to my mind to overeat I began to speak the word to it because I recognize the source now.
Scriptural references:  Gen 1:27, 31 Psalms 139:14, Proverbs23:1, James 1:22, Luke21:34,Gal 5:16 & 23, Rom 13:14. ( Isaiah 55:2-3 Amplified Bible)

Confessional Prayer To Overcome Overeating

Thank you Father that I have been made in the image of you and after your likeness.  I am fearfully, wonderfully made by you Father God.  Thank you Lord that I am approved by you and what you have made is very good.  I see myself through your eyes and through your word and rejoice at the works of your hands. I’m a woman of God under your authority and I walk in obedience and discipline to you today.  I am a doer of the Word, instructions, teachings, commandments, and principles of you my Father God.  I thank you for giving me self-control and temperance.  I exercise this over my eating habits and when I sit down to eat, I consider what is before me. I am not a stressful eater or an impulsive eater for I do not desire to overeat when circumstances arise but I will choose to speak your word and trust you.  I will not become the slave of anything that is harmful to my body or be brought under its power for I choose to walk not after the flesh but after the spirit who leads me into all truth. I eat today only the foods that are needful for my physical body and choose to eat when I’m hungry for my body will give me the signal when it’s time to eat.  Father I choose today to obey that signal and eat when it’s time to eat and not to eat when my head is telling me to go get something. Thank you Father for instructing me in this way of eating properly. I choose your will today and I do not spend any money for that which is not bread, and my earnings for what does not satisfy.  I will hearken diligently to you and eat what is good and let my soul delight itself in fatness ( the profuseness of spiritual joy) so that my ear is always incline to you and my whole man submitting and consenting to the divine will of yours.  Father, I thank you my soul is revive because I come to you daily to hear and do your word. Father I thank you for the decreasing of excess body fat by  ______lbs.  I will submit to discipline and your word and I thank you that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.   My confession of faith today is that I will be my goal weight by next year and I will not focus on any weakness of the flesh but I will expect today to succeed and not fail. In Jesus name amen.

Now don't just confess this and do nothing, get up enroll in a gym, change your eating habits, be disciplined, surround yourself with a good support system like Laverne did and still doing. You will see the results. Just obey the Holy Spirit, you know He has been talking to you about your health, and even you doctor told you to loose that weight that' s weighing you down. You can do it and we are hear to help you.

Here are some few tips to help you get started

 9 Steps to Losing & Keeping the Weight Off

1. Exercise five to seven days a week.
2. Exercise 20 to 60 minutes each sessions
3. Get the fat out of your diet – eat a low fat, balanced diet.
4. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables each day. )*not from the can
5. Eat three meals and two smaller portions / snacks each day.
6. Limit your intake of sweets
7. Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water
8. Stop eating 2 to 3 hours before bed time
9. Do not lose hope/ don’t give up.

If you are willing to work to get it, nothing is impossible and all things are possible with God! We will be posting some more tips, recipes and foods to help you on your journey to a healthier you. We Love you and we are praying for you.


Laverne & Kemi