Episode 10: Is Being Overweight Sinful? Exploring Faith and Fitness

In this thought-provoking episode of the Bibledingers Podcast, hosts Ryan and Nicholas sit down with faith-based fitness coach Matthew Headden to dive into a controversial and often overlooked topic: what the Bible says about health, fitness, and being overweight. The conversation bridges the gap between spiritual and physical well-being, offering a biblical perspective on self-control, discipline, and honoring God with our bodies.

Matthew, who also coaches Ryan and Nicholas, shares his personal journey of integrating faith and fitness, emphasizing the importance of viewing our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. The discussion doesn’t shy away from hard truths, exploring how gluttony, laziness, and lack of self-control can reflect spiritual struggles and lead us away from God’s purpose for our lives.

Together, they unpack scripture, challenge cultural norms, and offer practical tips for believers to align their physical health with their spiritual walk.

Key Takeaways:

• Gluttony and self-control: How the Bible addresses overeating and its impact on our faith.
• Viewing our bodies as temples: Honoring God by prioritizing health and fitness.
• Breaking generational chains: Leading families by example and creating a legacy of health and discipline.
• Practical steps: Biblical principles for better stewardship of our bodies through diet, exercise, and mindset.
• Faith and fitness: Why the two are inseparable in the life of a believer.

Sound Bites:

• "The Bible doesn’t call us to mediocrity—it calls us to honor God with every aspect of our lives, including our health."
• "Gluttony isn’t just about food; it’s about anything that takes the place of God in our lives."
• "Your body is a temple, and treating it well is an act of worship."

Links and Resources:

• Bibledingers YouTube Channel: Bibledingers on YouTube
• Listen to the Episode:
  • Spotify
  • iTunes
  • YouTube
    
    Bonus Resource Just for You:

To help you take action on what we discuss, Matthew created a special resource:

👉 Download Matthew’s free e-book, “Faith and Fitness: What does God say?” here:
Get the E-Book
This guide is packed with scripture, actionable tips, and inspiration to bridge the gap between faith and fitness in your life.

Connect with Matthew Headden:

• Website: Matthew Headden Coaching
• Instagram:

Transcript

Matthew Headden (00:00)
Yo, yo, yo, this is Ryan. am here with my best friend Nick and we are Bibledingers coming to you live from Brooklyn, New York. We got an extra special video for you today live streaming with our trainer who is going to kick our butts live on air today. Matthew Headin. You guys welcome Matthew to the show. Hey, man. I really appreciate you guys having me. It's my first trip to New York, so I'm pretty excited about this. Yeah, you should be.

You should be. If you haven't been mugged yet, that's something to look forward to. Yeah, I think I'm good. Yeah. So if you guys have ever struggled with your health and fitness, if you ever run to ultra processed food for comfort, or if you have any of the struggles above that I mentioned plus more, this is the episode for you. Matthew Headin has ultimately changed my life, and he's also coaching Ryan and he has us on a really good regimen, right?

I mean, that's for you to say, I mean, it's working for you. So it's for you, Yeah, for sure, for sure. And, you know, I just wanted to kind of just tell the listeners like a five second segment of my story. And then we're going to, of course, you're going to be the highlight. And I don't want to. I also want to hear your story, too, Ryan. But ultimately, before meeting you, I was going up and down and wait and I was forever trying to lose weight. I would lose it and then put it all back on again.

I was sleeping on three pillows because I would have crazy heartburn. thought I had stomach cancer. was constantly facing nausea, dizziness. Like I was going through pepsiD AC bottles like they were candy. had tums on me at any work trip. If I didn't have tums, I could not sleep. And then I met a friend, his name is Dwayne, and he ultimately put me on a better path where I did lose some weight.

But then I found myself not really knowing about food, not really, not really becoming educated about what food does what, just kind of trusting the system. And then I met you and you opened up a whole new world to me about just simply educating me about what food does what to our body and what food is actually healthy. Like I always thought bread bad, broccoli good, rice bad, green beans good.

And I didn't realize like everything that God made is good in moderation and properly measured. So could you just tell us a little bit about, you know, what you bring into the table about your food knowledge? What are some misconceptions out there in the world about food? Like what I just said, bread, good, bread, bad broccoli, good, right? What do you think about that? Well, that's a lot to unpack. But first off, I know I'm supposed to go into that right away. I'm still trying not to sing a whole new world in my head, right?

Yeah, get really struggling right now. I think you should do it. Nobody wants to hear that. OK, so I do. It's I do joke a lot. Just just a warning. You know this. I joke a lot because fitness and nutrition could be such an overwhelming, like scary topic for so many. And it doesn't need to be. want to start out by referencing that right. Like fitness and nutrition is a wonderful, wonderful gift. Right. Like

To start out, know, in the beginning in Genesis, God told us what to eat. He gave us the plants and then there was the flood. And then in Genesis nine, three, he says, for I give you the animals and the seed bearing plants to nourish you.

That's pretty straightforward as for what God wanted to be our provision in regards to what he wanted us to eat. And then in regards to bread bad, Jesus handed out bread. Somebody make that make sense. So now Jesus is sending or something like I don't are doing things that are bad for us. That doesn't make any sense. And there.

Buying this moral value. To food, good and bad, like there's this innate moral sense to a grain of rice versus in a potato versus a mango. The food cannot misbehave if somebody says, well, pizza is bad. Well, first off, what they do burn it like I don't understand. Yeah. If the pizza misbehave like is bad and it misbehave, then put it in the corner and I'll go sit in the corner eating. You know what I mean? Like it's not.

bad. It's just it's probably not nourishing you if you're eating it all the time. And so it's not that there are good foods and bad foods per se. It's just that there are more nourishing foods that are going to cause us to that are more in line with the plan that God has for us that will allow us to be the person that God created us to be, which is a strong, happy, healthy Christian foods that nourish our gut health and nourish our mind that cause our bodies to not

die before their time?

And then there are foods that are less nutritious that may not be fostering a healthy body, a healthy mind and a healthy spirit if we eat them all the time. But we are supposed to find joy and happiness with food as well. So it's more about a heart posture than a number on a scale. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure. Sure. Yeah. So a little bit about my

my health journey as well is that I used to be much heavier than I am now. used, I was, I don't know, pushing 300 pounds for a while up in the two nineties. And, what I did about three or four years ago is I went on just a calorie restriction type of diet where I used an app that would set a calorie budget for me. And as I lost weight, my calorie budget would go down.

And so it started with me having like 2,400 calories from, from my daily budget. And then as I lost weight, it would go to 2100, 1900, 1700 to where the end after I had lost like 90 pounds or so, my calorie intake for the day was like 1100 pounds or 11, sorry, 1100 calories, not 1100 pounds. And, I was like, I can't do this anymore because at that point I was already skipping breakfast for months.

And then to stay under 1100, sometimes I'd have to skip lunch too. Like several days a week, I would have no breakfast, no lunch, just eating a relatively filling dinner and that was it. And I hated it. I hated it. And if I was thinking, if this is what I have to do for the rest of my life, I'm out. And I just gave up. I was like, I'm not doing this healthy thing anymore. And so when I started working with Matthew, I realized the mindset shift to

understanding the macros and understanding what the nutrition behind what I'm eating, not just, you know, sticking to a thousand calories and staying this weird, skinny, actually unhealthy form of my body forever. And so that was a big mindset shift for me too, is that in your program, we really focus on the protein and getting the correct things in. And that's more so now what I'm basing my days on is, okay,

Let's look at the pantry. Let's look at the fridge. Let's look at our week coming up. How am I going to hit my protein goals for the day? And then honestly, the calorie goals kind of just naturally fall in line because these these really lean meats and Greek yogurt and all that stuff, it's already sort of low in calories and it's really high in protein and it's very filling too. So I'm not like going out there looking for snacks throughout the day. So yeah. And correct me if I'm wrong, Ryan, but

If I remember, you wanted to avoid working out, right? Like no matter what you were like, I'm going to do this just with food straight up. And I think one thing that we're going to be clear on is you need both diet and exercise. If you want to live a balanced and happy lifestyle, you want that energy. You want that food intake and not be starving. Right. That was another point that I probably failed to make is that I was living a sedentary life. I worked a remote office job. I was home all day, every day.

And I did, I refused to exercise because I hated exercising and that was that. So I'm like, okay, so if I have to cut down to 1100 calories, that's what I got to do. But since then, my, my mind has changed on that, obviously, because I'm going to the gym constantly. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it's to get into the science of it, to keep it very, very simple. And, know, I much prefer to go into it from a scriptural standpoint.

we scientifically based scripturally supported is the way that we approach this. So I'm going to back it up a little bit before we get super into the science. But most people don't really need to get that far in the weeds. And I'll tell you, as you know this and Nicholas, you know this and anybody that's listening. Unless you're a 411 five foot tall female.

that is like 120 pounds trying to lose body fat. The odds that you need to be on a and at a caloric range of around 1100 is virtually non-existent. Yeah. Like it's that is ridiculous. Yeah. And it just though the those calculators, your body does burn less the less you weigh with a caveat that muscle does burn more than fat. So if you have

a six foot tall individual that's 220 pounds at 30 % body fat and a six foot tall individual that's 220 pounds in 10 % body fat, the 10 % body fat guy is going to burn significantly more calories at rest. Yeah. And the key there is just to get your body to work for you, which is, I mean, you know, it's a stretch, but it's kind like the parable of the talents. Like how do I, how do I multiply this? And that's through lean muscle in your body. And that's going to go through protein and

know, before anybody goes, I don't want to be bulky and be a lifter. Like, that's just downright insulting. Like to somebody like myself who's been lifting for a very, very long time. Like you're not going to accidentally get bulky. Yeah. That's like saying, I don't want to be, you know, a Formula One driver and you drive a Kia Prius. Like that is not going to happen. And like that is ridiculous. Like if you got bulky really quick because you were lifting weights, it's because you ate too much. Yeah. And I don't mean that in a condemnation way. It's just the truth. Yeah. Yeah.

The average person that is not trained is only going to gain one to three, maybe five pounds of muscle in a three to six month span. to back it up from. Why the protein is the most filling macronutrient, right? Carbs, proteins, proteins are four calories. Carbs are four calories. Fats are nine calories. One into 30 % of the calories that you eat from protein go into digesting the protein.

That's your zero to 1%. Like it's not efficient. So this is the most efficient. And then when you prioritize those lean meats, and we're eating this in the order right of nine three, and then you prioritize your fruits and your vegetables. potatoes are a vegetable. So they're not bad, right? You're not going to have much room for much else. Yeah. When you eat within what God's plan was for

and is for us. And that's just to keep it very, very simply, like, you know, I believe this and I wholeheartedly mean it. Like, there's so much misinformation and so much confusion out there. Like I went to school formally for nutrition, basically to learn this. Eat the food that God put here. Yeah, like 90 % of the time, the other 10 % of the time. Go for it, man, and have the tiramisu and have the slice of pizza.

But eat the food that got put here. Like it is really, really hard to overeat lean meats, fruits and vegetables. Like it's really, really hard. Like good luck. is. Yeah. I just had, I just wolfed down four cans of tuna and I feel like exploding. It's only like 300 something calories. Yeah. Yeah. So could you share the screen real quick? I just kind of want to share a Bible verse that I think is going to be mic dropping to those.

who take scripture seriously, especially the men that are watching. you're going with this one already? Yeah, think that's skipping over my favorite. no, we're going to go to you. We're to go to you. Let's start with me first and then we'll go right to you. This one's coming in hard. So this one. Yeah, I hit it right out of the park. But then I'm going to go to your verse that we could discuss. but here, if you could read it because the camera's in the way, Ephesians five, it starts verse twenty five starts with husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. That's where I want to get to verse.

If I could see it 20. Yeah. Why don't you read the whole thing until we get to the part where it says a husband's love as your own bodies. Okay. so. Start over 25. Okay. Yeah. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor.

without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. I mean, if that's not mic dropping, but for me, for me, before I met Matthew, this verse is one of the verses that got me motivated to contact Dwayne and get onto the pathway to get into a healthier lifestyle.

because us Christians, we love to use the first half of this chapter where it says, wives submit to your husbands. We love to use that. And some people weaponize it. But when reading through these verses, we just skip over the part that the Bible says to treat your wives as you do your own bodies. So if you're running to the fridge and you're filling your bodies with garbage or ultra processed foods, that's what I mean by garbage, not bad food, not good food.

I mean, manmade, like ultra processed twinkies, whatever. If we're treating our bodies in such a way that it's not bringing God glory and we are not bringing any nutrition to our bodies whatsoever. And I'm sleeping on four pillows just to be comfortable. And I'm having anxiety and, all sorts of dizziness and all, all these things. How could I treat my wife?

like my own body if I don't even understand how to treat my own body. So that for me was so heavy and I realized I cannot be the biblical husband if I cannot take this giant leap forward and treat my body the way God has designed it. But I'll kick it over to you, Matthew. I know you have a verse also that you want to discuss. That's not me. Yeah.

Thank you. He's a good looking man. Yeah, right. Let's go back to that verse for a second. I want to stay here because I enjoy this more than just going into the science because as believers, we need to understand this. And I know you see my demeanor change here, but let's keep going. For no one ever hated his own flesh. I hate the way I look. I'm fat. I'm ugly.

Hold on. Don't don't take my verse away, bro. No, you don't do that to me. nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. So let me ask you guys a question. And everybody out there, just this. Do you think most people would get mad if we burn if somebody burned your church down? Yeah, no doubt. Do you think somebody get mad if somebody took a crap on the pulpit? Yes. Why? Well, because it's disrespectful. It's the House of the Lord, right? Yep.

Okay. Now here's another question. Is the church, the people or the or a building people? Yeah. Okay. Then there you go. But 73.9 % of Americans overweight or obese and we're the church and we're burning it down. Yeah. And this isn't a condemnation thing. Most people have never connected this, you know, first Corinthians six, 19 or you just completely stop, but where don't you know,

that your body at the temple. Before you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, your body is not your own. You were paid, bought and paid for by a price with a price. Like this body is not ours. It was paid for with Christ's life. Yes, our eternal souls, but also our body in so many Christians say, well, the physical body doesn't matter. If that was true, then Christ wouldn't have had to come here in physical form in the first place. And Christ, God would have never made us a physical form at the physical body didn't matter.

that doesn't hold water. So the question is, why would we get so mad if somebody burned down a building that we can rebuild, but we don't get mad when we continuously burned down the body that is created in his image. Bought and paid for by a price, but we treated it like we rented it from enterprise. And it's not a condemnation thing. I just hope it convicts people because it's something that we don't speak about in the church. I mean, when was the last time you heard a sermon on this?

Exactly. But I think it's because most pastors can't speak on it with any conviction.

And as you know, they don't speak about it in seminary. this is this is what gets me. And it's it's not a you know, as the title of the episode said, and you know what I said whenever you posted, I know what you're doing. was like, bro. Yeah, we could say that we could clear that up right now. This is what the title is a little bit. It's a little bit rage baity.

And that is something that I came up with. This is not something that Matthew would have said. No, I did not endorse this message at all. Like this is all me. Yeah, this this was not endorsed because here's the thing. When it all boils down to it, we can go into all of these things. First Corinthians 10 31. Let all that you do, whether you eat or drink be to the glory of the Lord. So if we're not if we're eating outside of his plan, tell me how that's his glory. Yeah. Are we even pausing in our fast paced lives to bless our food? Like to say thank you, Lord.

to thank the cow that died for us or giving his life. Right. Like that's that's powerful. Like the Native Americans got it right with that one. But we don't because we're too busy. And it really does bowl down to this like.

If God made these foods to nourish us and he said that right. And we're eating primarily foods that man created. My question would be why do we then trust man more than we trust God? It doesn't have to be complicated. And the answer is still very, very simple because God doesn't care about the number on a scale. There would be no biblical support for that. But what he does care about is our heart posture.

Because we do know that the greatest commandment love the Lord God with all your heart mind and love your neighbor as yourself. So in order to love your neighbor, you have to love yourself. So it is actually Jesus command to love yourself. And if you love yourself, you would not let yourself fall into ruin. You would not put those foods in your body that make you feel like garbage that make you not be able to get off the couch that make you feel the way you're feeling that make us get diabetes that give us coronary

heart that give us cardiovascular disease that give us, you know, even fatty liver disease or non fatty liver disease. These things are all our creation. Yeah. Yeah. And, and to follow up on loving the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, strength, that is the all of who you are. So if you're consuming these things that are just destroying your physical body,

How can you take the time to go serve the Lord in one capacity or the other because you're stuck in a hospital room, you know, get worked on or you're stuck on the couch because you're too tired to do anything. You cannot worship the Lord your God with all of your being when you're when you're in that situation. I'll tell you one thing, though, I think it's culturally based. I think we we tend to ignore the food because in the culture we display our love for God in our mind.

Like you know this in our camp, we love to study. We love to study ourselves approved. We love to know scripture and that's great. Right. And then there's other, other camps that are also very emotional in the way they worship the Lord and nothing wrong with that. Right. Absolutely nothing wrong with submitting your bodies onto worship for the Lord. But I don't know of any Christian camp that's just completely dedicated to loving the Lord with their food, right. Bringing God glory with their food. I think culturally speaking.

food is left out of worship. Yeah. And I think in order to be consistent and to be genuinely biblical, we need to bring our food back into worship. Yeah. Can I, can I piggyback off of that and then I'll kick it over to you, Matthew, is that the Bible says specifically whether you eat or drink. we know that that means whatever you do and that's how we usually preach it. It's that no matter if you're working, no matter if you're at home doing chores, whatever you do, glorifying God.

But we skip the eating and drinking part of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's funny because we love to justify, right? Yeah. Like, we're really good at the big parts of the Bible, right? Like, especially in the American church right now, the big thing is pornography. Pornography is killing the church. Yeah. No, your eating habits are killing the church. Yeah, literally, literally killing you. Literally. Yeah. Like I'm not saying go.

watch porn and eat better. What I'm saying is they both matter equally in it. It's that. know, like a pornography, for instance, really does rewire the brain, right? Because there's these massive dopamine hits and we weren't meant to watch it. That's not what sex was supposed to be. It's supposed to be this beautiful thing that glorifies the Lord. So is our eating. And that's not saying that we can't go like right before this.

I had my first slice of New York pizza and some tiramisu. And of course, Nicholas was like, bro, like, we're really going to have this talk. And you just ate all that. But my heart posture is on point. Yeah. Like, I don't care. I was able to worship. I praised. I prayed. I sent pictures to the family. It was like, I wish you guys were here. And yes, I do feel different. I do feel funny. I don't normally eat those things, but I am going to wake up tomorrow and be just fine. Yeah, for. Yeah. So.

It's not about that one instance, right? We have Thanksgiving coming up. Eat the Thanksgiving dinner. But remember why you're there. Are you there to thank our ancestors for what they did? The natives that really like allowed us to be here to enjoy and thank the Lord for all the things things that he has given us to be with our family. But if you're gluttonous and binge eating, and you feel sick and want to puke or have to take a nap because you ate so much.

then you can't be present with your family or glorify the Lord, can you? And so it's everything requires context and it's what is that eating like is that gluttony? Is that a sin? Well, let's not focus on the sin. Let's focus on the solution and the ad is love.

I could just get on this soapbox and it really boils down to like you said. How can we serve the kingdom of God? If we're broken. Yeah. And it breaks my heart. To watch us, my brothers and sisters in Christ kill themselves, literally kill themselves. Through their food and it's OK.

because we're not allowed to talk about it in the church because it might hurt someone's feelings. This is not a condemnation. I was an alcoholic drug addict that tried to kill myself that put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger and it didn't go off. Guess what?

of the people in the church are doing the same thing. And if you saw me in your congregation and you knew that I was struggling because I had done a line of coke right before church to make it through the dad gum service, which you know is something that I used to do, would you say something to me? Yes, because I was killing myself. Right. We owe it to each other to do the same. Iron does sharpen iron. We have to hold one another to account.

Again, not out of condemnation, but out of love. Yeah. Like, I'm worried about you, right? Like you're pre diabetic. This is a very dangerous thing. And being being insulin resistant with is your risk of getting Alzheimer's and dementia goes up drastically because it is virtually a type three diabetes. Yeah. And again, it just it has to this should break your heart. Yeah. And not in this I'm fat. I'm ugly. I'm sick. my gosh. I'm

If the number on the scale doesn't go down, that's wrong. That's pursuing it in the way that you pursued it for so long, which is I need to be skinnier. I need to be these things. I need to equate my value and my worth to a number on a scale. Right? Well, that's that's vanity and that's ego. And the reason that isn't working for you people that are listening out there is this reason vanity cannot be our primary motivators, Christians, because at its courts, the opposite of who we're called to be now.

When you align your heart posture in these things with worshipping the Lord. One day, you're probably going to wake up in the best shape you've ever been. So by products, when you do these things, these holy habits, when you read your devotion, when you meditate, when you pray, when you do these things that we call holy habits, but all holy habits are designed. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not the one who's been through seminary, but to draw us closer to the Lord. I be sober minded, which we typically think means alcohol, but it means

anything that distracts us from the Lord. if you're eating junk food and not moving your body. It's not sober minded either. So we have to have for scripture to like be right. It has to agree across all scripture. Yep. And there's a lot of it here. Go over to Corinthians nine for me.

Scroll on down for me. Roll that beautiful bean footage. Classic. You like that? Yeah, I do. Hold on. Let me. was the Bush's Beans commercial. Bro, come on, man. You know, I was in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, which is where the the original bean factory was.

My wife wouldn't let us go. What? What? Let us go to the bushes. You're not going to have I don't even do. I didn't even watch the movie and I want to go see a big movie. It's not a movie. Bush's baked beans, dude. What are you talking about? the can. Yeah. Beautiful retriever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The thing 924 starts. Do you not know that in a race of all runners run, but only one receives the prize? Obviously, we know we're talking.

So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self control in every, in all things. They do it or receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Now some people may take that out of context and say, but that means that the body doesn't matter. No, no, no, no, no. Keep reading. So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control. Lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified.

We don't just get to exhibit self control in the areas that are easy for us. And we tend to skip over these things in the church. And we don't think that, man, like I'm not going to worry about gluttony and slothfulness. Those are just two of the seven deadly sins. Maybe it's not that big of an issue until you find yourself like missing the beginning of worship service because you're in line at the coffee shop inside the church. Yeah. I'm serious. I've seen it.

or at the end of the day fast, you're handing out donuts because you deserve it. Really? I that makes sense. So there really is so much scripture here. And as Christians, let's use this. Well, I mean, you're weaving your faith into your fitness. that's the wrong question. Why isn't your faith in every aspect of your life already? And this just occurred to me. I've been in this industry 15 years.

God just really put this as my calling in the past year. So I understand.

I it's right here. It's very, very obvious. So I think, honestly, I'm going to ask you a question here because I think that when we were talking about our stories and stuff, the three of us, I mean, you obviously know everything, but me and Nick, I feel like we know a bit at this point about nutrition, macros, exercise, stuff like that. But before I even started the first time with that horrible crash diet type of deal,

I knew nothing about calories. I knew nothing about even that, even throughout the whole thing, I knew nothing about macros. So I'm wondering if we might be talking a little bit too high of a level for folks who are watching. So in your opinion, what are some first initial moves that a man or woman could take to start being the healthy person that the Lord would have them be? That's a great question. And

I do keep taking it back to scripture because that's where everything should be. So number one is give it to the Lord. Submit yourself to the Lord in all your ways. That is number one and has to be so pray. But don't just pray for better health. That doesn't work that way. We love to I'm praying for better health. Well, I mean, God told like that little voice you hear. It says, man, you should probably start working out. I know I should start eating that. That is the Holy Spirit trying to convict you.

We just justify and reason our way out of it. Well. So that would be number one and change this into what a beautiful thing that I now get to worship and glorify the Lord in more ways that I didn't even know existed. How cool is that? How much of a game changer is that to man? I have to go to the gym and I can't eat pizza to I get to glorify the Lord every time I eat in that free and then and then.

And then when you do eat pizza, it is glorifying to the Lord. Can we get that as a ding moment? But I mean, it can be. then, you know, somebody may go back to Ecclesiastes. Well, you're supposed to find joy in your food and drink. Yes, you are. But if you feel guilt or shame later, that's not joy. It's loathing. Yeah. And that's the guilt shame cycle that every single one of us has been caught in.

It's the same thing, you know, no different than with porn or drugs or for me alcohol or drugs or porn or women or any of the things like that's one thing I do want to make very clear to everybody and I'm gonna go back to this I'm the last person as you know to judge anyone most of my job is to get you to stop judging yourself So that would be number two is don't judge yourself. Understand that everybody's walked to sanctification and getting close to the Lord is different After that it would be this Keep it simple

Mm-hmm.

Everybody needs to start in the same places. Like as you know, I do detailed blood work analysis, hormone lipids, that.

But it all starts with these things. Sleep, sleep seven to nine hours a night. I don't have time. Well, you don't have time. We might need to just check out and see, as you know, like, let's do an evaluation of how much time we're spending on our phone and social media. But we can go into that later. So I would say everybody's baseline is the same. Sleep seven to nine hours.

Drink water. Drink water. Your body is supposed to be 72 % water. Most of us are running around at 7.2%. And you know, we can make fun of it. Well, you'll never thirst again for them. You know, the well, okay, stop like, you know, yeah, move, walk, the number one exercise is walking. Now do think it's funny that we've gone so far in the direction of like,

Being sedentary that walking is now exercise, but it is. Yeah. The average American only walks three to 4,000 steps a day. We need to walk at least six to seven to keep our risk of alcoholism mortality down. It'll go down by about 50 % if you make that jump. Do something street training wise. I don't care if it's body weight and I don't care if it's five to 10 minutes. Something is always better than nothing. This all or nothing mentality.

always leads to nothing. well back in the. So I'll go keep myself off the engines here and eat whole food. Yeah. Eat real food. Eat God food. That's why it's so confusing with all these ingredients and all these dyes and all these things. You don't have to worry about it if you eat what God put here. Now somebody. Well, you know, it's sprayed with pesticides and all these other things. Right.

So I understand where this kind of water is going to kill me and this thing is going to kill me and I can't eat this because of this. And this is going to just makes you want to go pull your best. Jesus, go to the desert and like fast for 40 days and we'll probably die in the process. Right. But just do the best you can and eat. You know, we all have different budgets. Like what I love it if everybody could eat free range eggs and grass fed grass finished beef and grass fed grass finished bison and things of that nature and like fresh caught salmon. Yes.

But it's not in everybody's budget. Right. So if you got to get the lean meats and the fruits and the vegetables at Walmart, do it. Yeah. And the frozen ones are a great place to start too. that's it. Sleep, water, walk, eat God food and one that most people miss.

stress management.

Stressing is there's a lot of emphasis in today's world on hormones. Stress is one of the fastest ways to wreck your hormones. But guess what? Like in a man, you see a man sleep less than six hours a night for three days in a row. I'm to see his testosterone probably drop by about 15%. Yeah. I see a female do the same thing. We're going to see her progesterone levels fall, like get all out of whack. Then everything's out of whack. So no matter where you're at, if you think it's your hormones, whether you're a male or a female,

whether you're trying to lose weight or you're trying to gain muscle, those things must be in place. They have to be. I kind of want to, I want to go back to you mentioned Ecclesiastes about finding joy in what you eat and what you drink. And I've noticed, and I think this is basically the case for everybody who moves from the ultra processed American diet to a more God centered God's food diet is that

It might take a little bit. might take a few weeks or a month or whatever. But my situation was that my cravings totally changed after a while. Like we just had Halloween or whatever. Maybe I shouldn't come out and say this on Bible Dingers podcast, but my kids went trick or treating. And so there's a giant bag of candy in the closet. I feel nothing towards it. I have no desire.

to touch that candy like a bad ex. It's like a terrible ex. I have no craving for it. But when I see the like, hey, you up. Delete. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But if I see a thing of bananas on the counter, I can't wait to have a banana later on that night because I don't know how it works. Maybe you could tell us how it works because that's what my body wants now. Like I see the bananas, I see the pears and I'm like, that looks good. I want that later on tonight. So

You can reprogram your brain. It is no like

Let's look at what joy means when you you have started to fall in love with the feeling of understanding how good you can feel. Most people have no idea how good they can feel. And that is one of the biggest things, too, is, I feel fine. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that God created you to feel fine. Yeah. I created you in my in God made you in his own image, which is. Yeah, right. don't think that's how that works, bro. Like.

You know, sounds fun to me. Yeah. You know, like, how's God doing today? Yeah. You know, so Jesus goes a better. Jesus goes, you know, so we don't understand how good we can feel. And now you find joy in that. And then if we go a little sciencey, which you know, I love doing it. Serotonin, the peaceful hormone, the calm hormone. Ninety five percent of that is made in the store in the gut.

Ninety five percent of that. Dopamine, I call it the Twitter hormone, which is, my gosh, somebody liked my post dopamine hit. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Or I ate sugar dopamine hit. Yeah. And this is where these people are like, sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Yeah. No, it's not. Promise. Promise. First off, the science doesn't work. Second.

I would never have done some of the things for a bowl of sugar that I did for cocaine. Yeah, not a thing. Yeah, I'm sure. But but 50 percent of that is made in the gut. And so if you're eating these highly processed foods, your gut gets dysregulated. And I could go into this all the day there all day long. There's a gut brain access, there's a gut thyroid access, there's all these things. But your brain can't actually.

function properly. Like when we have, and we have spoken about this, when you're eating primarily the these ultra processed foods, you will feel more anxiety, you it will register as depression, right? Because your brain and your gut can't work together to regulate the way you're supposed to feel. So now then all of sudden we start dumping SSRIs in there, like these medications to help us regulate our serotonin, which actually throw the gut off more.

which then we become dependent upon them when we've actually dysregulated ourselves. Anyway, that's a whole thing. And I'm not going to fight big pharma in this instance, but I will later. But that's why is because your gut and your brain are in alignment in God's plan and basically saying, like, I love feeling this good. If I eat these, I won't feel right. It's not worth it to me. You can reprogram it.

But those foods, I do want to touch this for anybody out there that does struggle with these ultra processed foods. There's several things here. Can you name me one instance of the combination of sugar, salt and fat being found in nature?

Swedish fish. That's regular visit. I want some sweet. You want some fish? Yeah. But it doesn't exist. Yeah. So our brain is not meant to handle it. So no wonder you can't control yourself around it. Like you've gotten past the point where your brain doesn't want it. But

The brain can't control it. God didn't create that. So that is one of those things that man made in a laboratory. Understanding that like, hey, if we put sugar, salt and fat together and then make it brightly colored, these guys are screwed. Yeah. Like even if you look at it very simply, like every fast food restaurant, what are their colors? Red, yellow. Like they're very, very clear. Every one of them. Wendy's, McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, Arby's. They're all the same colors because our brain can't resist it.

Yeah. How combine these things in a food. Yeah. And that's their job. Their job is to make as much money as humanly possible. So they have researchers researching how can we sell as much burgers as humanly possible? And that's exactly what they do. Yeah. Well, and right now we're so mad at these things, right? Like I'm not saying that I'm a fan of like red dye 17, right? Yeah. And I'm not saying I'm a massive fan of Seedles. I'm not saying I'm a massive fan of these things, but people are like all over Kellogg's right now.

Like, we need to ban these food dyes. Like, I'm not saying they're good. And I'm not saying you should eat a ton of them. What I am saying is stop blaming the food industry for the fact that you went to the store, you picked it up off the shelf, you put it in your cart, you drove it home and you chose to feed this to your child. Yeah, by the way, 32 % of children by the age of 15 will be in the stages of pre-diabetes or the beginning stages of insulin resistance. Kellogg's didn't do that to our children. We did. And can tell you what?

They wouldn't be selling it if we weren't buying it. They would discontinue the product. I don't blame. I don't blame Svedka. We're going to go back that way. I don't blame Svedka for my alcoholism. They don't know who I am. Yeah, right. Their job is to sell alcohol. Yeah. Kellogg's job is to sell to sell cereal. Like stop blaming somebody else and take accountability for your own dadgum actions. That biblical. Yeah.

Yeah. And so we can go back to scripture. I know I'm way off topic here, but here I go. Good. Now we're good. Raise your children up in the way of the Lord is to be strong, happy and healthy. And what are the fruit of the spirit? You want to pull that one up? Yeah. Like the fruit of the spirit is self-control. Galatians, right? Is kindness. All of these things like this discipline, right? Like. I know you struggle with it. But.

We have to take responsibility for our own actions. We have to. One thing I do want to say, I think it's an important distinction before we move on to this verse. Thank you. This is great. We were talking about happiness and joy. We were talking about joy specifically. And I think this is an important time to make a distinction. There's a huge difference between, for a Christian at least, between joy and happiness. Our culture.

especially the American culture at large, likes to tell us that happiness and joy are one thing and that food can bring us happiness, although that might not, that might be true. You might find temporary happiness. That's the point. Happiness is an emotion that we, that we can feel in a variety of different ways in a variety of different scenarios. Joy for a Christian is in Christ Jesus.

and cannot be removed at all, regardless of what we're eating or no matter where we're at, or no matter what we're enduring in our lives. So I think although food might bring, you know, temporary happiness, so does taking care of our bodies. That brings the happiness. And then when we bring it back to God, we take it back to God and say, Lord, we're doing this for your glory, for your honor, for your praise, for you.

Ultimately that happiness leads into the everlasting joy that we experience in the Lord anyway. So I know where my hope comes from. know where my joy comes from and we are so you mentioned the standard American diet. The acronym for that is sad. Yeah, right. Yeah, you're not wrong. They so it really is standard American diet is sad. Yeah, it makes me I didn't come up with the acronym. I'm just a dude. Right. So

But it is our joy comes from the Lord. And yes, you can find happiness in those things. That's the dopamine hit. Yeah. But we need to delay those dopamine hits too, which is one reason like exercise is so good. And not giving into the craving is so big. And I do want to say this. Actually, let's go into this verse. And then I want to go into something that I know hit Nick Nicolas hard in the beginning when we started working together.

Now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality, imperial sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these I warn you as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, and against such things there is no law. All of those.

Apply to everything we do, including our food and our exercise. Every single one of them. Yeah. And that's very, very powerful. That we don't. We have to display that in every area of our life again, not just the ones that are easy for us. We love in the church to look at the person, but like that person over there drinks too much. That person over there was on, it was watching pornography. He's a center. That man over there is gay.

That's a choice. I'm not going down that path right now, but we love to say, OK, well, that's a choice. You're a senator. You're gay. And we say it with cheeto dust all over our face and our stomach hanging over our belt. Yeah. Like shame on you. Shame on you. And that's a phrase we don't use in our society anymore. But shame can be good. And we should say that shame on you. Stop judging others. Why are you being so harsh to them?

Is it because it's easier than looking at your own sin? I gotta say, this might be a little off topic, but when I look at these things, gentleness, joy, kindness, I feel like these things are easier to do when you're living a healthy lifestyle. Because when you're bogging your body down with all these processed foods and you're not being active, I feel like you're fighting an uphill battle when you're attempting to

follow what the Lord laid out here with being kind, with being self-controlled, with being gentle, because these things are messing with your brain. They're messing with your gut. And so to act this out is so much more difficult. Sure. Let's read verse 24. Let's keep going. But wait, there's more. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.

with its passions and its desires. And we love to think of that from a sexual impurity standpoint. But my gosh, I would die for a piece of cheesecake right now. I can't resist a late night snack.

sit on that for a second. So many of us have turned our pantries into a sanctuary. I'm stressed. I need a cookie. I'm stressed out. I need pizza. Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong here. But we're supposed to go to Christ to relieve our stress.

Yep. In a sin, I'm pretty sure is qualified as classified as anything that creates space between us and God. can't use Coors cocaine, cookies. For comfort, that's Christ's job. And we've done it. We've replaced. in our life with cookies. When it comes to emotional regulation. Hmm. Yeah, that's powerful.

That's super powerful. And I'm going to stir the pot up a little bit here. might get in trouble to say this, but I have never met a pastor ever in my entire life that has been disqualified from pastoral ministry, from gluttony or overeating. But I have maybe not been under someone, but I have seen many be pulled from the pulpit forever because of adultery.

be pulled from the pulpit for saying inappropriate things or racism or all, all blatant sins. Obviously I'm not, I'm not discrediting any of those, but I think it's really sad that we don't hold our pastors. I'm working on ordination, so I'm putting myself right up there, right? We don't hold our pastors to the same standards and we have these levels of sins that we say these disqualify you. These are being,

you know, above reproach. But these over here, because of the culture, we could ignore. And I think if we are truly to be consistent, we should see pastors being taken down temporarily until they get their health and nutrition in order. Now, what I'm not saying is that being fat is is sinful. I'm not saying that being fat is that you're a glutton. I want to be clear here because there are a variety of different health.

problems that can cause being overweight. You can have a thyroid issue. You can have a variety of different issues. we can work on. Yeah. Yeah. But we're not, we're not like beating you up because you're heavy. I'm still heavy. I'm still working on it. You know, who cares? But the whole point is we're going to be having a proper heart before the Lord and we're not going to be gluttonous on purpose. We're not going to be running to our foods in order to cope with our emotions. That's what we're not going to do.

But what I want to see in this culture is consistency. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I'm not to cut you off. No, go. I do want to piggyback on what you said. We're not trying to beat anybody as like, we're fit guy. Well, Matthew, we're not saying like we're fit guys and you're fat. And so you're disgusting, whatever. If you pull back, you look at our thumbnail, that's us. OK, that is us when we're like 300 pounds. So.

We are speaking not only to you, but we're speaking to ourselves. These are lessons that we have had to apply to ourselves and continue to have to apply to ourselves. Amen. And again, that's why we started out in very beginning saying this is not a condemnation. Yeah, we simply hope it speaks to your heart and convicts you to make a change and that you feel it. And it is true, you know, about the pastors. But because all sins, as far as I know, are pretty much the same.

And I'm pretty sure we would probably tell a pastor he couldn't preach anymore if he murdered someone in a congregation.

But what about murdering himself slowly over time? Right. Here's the other thing. He's responsible for his flock. Correct. And this is kind of a question. But if he sees someone in his flock doing something that would harm themselves, is it not his responsibility to say something? So if he's not, isn't that also his responsibility? Yeah, I'm asking this. I don't I don't fully know this. Like I can help.

that person regulate their thyroid. But I don't know this answer. Yeah. In this culture, we see a new shift towards masculinity. Like pastors like to call things feminine or whatever. And I haven't publicly made a decision where I'm at on that. But what I can say is if we are truly going to be men of God and truly be the men God has called us to be, we cannot watch our family kill themselves.

Like as a father, I'm saying even as a pastor, as a father, as a pastor, as an overseer, how are you overseeing? You're overseeing people kill themselves. Like I think pastors need to speak up about this more often and maybe, maybe have healthier options for people after the service. We always have the bagels.

We always have the donuts and I'm not shaming those things. I'm not saying those things are sinful. We already established no such thing as bad food. No such thing as good food. There's a time and place for all things, but maybe the standard should be a little bit higher for what we allow in the church and in our homes and not just in our homes, but also in the church. What standard are we setting? And this is a big mission. You know, I would do work with men and women, but a lot of my messaging is directly directed toward Christian men.

Christian fathers and in my instance, you know, Christian stepfathers, which is a whole different message, right? But.

I will put this out here. Right. So I overcame alcohol, drugs, suicide. But one that I just finally overcame in July, what four months ago was vaping. You don't even know that. Do you? I mean, I started smoking in middle school. And at one point, you know, when I was in Iraq, I was smoking two packs a day and dipping a can a dip a day. But vaping is harder. Vaping was harder than alcohol, cocaine, all of them. Because when you're getting rid of something, it's acute craving response reward.

That's how you look at it, right? Like, let's let's move this back to food. Q. I turn on the TV craving. I want something sweet response. I go get kettle corn reward. Relaxation. Right. Q stressful day response. Need a reward. No more stress for the moment. Right. With vaping, I was reaching for it in my sleep.

What do you do when the queue is everything you do even subconsciously? I had to white-knuckle it, but you know, you know why I did it. It's not because I'm that strong being a hypocrite as a health coach wasn't enough. Being a hypocrite as a Christian health coach wasn't enough. It was because I realized looking at Leah.

that I'm marrying next month. Looking at Madeline, Mason, and Mallory, her three wonderful kids.

that I could not show them that that was OK. That I could not go out and preach the word and caring for God's temple, helping other people and being an absolute hypocrite. Telling them that we needed to eat less processed foods and then sucking down poison. But it doesn't have to do with the vaping. It has to do with what example are we setting? If you

My question, you know this, is if you died today.

Would you be happy if your kids had your habits from today for the rest of their life? The answer to that question should always be no. But I could not with the way their bio dad treats himself. Then do the same thing. And we justify it and we look and go, but I'm such a good parent. I'm such a good step parent.

I was a liar and I was teaching them to say one thing and do another.

And then you look and go, well, they don't listen to me. They don't believe me. Why should they? You're lying blatantly to their face. More importantly.

You're lying to yourself.

I'm a healthy person. I'm a strong person. I'm a happy person. You're not you're lying to yourself. I'm going to quit Monday. I'm to start working out Monday. How many times have we said that? Nicholas, I'm going let you take over because this is a big one and you have a very powerful story. But that is the one that is one of the most important things you have ever taught me. That it's important to keep my word not only to others, but to myself.

I'll bring it back to you, but I wanted to say thank you for that.

Let's see how vulnerable we can get here since I just teared up.

Which that is masculine, by the way, we can go into the whole masculine thing, but because you are created to subdue the earth, you are created to be like to be able to do violence, to protect your home, to protect your family. If you're like out of shape and weak and broken, you can't protect your family. And odds are they're going to pick up your habits and they're going to be the same because most most families will say, I would die for my kids.

Yeah, then why are you killing them slowly? Like, would you visit your family in a hospital? You're putting them there.

But when it comes to keeping our word to ourselves, Nicholas, will you share some of yours? Are you willing to share any of that? Yeah. Because that's pretty your your story is really heavy here with this one. Yeah. I mean, for me, I didn't have a good word for myself. I would tell myself, yeah, I'll do it tomorrow. And then I would wake up tomorrow and I would wrestle in my sleep while I was hitting snooze every 10 minutes.

And without realizing that my wife's, I mean, I did realize that my wife's sleeping right next to me. I thought she was sleeping in oblivious, but in reality, she's watching me hit snooze every day where I told her I was going to the gym tomorrow. And here comes tomorrow and I'm hitting snooze and I'm thinking I didn't, I didn't disappoint her. I didn't let her down. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just trying to get right that all or nothing mentality.

And then when I didn't make it to the gym, I would say, all right, I'll get my diet set tomorrow because I got to go to the gym and that's going to make me have this total package. And if I go to the gym, I won't eat bad because my gym is going to be all right. And that's going to be my motivation to keep those calories off because I went to the gym and I'll be playing these mental gymnastics with myself. And then tomorrow would hit. And I told myself tomorrow is going to be the day.

And it wasn't. And then when I actually started doing it and it started with E2M. When I actually started doing it. I didn't know what I was doing. I was just kind of following the steps and I did lose some weight, but I didn't understand it. And then when I jumped to doing it with you, right, with with Coach Matthew, my wife is like. This is just going to be another thing you start and not finish.

And that shook me. And I said, over my dead body. This is going to be the one thing that I start that's going to change not only my life, but it's going to change yours. And then I realized working with you, why the standards were so low with her is because I didn't even have a true word for myself. If I say tomorrow, it better be tomorrow or else the standard in my home

is going to be tomorrow becomes the next day becomes the next day becomes the next day. And you taught me that entering to myself is the first essential step to being a good example for my family. And then they can learn from me and be the people to themselves that they need to be to be loyal, godly and

bring glory to God with just letting your yes be yes and your no's be no's. I'll kick it right back over to you because I could keep preaching, I'm here for this one and I got to ask man, like that is when we first started working together, I remember you saying, you said, you know, my wife doesn't believe me. And I looked at you and I said, should she? And you're like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. I'm like, no, I do. I was like, but you don't believe you.

That's the issue. It took you like three months and that's the missing pieces. We're taught to keep our word to others, but we're not taught to keep our word to ourselves. And it was we had this discussion and Ryan, you know, we this was a big group chat because, we have the war room where all the men are now the separate one that Leah runs with the with the ladies, the walk by faith fitness females.

And it boils down to simply right? Like if I said, hey, bro, I'm going to fly up to New York or New Jersey and film this show. crap, something happened. I can't go. And then I was like, but I'm to fly next week. crap, I can't go. But I'm going to fly next week. Like on the fourth time, you're going to be like, yeah, bro, he's not coming. Yeah. And you're not going to believe me. But then, like, I don't get to get mad at you for not believing me when I just have canceled on you like five times. Yeah.

But we do it ourselves all the time and then wonder why nobody else believes us or why we lack motivation. You can't be motivated when you yourself are calling yourself a liar subconsciously. Like, I'm going to go to the gym. Why can't I be motivated? Because you don't believe you. And that's heartbreaking. And I've done it a million times. I'm going to quit drinking. I'm going to quit coke. I'm going to quit this. I'm going to quit sleeping around. Give it to God. Yeah, give it to God.

And you said something powerful. Let's let's just have fun with this, Nicholas. Let's get really vulnerable. You mentioned to me that your wife had a hard time even letting you lead the family with faith because she'd watch you lie to yourself so many times. And now let's fast forward four months. Yeah. You still having that struggle? No. She's coming to me for devotional help. She's coming to me for theology help. She's come to me where I've been striving to be a pastor for years.

eight years in county. And I now looking back, realize why God hasn't opened the door yet. Because I cannot be a pastor to a congregation before I become the pastor over my home. And in order, the first step for me to become the pastor of my home was to trust myself and trust my own word. When I say something, I need to do it. Or am I standing before the Lord? And then that sets a standard.

Some of these comments are really funny, but that's that's really it's really good, man. And let's go back to Bible. It is let your yes be your yes and your no be your no, but also go back when the Pharisees tried to trick Jesus. What is the greatest commandment? Love the Lord God and love your neighbor as yourself. This is a word that's rarely preached to the implication is in order to love others, you must first love yourself. And loving yourself. The reason you keep your word to your wife is because you love her. Yeah.

So for not keeping our word to ourselves is the implication then that we don't love ourselves. Is the reality that we teach our kids that it's wrong to cry wolf. We have a whole story on it. The guy eventually got eaten by the wolf at the end and we tell our kids that. But we cry wolf to ourselves on a regular basis and we think that's OK because no one's getting hurt. You know what mean? You think about it this way too. Like I see with parents all the time and it's.

with that I work with and I will call you out like if anybody in here ever has a conversation with me, I'm always going to be loving you know that but honest. Never cruel because honestly without compassion is cruelty. But we love to do this. Hey, three, two, give me that toy. Three, two, you better give it to me. No, at one they get popped. You got to put stop counting. Yeah. Now they don't believe you. Yeah. If you do this, then I'm going to do this.

Well, I'm telling you, if you do this, that I'm going to do this, then you wonder why your kid doesn't listen. Yeah, they don't believe you. But you taught them not to believe you and you don't believe you because you taught them not to believe yourself, not to believe you. Your wife doesn't believe you because why the heck should she? Yeah. But then you we get mad at our spouse because they don't believe us when we caused it. That's like when somebody rear in somebody else at a stoplight because we hit the gas too hard and then we yell at them. Yeah. No, you did it. Yeah. Stop. Yeah, for sure.

but there are so many deep levels and I do want people to understand this, like this fat loss thing.

Nobody talks about it. You opened with macros and I could have skipped the whole macro thing. There's so much more psychology to this. Why am I doing these things? Like that's another step for you. Like why am I doing these things that I know that I shouldn't be doing? One of my friends just said, you know, that thing that you're doing, you know, you shouldn't be doing. Yeah, don't do that thing. Yeah, right. But there is this if you're not sure why you're not motivated.

If you're not sure why you're not keeping your word to yourself, build proof, give small little things like stop setting these massive goals, that little little things to build proof because you have a lot of proof in one direction that you're not going to keep your word to yourself.

build it slowly the other direction or find an area where you're already successful in your life.

you did there where you're not successful, comma, yet. You have proof somewhere. Let's go find it. Yeah. You don't need to reinvent the wheel here. The problem is most people are so close to the situation they can't see clearly because the more more emotion goes up, the more intelligence goes down. Yeah, I'd agree with that.

I gotta say, I feel a little left out because both of you guys have teared up and I haven't teared up yet. And Matthew was just saying that it's masculine. Hey, hey, hey, hey, He was just saying how masculine it is to cry and I feel a little feminine right now, you know? For not crying? Yeah. You better cry right now. That in itself was feminine. dude, I did not cry. I don't know what you're talking about. OK. I can be feminine too, bro. I love Hallmark movies. I'm not gonna lie to you.

I love them, especially around Christmas time. 100%. I just discovered this year that they actually have like fall ones. nice. And none of the decorations with the leaves are ever real. They're all plastic. You could plot an actual leaf like this is filmed in Connecticut. I know there's a leaf. Yeah. You know what mean? But that's amazing. That's good news. It is good news, man. Yeah. We were just watching Hallmark movies last night. We and my wife is in the chat, actually. Is she? Yeah, let's get some of these.

She said, but what if we pray over the cookies? Yes. So that in your opinion, does that redeem the cookies? I mean, McDonald's. Bro, like that's how that cracks me up. People are like, bless this food to the nurse from our body. And even Jesus is up there like, bro, there's nothing to nourish. Like, what are you talking about? Like, I wonder what God's sitting up there thinking, right? Like, I wonder if he's just sitting there like this when people are like, hey, what kind of milk do you want? Like, I milk, the kind that God gave me. But we made almond.

we made, which I call nut juice. But like we we like we make 800 other. Sure, can. Like that's not that kind of reference. It's what we're doing. But like it's we make all these other things in the name of health that are actually much more unhealthy for us. Yeah. Like I wonder if God is just sitting up there like, man, I wonder what I should eat to be healthy. And God's like, bro. I made that already. Yeah, right.

I gave it to I did this. I literally gave you all these animals that give you milk. Like when we had the formula shortage because of the covid thing. Right. no, there's no formula. We use goat milk for like all of human existence for babies. Yeah. But nobody was saying it. Yeah. Right. Like just do what we did before we powdered this stuff and called it nourishment for children. Yeah. With high fructose corn syrup. There you go. So so you know, we can't bless the cookies.

You can I mean, I guess we could thank him for him, but we might want to leave out the to the nourishment of our body. OK. There you go. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Bless his cookies and don't make them good for my body because they can't because they're not good anyway. Yeah, there you go. I mean, well, I would say like.

What kind of cookie? you know, I'm saying be a chicken breast cookie. Get out like a dude. You know what? Really? my God. This is a protein cookie. Yeah. Stop it. Stop it. No. Wait, wait, Those protein cookies are banging. It's ones. Don't do that to me. Like the Lenny and Larry's cookies. Those are not cookies. Those are like 500 calories. Yeah, I understand. It's like a whole dinner. did find the Quest nacho chips to be really good.

They're not bad. they're not bad. do like, you know, there's some stuff out there like a guy that I know, Bruce Cardenas. He's amazing. He helps start Quest. You know, he moved over to legendary, right? Like the legendary pop tarts as a snack every now and again, when you're on the road, they're amazing. Right. Especially if toss them in the microwave for like 12 seconds, like a couple seconds, not 12. They'd be way too hot. Plus you're on the road. I'm not sure you're going to do that. Yeah. But like they're really, really good. Right. Shout out to Bruce. Yeah. Right. Like shameless shout out. But

it is.

Like, let your protein be your protein. And if you want a daggum cookie, eat the daggum cookie. Like, stop trying to justify all these things like, man, these are keto cookies. Like, be quiet. Like, that's ridiculous. Like, just eat the cookie if you're going to have the cookie. Yeah. And then go back to normal or like another shout out to a buddy of mine, like Mike Dolce. Well, if you're just going to have the one cookie, then what's the point in having the daggum cookie in the first place just to keep you craving it down the line? Just skip it. Yeah, right. Yeah.

But we're playing this tightrope game of like, it's kind of healthy. Is it kind of healthy? Like, are you just trying to justify like eating more stuff that's like, still, like keeping you stuck where you were? Yeah. I just started a new guy yesterday, right? Which I don't know how that the group chat ended up where it ended up with that with Kevin, right? Like, how did that get there? I don't know. Yeah. We'll talk about this. Yeah, that's not gonna be there. But like,

It's I told him like seven days he's gonna eat God food like we need to reprogram the brain here. Yeah. And there is sometimes where we just kind of need to sever things and just say like I have to delete and block that number. We need to do the same thing sometimes with our food like we tightrope these things and then wonder like why am I craving these things because

you're playing mental gymnastics and playing the justification game or like or over starving yourself during the weekend and binging on the weekend. That's a whole nother thing that like most people do. But anyway, what kind of cookie do we have any more fun questions like this in the chat like this? do have John Clash saying that snooze is evil and that he's been there. News is a fun one. Talk about keeping your word to yourself. Your first decision of the day when you hit the snooze button is a negative. I don't want to and I'll do it later. Yeah.

Yeah, so let's read that Marcy 21 ish comment. I'm so happy you guys are having this conversation. I've only heard of one pastor talking about the subject. That's powerful. Yeah. And right after it looks like Josiah saying gluttony is not a thing most churches talk about. So, yeah, just more confirmation that this is just not a topic that we talk about in the church. Yeah. Yeah. I'm tempted to do a whole series on it. Yeah. I mean, it's on on protein cookies.

but that's I do like those. You're not going to take those away from me. They're linear and Larry, they need to go away because they're blasphemy is what they are. Sir. They're trash. I do like my protein. Yeah, that's yeah. I know you do bro. Like that was a whole nother thing. I was like, Hey, by the way, you're getting a little high on the protein bars. He, he watches my video with the weekly check-in and his wife hears it while he's like chewing on a protein bar for the day. he's like, whoops.

No,

Yeah, I'm not a quitter. Yeah, I'm a man of my own word and I told myself I was gonna eat that thing on it was a bar You're like I'm on a quest to be healthy. This works. I'm sponsored I do use those I do use those at the end of the day when I already achieved my goal or I'm like this close from achieving the goal and it's Supplemental to getting me where I need to be. That's the key is is use it as a supplement Not as a staple. Yeah

Yeah, somebody else said something in there. First off on the pastor, Eddie Williams, he's coming on my show that's kicking back up here soon. And this is all we talk about. Eddie Williams is awesome at it. He was an NFL player and he's jacked. He's actually a health coach, too. So exactly. Very excited to have him on on my show that when it kicks back up and he does talk about that. But I think.

That one of the reasons with the people I've talked to the one of the reasons that pastors don't speak on it is number one, they're guilty of it themselves. If a pastor is cheating on his wife, you probably won't hear him preach on it. But number two, they are afraid we have gotten so soft as a a society that if we do preach on, we are afraid of offending our congregation. And I'm going to tell you.

If the Bible doesn't offend you, then you're not reading it right.

Like there's no way to read the word and not get your toes stepped on. No doubt. Is there any fun, anything else? neuter coach says pantry equals sanctuary sobering thought. are you going to do a pantry audit on me or Nick while you're here?

I mean, if you want me to, we can videotape this. OK, sure. That's all my wife. So I just want to point out. Yeah, all of them. Yes. Your wife's Nutri Coach. No, I'm saying everything that you find in my pantry is going to be. yeah. It's hard to say. Yeah, my kids bought that, bro. That's fine. My newborn bought this. I don't. She figured out what's already it was delivered. Exactly. There you go. One thing I was going to say is, I lost the I lost that.

But one thing I was going to say is an analogy that I like a lot, and I've spoken to Matthew about it, is that when you eat food just because of how it tastes, it's the same as marrying somebody just because of how they look. Even if they're beating you up or they've got addictions or whatever, it's like you're marrying them for one thing. That's ridiculous. But we so often look at food like, that tastes good, I'm going eat it.

That tastes good. I'm going eat that. But there's so much more. sound like Cookie Monster. Yeah, we do. do. There's so much more to the food than just how it tastes. It's how does it make you feel? How does it help your body function? There's there's so many more aspects to the food than just how it tastes. Well, I think we all I love that analogy. It's so true. Like we've all been on that date with a person that was like just a absolute like tin in looks. And when they open their face, you were like, please get me out.

But it's. It's so true, it's a perfect analogy because I do hear this too all the time. I'm a picky eater. Yeah, no, that's just another way of saying like I'm controlled by my impulses for my food or I hear I know it's good for me. It just doesn't satisfy me. What does that mean? What does that mean? It means it's not satisfying your hedonistic tendencies. there you go. There it is. It's like saying I know that like

I know that only sleeping with my spouse is great, but I still want to sleep with that person, too, because my cravings like, OK, cool. Make that one make sense. Yeah. Like why need a T-shirt that says that make that one makes it make that make sense. That's a brand. That's your brand right there. That's just so good. I came up with it because of my stepkids. Right. Well, soon to be. But I already call them that. I don't even call my stepkids. It's like I'm never going to call you that because that's not Bible. But like.

I will agree to anything they say if they can make it make sense, even if the logic is whack. If I'm like, yo, I feel you. got that. That cool. Let's go do that. Yeah. Like you wanted to do a back flip off of a plane onto a onto a trampoline into a pool because of this. I can see it. Let's do it. You know, but if you can't you can't make it make sense. Right. Like, well, you heard it first thing. Bible thingers.

We're giving you a catchphrase. OK, we want it on on a T-shirt. You want it right here? I'll buy it. I'll the first one to do this. I'll be the first one to buy it and we'll wear it the next time we record. You have gear. Make that one make sense. Make that make sense. Let's just. Yeah, just make that make sense. Make that make sense. Make that make sense. Do we have gear? Absolutely. We're wearing it right now. Bros or foes. I love it. We'll get you it. We'll get you a T-shirt. We'll get you a T-shirt. I don't know if I have one your size. Probably we'll have to cut the sleeves off. Yeah, that's probably just rip off.

I'm not that big. I'm like six foot, two twenty. Like it's twenty four something like that. Yeah. Shaq says that all the time. I'm not a big guy. Pretty close. Yeah. But all right. Well, I think maybe we touch on this real quick. I want to touch on this because we've talked so much on nutrition. But can we hit exercise for two seconds? Yeah.

Exercise matters. The one of the things that America loves to focus on is that we're over fat. But like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon says, we're under muscle. It's because we're under muscled. The more muscle mass you have,

the more that correlates to living longer. even see it in research with people that have cancer that undergo chemo. The more muscle they have, the higher their likelihood is of success. Now, there's a lot of factors here. Why? One would be because you atrophy when you have chemo. But if you have no muscle, there's nothing to atrophy, but your organs and your body. But the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn at rest. The

more your body is able to regulate your blood sugar. So those of you out there struggling with insulin resistance or diabetes or pre diabetes, by the way, you can fix those. Don't let your doctor say you can't reverse diabetes type two diabetes. Sure you can. And while I'm on that, by the way, can we just go ahead and put this out here? Type two diabetes does not run in anybody's family. Type two diabetes is a result.

of our diet of our lifestyle choices. I was going to say lifestyles, right? It's lifestyle. So it may be a generational chain, but it's not a generational curse. Yeah. It's because most people in your family probably have the same lifestyle. So let's stop blaming our genetics for our bad choices. And let's also stop blaming the devil. Well, the devil made me eat it. What are you for? The devil ain't worried about you. Your habits and your routine are terrible. Yeah. He can go worry about somebody else that's getting their crap together. There you go. So

But the more muscle you have, the stronger you're going to be, the more your hormones are going to regulate themselves as well. So like ladies out there that are pre menopausal, things like that post menopausal, perimenopausal, like we need more muscle mass here. Well, it's harder for me, maybe, but harder for you than whom and what like don't make yourself like, let's let's do what we need to do. Gentlemen. The more muscle mass you have and the lower your body fat is.

the better your testosterone levels are going to be. And I want to segue that into something that's really plaguing America. Talk about the masculinity. OK. The average 18 year old today. Has testosterone levels equivalent to a 70 year old man in 2000. Not long ago. No, no. You how we love to say all kids these days are soft. Yeah. Yeah. Like legitimately, physiologically, hormonally, they are soft. But.

I have not actually reviewed a man's blood work. One of my clients in the past six months where the where the testosterone levels were, I wanted them. And if your doctor says they're within normal ranges, I want you to think about this. What's a normal range? The normal range is based upon the overweight sick person that repeatedly goes to the doctor. Yeah, right. Just because something is normal doesn't make it OK. Living a hedonistic, self-centered

Egotistical selfish lifestyle is normal.

Not okay. Right. So like 198 is considered baseline normal for a man in testosterone. Like somebody our age. I don't want to see him lower than 650 where the max that most doctors are saying is 600. Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. So the normal range is actually change based upon society. So I want, you know, if anybody out there is watching this and has their blood work and they just want me to take a look at it, I'll do that. I'll put that offer out there. I'm not a doctor. I got to put that disclaimer out there, but I will look at it.

But the muscle mass does matter. Protein does help you build muscle, which will help you build more calories. Like that's one of the reasons like we do the cardio. Okay. But if you're on a diet, if you're trying to lose body fat, keep the protein up as you alluded in the very beginning. Because if you don't keep that up, your body's not just losing fat. It's also losing muscle, which is lowering your resting metabolic rate, which then when you gain the weight again, because we've all done that to your point.

Now you have less muscle, so your metabolism is lower and you're like, dude, but I used to eat this much. And then after this, well, I gained the weight back faster, but it's because you lowered your resting metabolic rate. Yeah. And after about the third time of doing that, it's going to become almost impossible without coaching to be fair, to lose and keep that weight off. And let's stop saying lose it. Cause that means you can find it. Let's say let's release that weight. Yeah. But that's why the muscle matters. Yeah. Glucose regulation.

hormones, longevity, all of these things. It's not just about being yoked. That's just a benefit. You know, well, that's self-centered. man, like, does it creep in? Sure. But like Nicholas knows this story. When I first started dating Leah last summer, because my fiance is in really good shape, the kids were like, we're so excited to go to the pool with you. Why? And they were like, well, because you have abs and our mom's in such good shape. And we just thought that like

when men turned 40, they just got fat. Yeah. And like, we're proud to be seen with you. And so it's not about the look, but like, what people don't understand when they see somebody that's in really good shape is this, and then I'll be quiet. You think you're jealous of the look.

But what you're really jealous of is their consistency, their dedication and their hard work and you wish you had it. It's good. It's no different than going, man, there's okay, it is different, but similar to man, they're so close to the Lord. I wish my walk with the Lord was that close. Do they read the Bible every day? Do they go to God? Do they take everything to him? Do they give that to him? Do you have the same holy habits?

You can't say, man, I wish I looked like that, man. I wish I had that relationship with God. And not want every part of the journey. So like if you don't, if you aren't willing to wake up at five o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, prepare your food, take your food with you, which is not always necessary. Like you can't be jealous of the way somebody looks in the same way. Like you don't know. Like, for instance, my walk with the Lord, somebody's like, he's so close to God. I wish I was that close. I tried to kill myself twice. And God saved my life.

And I still fought him. So like, do you want my path? Yeah. Like, anyway, I'm going to be quiet now. Well, first of all, thank you for coming to the show and thank you for taking the flight all the way over here, all the way, all of an hour and 15. Right. All the way from Charlotte. I think it might have took us that long to drive here. We definitely appreciate.

this amount of knowledge that you shared on this episode. It's a little bit different than what we usually share. usually at theology podcasts, but we want to talk about all things Christianity and we want to show how topics can be just brought to the table and in good faith and in grace and in, just willingness to be open-minded, sit at the table and talk about them. And, and since gluttony is just running across America, we thought this was an essential

topic to bring to our channel. So thank you. If you guys want to sign up or for a first initial free consultation, just to see if it's a good fit, go ahead to Matthew Head and coaching.com and you can sign up. The link for that is going to be right below this video. You can go ahead and click that. And he also just released an ebook dropping today, right? Tell them about that. Yeah. So it is faith and fitness.

What does God say? And it's aligning our spirit body and our worship to be able to serve the Lord. So it's pretty cool. We've been working on it for a long, long time. We whittled it way down and it is the, what does it look like? What does this mean? And it has little exercises. It has practical tips. Cool. I'm going to give us opportunities for people to connect with me. And we're proud of it.

it was all him. I mean, I went through what nine years of formal education and this never occurred to me until what? Been at this 15 years and this hit me like 14 years in it's all him. And I want to say something, you know, hopefully the ebook resonates. Hopefully this resonates, but if you're out there struggling.

And you're ready to give up or think you can't get in shape or lose weight or if you're calling yourself fat, if you're calling yourself disgusting, if you're beating yourself up.

Remind yourself of who you whose you are. Your beloved child of God, your brother and sister in Christ, you're created in his image. In the story of the man with the wizard hand. He healed one hand as good as the other. No matter what you're struggling with, whether it's alcohol, drugs, cocaine, food, whatever it may be. He healed one hand as good as the other, just like he did me. You're good and we're here to help you.

Why? Because we love you. Yeah, we do love you and we thank you for tuning in this long. I know it was a long conversation, but one that we hope you really did enjoy to encourage you to take the next step in your life to make sure that you're bringing God glory in all aspects of life. And I wanted to say so often we talk about theology on the show. Theology just in the brain is not sufficient. We want to have

practical theology that actually is theology that we're living out in our lives. So fulfilling our brain and not acting on our knowledge. What's the point? So this was a great segue into what we're going to be talking about next. And we have a variety of different videos coming out about younger, about atonement, about Calvinism, about all sorts of things.

Donald Trump. Donald Trump, right? And I'm not going to drop the names. If you follow us on social media, which I hope you do, at Bibledingers across the board, you'll find out who we interviewed over in Kentucky. But make sure you hit that subscribe button right now. And if you forgot to like this video, make sure you like it so you can trigger the algorithm for people to go in and find out how they can make the first step to improve their health and fitness. But

While you're there at social media at Instagram, Facebook or X or whatever at Bible thinkers across the board. While you're there, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, hit whatever button it takes to get you connected. Whatever button. And most importantly, ding on.

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