DietI like "The Biggest Loser". I’m not a fan of many reality shows [actually, I only admit to liking three: "The Biggest Loser", "The Next Food Network Star" (that’s irony for you), and "Celebrity Apprentice" (I just can’t live without The Donald)], but I do enjoy watching "The Biggest Loser".
If you’re not a fan, here is how it works. Overweight contestants are chosen and are fed right, worked hard, and are emotionally challenged in order to be the overall winner. The contestants chosen are generally in the 400 to 600 pound range and, at the end of the season, generally lose down to around 180 to 220 pounds. It is simply amazing.
I once watched another program featuring a man that would have been an excellent contestant for The Biggest Loser. My wife likes to watch those programs on cable T.V. that show babies being born or tumors removed. I could care less about watching one of those programs; however, in between a program about a tumor being detached from a small intestine and fully developed healthy baby being born in someone’s living room, there was a program about people that were addicted to food. It must have been on TLC or the Discovery Channel, but it was actually an expose on people who couldn’t stop eating. We’ll call the man I remember most Ray. Ray had an eating problem. At Ray’s largest weight he topped the scales at around 570 pounds. Ray was unhappy, unhealthy and uncomfortable, so he decided to do something about it. Through hard work Ray lost down to an astonishing 200 pounds! It was amazing… he didn’t even look the same. According to the documentary he gained global notoriety as an overweight man who had his weight under control. However, the story does not end there. Once Ray had lost all the weight he wanted to celebrate, so he went to his favorite restaurant where they served his favorite chilidogs. His intention was to celebrate with only one… but that’s not all he ate. In his own terms he ate the one, but thought another wouldn’t be bad… so he ate two. Two turned into four, four into eight and eight in to 27 [27ish, I really can’t recall the actual number… but it was a lot!]. At the end of the documentary, Ray had topped his original highest weight and was confined to a wheel chair and an oxygen mask. Due to a medical emergency, a rescue team had to tear down a wall at his house and move him to the hospital on a wooden pallet with a flat bed truck because the ambulance was not big enough. Ray had once again become a victim to what controlled him.
Any contestant on The Biggest Loser will tell you that they didn’t secure their spot on T.V. by eating like a bird and drinking water all day long. No, just like Ray, all of them [and many of us] have experienced the wrong diet.
Maybe it’s only me, but I don’t believe the term diet is a quality term anymore. When I hear the word “diet” it congers up in me the thoughts of going two or three weeks without something so I can go to some sort of reunion. However, only logic tells you that if you eat double cheese burgers and fries everyday and gain 50 pounds, once you lose that 50 pounds by “dieting” and then resume the cheese burger-fry diet you will once again gain back 50 pounds or more. Therefore, I think “lifestyle change” is a better, more quality term to use when referring to what’s expected of us when it comes to keeping the weight off.
A lifestyle change is a desire to re-prioritize some things in our life. When dealing with food, a lifestyle change would mean less junk and more quality food – forever.
This may sound way too elementary, but it is true… you eat too much junk and you’ll hold too much junk. The same is true with sin. The resemblance between being overweight and sin is impossible to ignore. Take the example of Ray. Ray was weighed down with body fat until he decided to do something about it. Through “dieting” he eliminated the majority of that fat, but one meal on top of another meal resulted in his being weighed down more than he was before becasue he became a victim of what controlled him.
This is how sin-fat in our lives works as well. We think one sin will not hurt… but if one doesn’t hurt why not try two. Two turns to four, four to eight, and before you know it you are so weighed down with sin-fat that you can hardly breathe... because we become victims to sin. That’s why we need a diet, or lifestyle change, in our spiritual life to help keep us spiritually healthy.
What does a spiritual lifestyle diet look like? Glad you asked!
Just like a physical lifestyle diet, our Spiritual Lifestyle Diet (SLD) consists of two areas: What we take in and how much we take in.
What we take in:
As mentioned before, you can’t expect to eat cheeseburgers everyday and lose weight. Why, because cheeseburgers aren’t a healthy food. Good - yes, healthy… no. Cheeseburgers, especially good cheeseburgers, are loaded with fat, carbs, calories, oil, grease, polymonosaturated diclorimethaline [okay… maybe not that…], and all kinds of other non-mentionables that could lead to obesity [at the very best]. To lose physical weight, you can’t take in that kind of junk on a regular basis. On the other hand, eating only lettuce for every meal will never give you the proper sustenance for a healthy body. There needs to be a good balance that gives the best food available that offers the best nourishment available. The same is true with our SLD.
We are consistently being bombarded with junk to take in. Grocery store isles have magazines stuffed with garbage for us to graze on. Television is like an endless buffet of trash that lends itself to our ever-budging belt line. Movies, music, video games and internet offer endless opportunities to fill us with violence, sexual immorality, anger, rage, fear, self-denial, bitterness, hatred, and etc. All of this is just like the junk we find on our plates, and all the while our sin-fat is building up – and as it builds up it manifests itself in our lives.
So what can we do to keep things from building up? The first thing we need is stable staples. Physical staples include veggies, fruit, lean meat, whole grains, and so on. For our SLD we look the Bible to be our standard staple. The author of the book of Psalms understood this as he wrote in chapter 119:
1You're blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by GOD.
2You're blessed when you follow his directions,doing your best to find him.
3That's right--you don't go off on your own;you walk straight along the road he set.
4You, GOD, prescribed the right way to live;now you expect us to live it.
5Oh, that my steps might be steady,keeping to the course you set;
6Then I'd never have any regretsin comparing my life with your counsel.
7I thank you for speaking straight from your heart;I learn the pattern of your righteous ways.
8I'm going to do what you tell me to do;don't ever walk off and leave me.
9How can a young person live a clean life?By carefully reading the map of your Word.
10I'm single-minded in pursuit of you;don't let me miss the road signs you've posted. (The Message, italics added)
The Bible is our constant staple. It is what motivates and inspires, convicts and condemns our every action. This Bible, the Word of God, should be what drives us to every decision we make, every opportunity we see, and every action we engage in. This Word should be our strongest influence of energy. In the Bible we have hope, we have future, we have health. Consuming the Bible will result in a healthy, sin-fat free life [refer again to verse 9].
Another portion in our SLD are good Christian authors. These authors serve as side items on our plate… but never as the main entrée, which is reserved for the Bible. Some authors I respect (in no particular order) include: Erwin McManus, Rick Warren, Mike Yaconelli, Andy Stanley, Louie Giglio, and Doug Fields. These are men that I believe can complement the entrée, but not over power it. I believe they would all agree with I Psalms 119:103-104:
103 How sweet are your words to my taste; they are sweeter than honey.
104 Your commandments give me understanding; no wonder I hate every false way of life. (NLT)
How much we take in:
This is probably more debatable than desirable, but in any physical lifestyle change you have to monitor the amount of food you take in. No matter what you eat, healthy or unhealthy, too much can cause complications. I believe our SLD is no different.
When it comes to reading and studying the Bible, I consider bite-sized portions to be healthier than big chunks. Why? Bigger chunks are harder to swallow, but bite-sized portions digest easier. We are programmed to compute only so much information at given times. When my wife asks me to make a very serious decision, she understands that she will not receive an instant answer. I require time to dwell on the subject before I can deliver a verdict. She also knows that if she gives me too much to dwell on at one time she will never get an answer on anything – because I am not programmed to compute that much information. This is how our SLD works. We can only take in so much before it all becomes numb. This is one reason that I don’t encourage people to read through the Bible in a year [at least not on the first go-around]. When you begin trying to digest three to four or maybe five chapters in one sitting the information becomes blurry and the act of reading turns into a sacrifice rather than a desire [not all people are programmed the same… if you can digest 4, 5, 18 chapters in one sitting be my guest. I cannot]. Please don’t misunderstand… if you are finding pleasure in reading and are grasping the text, continue by all means. However, if it is difficult to wrap your thoughts around, it might be best to cut it into bite-sized portions.
So there you have it… a healthy meal consists of healthy food and healthy portions [easy enough, right]. Now, if we will apply that to our spiritual discipline of studying God’s Word we should be on our way in no time towards a lifestyle as described in Hebrews 12:1… “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (NIV)
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