Eat as if your life depends on it!
Because it might! At least it does with me. As most of you know, I have been struggling with numerous illnesses for over six years. Well, I am so sick of it! I have decided to take responsibility for my body and have made a decision to eat right and although I may not feel 100% yet – I tell you that I KNOW that I would be a LOT worse off if I hadn’t changed my diet.
This morning I did not ‘feel’ like juicing – even less like cleaning the juicer afterwards! But I will push myself to do what i do not feel like doing. I made a yummy (seriously, very yummy) juice with one yellow bell pepper, one peeled lemon, one apple, a bunch of kale, a 4oz. container of fresh blueberries and a little bit of stevia. YUM! It was so good! Even better – I FEEL good!
Daryl and I have been eating vegan since the new year – but because Daryl is on the road he doesn’t have the
privilage of eating as well as I do – so he does his best. He eats veggie sandwiches at Subway with wheat bread or salad if he’s fortunate enough to be near a Whole Foods, or he eats veggies at a restraurant.
But I am now learning to make numerous different meals and snacks for him to take to work with him. So far,
dehydrating fruit to take with him to work – not putting the temperature high enough to kill the enzymes) and cereal/granola to eat. Honeslty, I don’t trust food prepared at any restraurant… except CRU, the RAW foods restaurant (Vegan, ORGANIC) in Silverlake. I have almost gone completely raw – as much as possible – because I feel SO MUCH BETTER when I do! I took my friend Jennifer there last week and she was amazed at how wonderful the food was and how great she felt the rest of the day!
These are the things which I have had to go out and buy (well actualy, I praise God for Amazon.com cause I ordered most things from there) like a Raw recipe book, Cuisinart food processor, an Excalibur food dehydrator, a set of good knives (I still need to get a cleaver for coconuts) a mandoline slicer – and we already have a Jack LaLane juicer. We still need to get a top notch blender.
It is not cheap to eat like this. But God is providing and I truly believe that He would want us, all of us – to eat better! I know that it is cheaper to eat healthy now than to eat cheap junk now and have to pay for it
later in doctor bills, hospital visits, meds, etc.
Okay, can I be real? Well I will. There are SO MANY overweight Christians that eat so much junk! I used to eat at McDonalds at LEAST once a week, or Jack in the Box, Burger King, etc. Because it’s cheap, and yeah, it tastes good – when that’s all your taste buds know. A Christian’s only ‘drugs’ are food and COFFEE – coffee is a toxin ‘Christian Crank’ – yes, coffee is a drug – hello – why do we get withdrawals crabby, headaches when we stop drinking it? People who drink it on occasion is one thing, but someone who can’t function without that morning cup – well, need I say anymore? When we indulge on stuff that is so bad for us, is that a good testimony? Are so many Christians being overweight a good testimony? I’m not saying this to those who have a medical problem and they’re overweight because of that – but to those who just eat too much and who eat junk!
Have you ever noticed that when you ‘feed your flesh’ – it always wants more? That’s the same with food – when we eat chocolate for example – don’t we want more? Can we ever just eat one tiny piece and be finished with it? (Maybe some of you can – but not us addicts) Or for those of us who were smokers – could you ever just smoke one cigarette and not want anymore? Or if you did drugs – could you ever justtake a hit of the crack pipe and not want another rock? Seriously, when we start eating better, we crave more healthy food. But slip up and eat some junk – and it’s hard not to eat more and more.
Well, let me tell you – since I’ve been eating vegan I have lost 25 pounds, Daryl has lost 20 (all this within the first 3 months of the change in diet) our taste buds have AWAKENED – we appreciate the flavors and tastes of veggies and fruit – there are so many great spices to season your food with besides processed salt, refined sugar… we try not to eat anything with a label, and definitely NOT eat anything with a face or that came from something with a face.
Okay, I am not trying to preach at people, but seriously, God totally convicted me of my bad eating habits and I’ve repented! I mean, if our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit – shouldn’t we take better care
of them? Shouldn’t we be good stewards of them? I’m not saying that eating right will make you so healthy so you’ll never get sick or get cancer or arthritis or whatever (but it’s less likely) but at least when we’ve been eating right and we do happen to get sick – we can’t blame it on the way we eat!
When I die and face God – I want to be able to say that I have treated my body/His temple as the holy, pure vessel that it is – so that I was able to fulfill my destiny and live as long as God intended me to! People who think or say that they can eat whatever they want and won’t die until it’s God’s will seem to forget the fact that there are CONSEQUENCES for our actions, whether good or bad. If you eat poorly, you will die
sooner, period.
Maybe it won’t happen right away – especially all the young people who feel great now and can eat whether they want and not feel it immediately – just you wait another ten years or so – it all catches up on you! Trust me, I know!!! I NEVER thought twice about all the junk – processed food, candy, sugar, ate fast food probably almost every day (well, especially when I was on drugs) or microwavable meals… lots of white
bread, white flour, white sugar… I didn’t know what vegetables were good for – I’d eat a salad with Iceburg lettuce (which has mostly all water – no nutrients) and thought I was doing a great thing.
I’m not trying to speak to anyone in particular, but like my old director, Dominic always said – “If the shoe fits
- slide that baby on!”
This all takes discipline, and a DECISION. It is all about choice. What choice will you make? I’m not trying to get everyone to go vegan or anything – I just want to encourage you to make better choices about what you eat. If you can’t afford to go out and buy all the stuff needed to go raw/vegan or totally healthy – start asking God about what He would want you to do – how He would have you eat – and if He wants you to eat healthier – He
WILL provide. I can testify about that! We started eating vegan when Daryl had no job and we didn’t know where our next dollar was coming from. He has been so faithful! I think a lot had to do with the fact that we were serious about it.
We can always seem to afford to get the things we WANT – how about sacrificing the things we want and buying the things we need instead. I am speaking to myself too – trust me, I am far from perfect at this eating
healthy stuff, but I am working towards it!
I challenge you, to ask God if He is happy with your eating habits. If not, then what are you gonna do about it?
This is all written in love…friends tried for so long to get me to eat better and I wouldn’t listen. But it took being sick all the time, in the hospital or visiting the doctor all the time – to get me to wake me up! It got to where I became so desperate to do anything it took (I am very hard headed) to finally try changing my diet. I have begun to see the results, and I praise God. I just want to encourage other people not to be so hard headed like me and wait till you’re in your death bed or so sick that you are desperate to try anything – do it now!
