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How to Keep a Fit Relationship with the Holy Spiri...

New Living Translation (©2007)

Consistency: Some people feel they must spend a long time working out. Not necessarily so. In the long run, it is the consistency that matters. Be consistent in exercising. Though not all days are going to be great workout days, the body rewards based on consistency. It’s not how long the prayers are but the quality.  It’s quality versus quantity. Honor a set time with the Holy Spirit. Keep it everyday.

Never stop praying (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Focus: In weight training, when lifting heavy, it is important not to think “heavy weight” but “light weight”. In other words, watch your focus. Focus not on the burden or heaviness of the task. The scriptures encourage us to take God’s “yoke”:

Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light” (Matthew 11:29-30).

Form: Form follows function.  Bone development follows the amount of pressure placed on them. It is important, therefore, to not just lift for the sake of lifting but be attentive to your form- to the manner in which you perform your exercise. Proper alignment is important. Likewise, don’t just walk through your faith—go to church for the sake of going to church, read a verse, a chapter for the sake of reading the Bible; pray for the sake of saying your prayers. Instead, be aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  He is speaking to you daily—through His word, through the man or woman of God, through nature, throughout everyday life.  Be in the moment—stay present.

Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.  Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.  Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts.   And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:16-20).

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What is Real Strength?

What is real strength
unless there is a current that you must go against?
What is real strength
without the force of gravity?
What is real strength
unless you are able to buffet the winds of a storm?
What is real strength
without the presence of adversity?
Now be strong!

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Mind, Body, and the Holy Spirit

Okay! So what if the whole world makes sense to me through the discipline of exercise? It’s how I connect. Connect with what? My inner being. And it gets better or worse for some…it’s how I connect even more so with the Holy Spirit. I can hear you now. Connecting to your inner being I can swallow, but to the Holy Spirit? I don’t know about that, you may say.

For the most part of our lives, at least for some of us, we are accustomed to looking on the outside. We seek for wealth outside of ourselves not realizing that wealth exists first in the mind. We seek for health outside of ourselves not realizing that health exist first in the mind—inside a healthy body is a healthy mind we have heard. We look to blame others for our short coming before we look within to see what our responsibility should be or should have been. We seek for happiness and peace within the world rather than creating the happiness and peace within ourselves first. We look to political and world leaders for change rather than focusing within ourselves to be the change the world needs.

To bring it home to my fitness lovers, we lift weights, we workout, but unless we connect with the muscles within, our bodies will not take a specific shape. The other day, I worked out with a friend who went through each exercise as if he were running the 100 meters race. I finally asked why are you rushing through your exercises?  You must connect your mind with your muscles, so the movements should be controlled.  By slowing down the motion, the muscles receive more tension.  Similarly, in walking to lose weight, the legs must be connected to the head. One time or another, I know we all have gone through “the motion” in our lives when doing an activity. But if we expect to get result we must connect from within. We must move from the external to the internal.

Our entire Christian faith shows this focus: the Holy Spirit is God within. Jesus-the man, was “Emmanuel”—with us. The Holy Spirit comes to live within us. It is our responsibility to connect with the Holy Spirit even when one has accepted Jesus Christ. The connection must be continually made else we will only go through the motion of being a Christian. You may ask how do we connect with him?  The same way you get within to everything else except it is not just the mind involved; it is not just the body involved, but it involves also your spirit connecting with God’s Holy Spirit. The irony here is most people can grasp the spiritual connection in theory, but have not connected the Holy Spirit to their bodies and minds. For example, the body houses the Holy Spirit of God.  Our mind is the mind of Christ and under constant repair and reconstruction. It’s the headquarters. If this area is not brought in connection with the Holy Spirit, it can destroy the body.

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Meditation of Life

This morning, I had the best meditation in the shower.  It was strangely sweet and refreshing.

I had just finished my cardio and had cool down with a powerful quote that went something like this: “we may not be able to control the length of our life, but we can control its width and depth.” As the water cascaded onto my sweaty skin, I felt as if these words fell like drops from heaven onto my mind.

It is so easy to base our life, our faith, our outlook on what we see only. But life is so much more than what we see. As surely as the physical world exists, so does the spiritual. Teilard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest said, we are all human beings having a spiritual experience. Caring about others who may not be family and/or friends is adding width to life. Some of the most selfish requests are in the form of prayers. Some prayers are all “me” centered. What about praying for the world? What about when sitting down to eat, we remember those who do not have food to eat and, perhaps, going a step further, to give? There are so many ways we can add depth to our life.  Today, how many ways can we add width and depth to our lives?  Just something to meditate upon.

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Why Don’t Women Get It?

Amazing it is!  I am still amazed! It is amazing how many people, in particular women, cannot grasp the concepts behind weight training. Because women are more prone to carry fat, they will continue to be frustrated over their weight, especially as they age, until they have mentally gotten a hold of what weight training is and is about. Though we are in the information age, weight training is still misunderstood. To the personal trainer who has successfully educated his or her clients in this area, kudos to you.

Why Weight Training Should be a part of Your Life

The body functions on two systems: aerobic and anaerobic. In its simplest terms, the aerobic system works along with the heart; in the presence of oxygen, it uses glucose or fat for energy. The anaerobic system works with the muscles; it uses glucose (stored in the muscles) for energy without the use of oxygen. The two systems must work together, for you are as healthy as your heart, and the frame of your body is as sturdy as you make it.

What Happens As We Age

Why, of course, we lose muscle and most of us begin to gain more weight in the form of fat.  Though some fat is good in protecting our bones in the case of a fall, muscle is better. Weight training keeps the frame of the house erect. I see many individuals as young as in their twenties with rounded shoulders and a hump back. Thanks to the prolong sitting in front of a computer screen, the need to strengthen the back muscles is becoming one of the most important muscles to work  on.  The formation of a hump back is no longer limited to aging. But this weakness does not have to occur if weight training is in place.

In addition to preserving the structure of the body, the care of the bones becomes, especially, critical to women.  Women are also likely to develop osteoporosis past menopause as estrogen levels decrease. Weight training helps to maintain bone density, and thus prevents fractures.

Why Weight Training Controls Weight and Aids in weight Loss

One day, my twenty-eight year old niece said to me that she finally has brought her hips under control by incorporating squats and lunges into her workout, but now she complained that her legs seem to be getting bulky. I asked her have you ever seen a marathon runner with bulky legs. She said no. I, then, told her to increase her cardio which she had only been doing for 20 minutes. You can lose muscle and fat if exercise is done past the fat burning zone.  Though the objective of a cardio program can be to exercise the heart and/or lose fat, muscle loss also can occur. Therefore, with sufficient cardio “bulking up” should not be an issue for women.

In addition, women normally do not have sufficient testosterone to build eye gawking muscles. However, they do have enough to tone arms– to get rid of the “chicken wings,” or to lift the saggy butt and to create at least the illusion of a breast uplift if plastic surgery is not an option.

Most importantly, weight training increases the metabolism so that the body’s engine continues to be revved up.  The aging process slows down the metabolism. Though we may eat less, we can still gain weight because of a a sluggish system.

So the next time you have a pair of weights, or the next time you are in the gym or about to work out, don’t be afraid to lift the weights. More muscles, more fat burning power. More muscles, stronger bones.  More muscles, a better looking body as you age.

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The Deception

In order to have a lean body, one has to eat certain foods–quality foods. Foods high in sugar should be avoided. Though all carbohydrates convert to sugar or glucose, you want to avoid the ones that shoot your insulin through the roof. These are known as noisy foods. They create the big bang, such as cookies, cake, chocolate, sweets of all sorts, caffeine etc. They produce that deceptive feeling that all is well. Then the moment of truth arrives. The blood sugar level drops. The high is gone. Instead all that is left are your emotions on the floor that you must pick up or simply repeat the same cycle again.

Foods can create an illusion for us. Isn’t this idea seen in the Garden of Eden? Satan presented Eve with the fruit, telling her to eat for she would be able to distinguish between good and evil like God. So she ate. Ah, it must have been good, for she offered it to Adam. He ate. Then the moment of truth arrived. What had they done?

How often have we fallen for a similar trick? For example, you think a glass of wine is what you need to relieve you from a stressful situation. Or how about a bag of chips or cookies? Your body has deceived you. Your mind followed. If only you had not listened to your body. That instant pleasure has now turned into an hour of cardio or a year or two years or maybe five years or more to pay for this sin.

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