What I’m Doing To Get Out Of Another Health Rut
Hi friends!
I have been on and fallen off the health bandwagon many times since March of 2020.
Prior to that, I had been on a year-long winning streak with the AutoImmune Protocol (AIP) diet and with exercise.
I was rocking it with God’s help.
I even lost 40 pounds although I was totally not expecting to. I just desperately wanted to feel better at the time.
But then the Covid lockdowns started in March 2020, and like many of you out there, I started eating more.
Which eventually gave way to trying more foods that were off of my AIP template. A year plus later, here we are.
I have slowly let my health go to the wayside in exchange for comfort foods.
I’ve gained 20 pounds :/ WELP
I don’t know about you, but I sure need a lot of self pep-talks and a whole lot of the fruits of the spirit!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Galatians 5:22-23.
I have always lived on two extremes, either I’m super compliant to whatever plan I’m on, or I jump off 100% and “fail.”
I want to live out temperance, a more balanced view of all things in life.
I’m tired of making progress through a pass-or-fail system.
Can you relate?
I’m writing this post today to encourage myself and you to be patient with your imperfect progress.
I will share with you what I’m doing to get out of yet another health rut.
Like staying spiritually grounded and taking care of the practical things.
These “simple” things have helped me in the past and are helping today to put one foot in front of the other.
Staying Spiritually Grounded
Encouraging Myself
Not going to lie, I feel like an imposter talking about how to encourage myself and others.
I’m naturally a cup half-empty girl.
I have to fight extremely hard against my sinful nature with the help of the Holy Spirit to stay positive.
I love what the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:12-14.
“ Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Who else out there loves to dwell on past mistakes besides ME?
Paul acknowledged that he had to keep pressing forward to the goal.
We never quite arrive.
Even though he was talking about the Christian walk, this can apply to all areas of life.
What usually gets me tripped up is my own perfectionism.
“If I can’t do it right, why try at all?”
But that mentality gets me further away from my goals.
This verse encourages me that it’s ok to not feel as though I’ve arrived.
Instead of beating myself up for “falling off the wagon,” I can choose to keep pressing forward.
I don’t have to live between the two extremes of a pass or fail.
Straining and pressing are two words he used to describe what it takes to win the prize.
This implies that achieving a goal will take hard work and determination.
Sometimes, it can be discouraging to keep at it when you don’t see the results that you want.
For example, I’m almost three weeks in and I’ve only lost .5 pounds:?
Also, my symptoms haven’t improved as fast as they did in the first round of AIP.
All this coupled with hormones (PMS), I’m tempted today as I write this to be discouraged.
Even king David was discouraged at times, and he was a pretty successful dude!
“Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.” Psalm 42:5
God is our hope, not some magical number on the scale or a perfect state of health.
Ok, so I may not “feel” what I’m saying completely, you may not either when you are in the middle of encouraging yourself.
But I know for a fact, this will eventually produce positive fruit in my life and in yours.
Whatever we sow, we reap (Galatians 6:7).
Encouraging myself regularly with Bible scriptures has been key in keeping me going on this health journey.
Leaning On God
It can be overwhelming to start a healthy lifestyle, but it doesn’t have to be.
“Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established.” Proverbs 16:3
I have to lean on Him and not my own understanding (Prov 3:5-6)
“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7.
When I first committed to my health journey in 2019, I simply started not having it all mapped out yet.
I took a “leap of faith” and God showed up and did the rest!
Overnight I went from eating whatever I wanted to eating only real foods.
Even today, when I think of getting healthy, it can seem overwhelming.
But I have to remember that if God did it once, He can do it again.
I can take a step of faith once more, commit it to Him and by faith expect that He will work in me the fruit of the spirit of self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23).
“being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;” Philippians 1:6
Do The Next Thing
But this is where I get tempted to sit things out until everything aligns perfectly for me to start.
Elizabeth Elliott, a missionary and great teacher would always say “Do the next thing.”
Anytime I have succeeded with any goal, I have simply done the next thing I could do and did it immediately.
I will use my health journey again as an example.
In January of 2019, I was once again at a very high weight for me (210 pounds)and when I looked at myself, I was unrecognizable.
I felt horrible, I had migraines weekly.
I often spent my weekends in bed with said migraines and was always too dizzy to drive and be present in life.
My mood was low, I was depressed.
I could not even fathom setting up a healthy lifestyle plan with all these health issues.
But I knew something HAD to change or else I could be stuck in this never-ending loop of unhealthiness.
Out of sheer desperation to start living my life again, I told myself to start with the next meal, with whatever is in the fridge/pantry that is AIP compliant…
And I did.
That was a small rung on the ladder I had climbed and it gave me the motivation to climb the next one, and the next, etc.
I knew that nutrition, sleep, and exercise would play a big part in feeling better.
So little by little I put some systems in place.
Taking Care of The Practical
As I just mentioned, I knew nutrition was one of the things that needed some revamping.
This is the system I put in place to get the ball rolling.
- Monday through Wednesday I would peruse the internet for AIP recipes.
- Thursday I would order the groceries online for Friday or Saturday pickup.
- Saturday and Sunday I would cook the recipes and meal prep.
- Once a month, I would buy frequently used items from Costco such as a case of topo chicos, mixed greens, frozen blueberries and strawberries, bananas and avocados, and meats.
- I would make as many smoothie packets from these ingredients and use them throughout the month for my breakfasts.
This isn’t a formula and I’m not saying to succeed you can only do it the way I do.
I just wanted to show you what it might look like.
Also, today my system looks a little bit different because as we all know, COVID has changed the way many people work.
Like many Americans, I am working from home for part of the week.
Thankfully, this means I don’t have to cram all of the food prep into Saturday and Sunday.
I can be a little bit more flexible when I cook the meals, but the same basic system is in place.
I still order my groceries on the weekend-ish, it can be anywhere between Thursday through Sunday.
I work from home Monday- Wednesday, so I space out cooking the recipes between these three days.
But I have a system in place.
I’m illustrating this for you so you can see that starting a lifestyle change does involve work, but you can ease into it and not feel overwhelmed.
Disclaimer about Diet & Determination
I truly believe that the good Lord gave us food (that is real food that comes from plants and animals) to enjoy and to be healing agents.
AIP just happens to be the template that I thrive on the most in this season of my life.
I do want to say that my faith and hope are not in the AIP diet itself.
This diet is not my savior or ultimate healer.
God is! 🙂
But he has pointed me to this tool for this part of my journey.
How and what I eat may look different in a few months, or it may stay the same.
Because I did “fall off of the bandwagon” in the last 1.5 years, it has taught me that my self-determination is fickle.
I can even walk away from a good thing when I let my appetites rule.
So AIP or not, the power doesn’t lie in my ability, but in God’s power working in me.
Because this time around, I want to really learn how to live a temperate life.
Not the pass or fail system I have always used as a standard of success or failure.
But rather, I want to stay on a continuum of steady, even if slow progress.
Conclusion
I heard the other day in a sermon, that we can’t always live from mountain top to mountain top. We have to go down into the valley to cross over to the next mountain.
I’m tempted to feel defeated for not staying the course with my health/weight loss journey but I can take hope that when I’m in the low valley, I’m about to approach another mountain high.
So if you find yourself in another rut, remember to feed your spirit by staying spiritually grounded.
Encourage yourself through God’s word.
Lean on God to do the hard things.
Know that when you ask Him, he will give you the fruits of the spirit to carry out your health journey.
Pair your faith with action.
Do the next thing!
Make that menu plan, open up your laptop and order those groceries.
Do the practical things.
Lastly, be kind to yourself.
I didn’t address this in this post, but I know for me it is easy to beat myself up for my “failures.”
In these moments, I remind myself that God is patient with me, so I should be patient with me too 🙂
Next Steps
Stay tuned, next week I will share with you some of my favorite recipes on this AIP journey in hopes that it will help if you find yourself in a rut.
Blessings,
Miriam
One Comment
Great, encouraging and refreshingly real post! Thank you!!!