Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / Digital Sugar Is Destroying Minds with Amy Adams

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Digital Sugar Is Destroying Minds with Amy Adams · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

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Speaker 1: Hey, Faithful, Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast. In a moment,
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Speaker 1: my dad, coach Alex van Houten, will help you honor
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Speaker 1: God by making the most out of the body God's
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Speaker 1: given you. Today you can expect truth from the Bible,
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Speaker 1: tools from science, being guidance for everyday life. So listen closing,
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Speaker 1: get ready, Let's get one percent better today.
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Speaker 2: Hey there, coach Alex here, grace and peace to you.
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Speaker 2: You know, one of the things I'm becoming more and
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Speaker 2: more convinced of is that most people aren't actually starving
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Speaker 2: for information, They're starving for stillness. We live in a
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Speaker 2: world where our attention is constantly being pulled somewhere else.
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Speaker 2: Scroll this watch that consume more, react faster, but before
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Speaker 2: long a lot of us don't even know how to
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Speaker 2: sit quietly with God anymore. This conversation with Amy Adams
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Speaker 2: really gets at that. We talk about digital sugar, this
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Speaker 2: constant overstimulation that feels good for a second but leaves
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Speaker 2: us emptier afterward. And honestly, I think a lot of
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Speaker 2: us know exactly what that feels like. You pick up
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Speaker 2: your phone for one minute, and forty five minutes later
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Speaker 2: you feel distracted, disconnected, maybe even anxious, but somehow still unsatisfied.
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Speaker 2: And what Amy points out so beautifully is that the
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Speaker 2: answer isn't just try harder. It's learning how to reconnect.
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Speaker 2: Reconnect with your body, reconnect with your emotions, reconnect with people,
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Speaker 2: reconnect with God. Because somewhere along the way, a lot
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Speaker 2: of us stop treating our attention like something sacred. Scripture says,
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Speaker 2: be still and know that I am God. That's hard
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Speaker 2: for modern people. It's hard for me. Silence feels uncomfortable now,
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Speaker 2: stillness feels unproductive. But sometimes the reason you feel exhausted
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Speaker 2: all the time is because you're doing too much, because
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Speaker 2: your soul never gets to be quiet. So as you
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Speaker 2: listen to this episode, I want you to wrestle with
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Speaker 2: this question, what am I filling my life with that's
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Speaker 2: keeping me from actually being present with God? Not theoretically
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Speaker 2: actually present, Because your attention shapes your appetites, and your
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Speaker 2: appetites shape your life. And if this episode encourages you
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Speaker 2: and you start realizing that you want a healthier and
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Speaker 2: more grounded way to approach your body, your habits, and
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Speaker 2: your walk with God, I'd encourage you to pick up
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Speaker 2: a copy of my book, Faithful fitness. It's a forty
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Speaker 2: day devotional to help you make the most out of
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Speaker 2: the body God's given you. That's why I wrote it,
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Speaker 2: to help people take the vanity and confusion out of
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Speaker 2: fitness and to learn how to steward the body God
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Speaker 2: gave them with wisdom, peace and purpose. All Right, without
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Speaker 2: further ado, let's dive into this awesome conversation with Amy Adams.
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Speaker 2: What's up, guys. This is coach Alex ben Hoden on
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Speaker 2: the Faithful Fitness Podcast. I am super excited about our
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Speaker 2: interview today. We always work hard to help you to
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Speaker 2: make the most out of the body God's given you
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Speaker 2: and to help us along that journey. Today is miss
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Speaker 2: Amy Adams. How you doing today, girl? I'm doing great, sweet.
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Speaker 2: I'm super stoked about this. In fact, I'm just going
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Speaker 2: to dive right into a difficult subject matter, but I
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Speaker 2: think it's worthwhile. So recently you published an article on
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Speaker 2: your blog and I can't remember the title verbatim, but
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Speaker 2: the overarching concept was the idea that we understand that
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Speaker 2: sugar is hard on our body. It's hard on our
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Speaker 2: body metabolically, it's hard on our brain. We understand that, however,
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Speaker 2: we are constantly eating sugar in a different format, and
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Speaker 2: not a lot of people think of it this way.
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Speaker 2: Can you tell me about digital sugar and what is
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Speaker 2: happening in the world with regard to digital sugar right now?
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Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely.
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Speaker 4: I'm a girl who loves metaphor metaphors and I love
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Speaker 4: word pictures, and I was thinking through ways that people
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Speaker 4: get stuck in their lives, and so of course the
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Speaker 4: idea of over stimulation, both in our bodies and in
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Speaker 4: our minds came to my mind. And so I thought
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Speaker 4: of the idea of like all this social media, all
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Speaker 4: the you know, scrolling and you know, all the things
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Speaker 4: are so harmful to our minds, to our souls. Not
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Speaker 4: only are we not doing other things that are more beneficial,
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Speaker 4: but we are essentially guzzling mountain dew into our soul
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Speaker 4: without solitude, silence, all of the things. And the past
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Speaker 4: year for me has been really a detox. It's been
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Speaker 4: at this point about a year and three months and
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Speaker 4: I have not scholled Facebook or Instagram or any kind
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Speaker 4: of social media for that long.
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Speaker 2: Wow, at all. That's pretty intense. I mean, you know,
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Speaker 2: that sort of thing, just like sugar in a diet,
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Speaker 2: which you know, you could use sugar to run a
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Speaker 2: marathon and it might not be a terrible thing for
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Speaker 2: you from a sports nutrition perspective. But if you're consuming
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Speaker 2: sugar every day and all you're doing is sitting around,
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Speaker 2: I can really mess with your metabolism. In the same way,
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Speaker 2: this easily accessed, stimulating social technological media is infiltrating a
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Speaker 2: lot of people's daily diet, so to speak, with regard
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Speaker 2: to their attention. You actually brought up something pretty powerful
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Speaker 2: in the newsletter about how if you compare soda, like
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Speaker 2: drinking soda all day to water, how water nourishes, how
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Speaker 2: the body needs water. And then you think of that
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Speaker 2: from a scriptural perspective, that is to say that this
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Speaker 2: almost says as the deer pants for the water, so
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Speaker 2: my soul longs. After that, you actually call your readers,
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Speaker 2: notice when you're not choosing stillness, Notice when you're just
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Speaker 2: feeling the silence with the noise of media, and hey,
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Speaker 2: you have ownership of that, You have stewardship of your attention.
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Speaker 2: Can you tell me why you think our brains are
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Speaker 2: so vulnerable? Vulnerable that's a hard word to say. Why
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Speaker 2: are we so vulnerable to this sort of stimulation, particularly
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Speaker 2: in our present day.
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Speaker 4: You know, I think it has a lot to do
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Speaker 4: with dopamine, of course, and chemically how that impacts you know.
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Speaker 4: We want more, we want more likes, we want more attention.
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Speaker 4: We think we scroll and scroll and scroll, and we
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Speaker 4: think that it's going to fill but in reality, what
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Speaker 4: we're looking for is connection. And I really got on
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Speaker 4: this bandwagon, I guess I would say of the fact that, like,
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Speaker 4: if we actually need connection, I think we should go
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Speaker 4: to the Lord first, but also to the people in
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Speaker 4: our lives, you know, be it our husband, children, friends,
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Speaker 4: family members, to actually get connection. Because I don't know
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Speaker 4: about you, but whenever I used to scroll on social media,
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Speaker 4: I never really felt connected to anyone or anything. And
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Speaker 4: so it's like when you're grabbing for that snack of
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Speaker 4: Dorito's or mountain dew or whatever it may be, you're
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Speaker 4: hungry and it's not actually real food, it's not actually
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Speaker 4: filling you up, just like social media is the same thing,
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Speaker 4: not really filling you up, and you feel more empty
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Speaker 4: after you leave it. Whereas you could take those five
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Speaker 4: ten minutes, half an hour however long it happens to be,
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Speaker 4: and you can use it for actually something that will
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Speaker 4: make you feel connected to the Lord, or other people
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Speaker 4: use it to encourage or just somebody who's down or
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Speaker 4: read something in the scriptures or prey or go on
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Speaker 4: walk or something that's actually life giving instead of life draining.
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Speaker 2: Right, well said, you know, and we actually struggle with
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Speaker 2: that in our platform in order to reach the world
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Speaker 2: with faithful Fitness, because ironically, we are currently if you're
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Speaker 2: listening in on this conversation, you're either catching us on YouTube,
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Speaker 2: you might have found a social media clip or something
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Speaker 2: like that. And that irony is not lost on me.
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Speaker 2: And additionally, we have a we have an app called
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Speaker 2: Faithful Fitness. And what's interesting is our goal in these
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Speaker 2: things is not so that people would consume more of
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Speaker 2: our content. The goal of these things is to turn
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Speaker 2: their hearts and minds toward God and God's calling on
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Speaker 2: their life. Almost like if you had to have some sugar,
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Speaker 2: have it in the form of fruit as opposed to skills, right,
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Speaker 2: And really it's really difficult for us in the market
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Speaker 2: space when everybody else is offering skittles or it seems
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Speaker 2: that way, to offer fruit instead. And I'm actually curious
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Speaker 2: about your thoughts as you're writing this article in your space.
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Speaker 2: When you spread that out into the world, what's one
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Speaker 2: of the things that God's speaking to your heart about
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Speaker 2: adding your voice to the noise, so to speak. It's
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Speaker 2: not noise, but what it looks like to do that
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Speaker 2: in a God honoring way.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'll answer that, but then I'm going to
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Speaker 4: tag it with something else.
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Speaker 3: I wanted to say about something you just said.
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Speaker 4: I really struggled the first month or so that I
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Speaker 4: started my blog.
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Speaker 3: It's pretty new. I just started at the beginning of
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Speaker 3: the year.
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Speaker 4: I didn't post it on Facebook because I was kind
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Speaker 4: of away from Facebook, but then I thought, well, you know,
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Speaker 4: I could get the message out to more people if
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Speaker 4: I put it on there. So yeah, otherwise I had
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Speaker 4: just kind of sent it to my friends, and.
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Speaker 3: So I'm kind of new in this game.
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Speaker 4: But I did want to say this piece about something
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Speaker 4: I wrote in the blog.
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Speaker 3: I was really struck by my pastor.
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Speaker 4: He was talking about how kind of this topic, and
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Speaker 4: he was talking about how much the average American spends
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Speaker 4: on social media and consuming things apart from work. I mean,
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Speaker 4: I work on the computer, so I have plenty of
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Speaker 4: screen time. But in my free time, you know, I
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Speaker 4: have control over that. I think of it when people
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Speaker 4: are like, I don't have time to read the Bible,
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Speaker 4: and I hear that all the time.
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Speaker 3: I'm just too busy.
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Speaker 4: I can't read the Bible, and or I read the
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Speaker 4: Bible for five minutes, or you know, something like that,
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Speaker 4: and I think of it. We're consuming the world. I'm
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Speaker 4: not saying everybody is consuming as much as what the
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Speaker 4: average person is consuming, but it's almost like taking in
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Speaker 4: all this junk food, oreos, mountain dew, donuts, you know,
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Speaker 4: all the things, and then being like, but I had
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Speaker 4: a piece of broccoli. I should be healthy, right, I
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Speaker 4: had a piece of broccoli. And if you look at
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Speaker 4: the amount of time where you're consuming God's word, spending
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Speaker 4: time in prayer, spiritual disciplines, all those kind of things,
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Speaker 4: serving life giving things spiritually, compared to the amount of
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Speaker 4: the world that we're consuming, how do we think we're
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Speaker 4: going to be healthy. I mean, it's ridiculous to think
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Speaker 4: if somebody ate all the junk food in the world
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Speaker 4: and they had one little piece of broccoli that they
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Speaker 4: would be good.
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Speaker 3: And you know, the way I view one piece of
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Speaker 3: broccoli would be oh. I read a chapter out.
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Speaker 4: Of the Bible, you know, this week and then I
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Speaker 4: went to church, you know, like just.
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Speaker 3: Kind of throwing it on top. So sure that was
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Speaker 3: kind of what was the inspiration for that particular clock.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And what you're speaking,
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Speaker 2: I was thinking about how how dopamine changes our habits
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Speaker 2: and also dopamine can change our tastes and our cravings, right,
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Speaker 2: and so like, if I'm used to consuming lots of
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Speaker 2: sugary processed food and junk, then if I try to
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Speaker 2: switch from that to broccoli, for instance, broccoli is not
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Speaker 2: gonna taste great, Like, it's not going to be particularly enjoyable, right,
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Speaker 2: And that's actually something I say in my house pretty regularly.
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Speaker 2: If my kids complain about a food, I'll say, you know,
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Speaker 2: hunger is the best seasoning. And that's the dad joke
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Speaker 2: of like, if you were hungry enough, this would taste great. Actually.
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Speaker 2: So that being said, though, applied to attention, because that's
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Speaker 2: what we're talking about here, is the stewardship of attention
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Speaker 2: in the same way we would say the stewardship of
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Speaker 2: our nutrition to feed our body like God designed it
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Speaker 2: to be fed. The stewardship of our attentions the same
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Speaker 2: thing is, if I'm used to being so stimulated all
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Speaker 2: the time, then it's gonna take some time for that
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Speaker 2: sort of habit to change such that I can enjoy
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Speaker 2: dopamine from time spent with God in prayer. I can
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Speaker 2: enjoy dopamine on a quiet hike without all the noise.
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Speaker 2: I can be with God and stillness in a way
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Speaker 2: that's both fulfilling for me but also motivating and inspiring
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Speaker 2: and pleasurable in the way that dopamine can condition those things.
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Speaker 2: So I'm curious. You know, you said you took about
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Speaker 2: a year ish sabbatical from social media and whatnot. How
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Speaker 2: long did it take you personally before you noticed a
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Speaker 2: difference in the way your attention was directed.
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Speaker 3: Hmm, that's a great question.
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Speaker 4: I feel like a couple of weeks, probably, But I'm
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Speaker 4: at the point now where I don't know if I
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Speaker 4: ever want to go back to a scrolling social media relationship.
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Speaker 4: Like ever, my life is much fuller and it's richer.
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Speaker 4: I spend time doing things like art and writing and
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Speaker 4: hiking and spending time with family. I learned how to
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Speaker 4: make sour dough bread, you know all. And I do
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Speaker 4: want to say I heard one of your podcasts, and
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Speaker 4: you can put it in the frigerator if you're tired
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Speaker 4: of your sour dough. I have six kids, and we
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Speaker 4: can't just put the kids in the frigerator if we're
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Speaker 4: tired of them. But with sour dough you can do that.
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Speaker 2: Story. True story. My wife for everybody's information, my wife
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Speaker 2: is now onto, uh making goat cheese. So we have
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Speaker 2: exited the sourdough era at least for my Arkansas gal,
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Speaker 2: and we're interested in goat cheese now. So, but we
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Speaker 2: really enjoyed sourdough bread like it was. It was a
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Speaker 2: staple in our house for for quite a while. Maybe
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Speaker 2: my boys will come around to it again soon. But
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Speaker 2: so on that note, though, I think I think that's
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Speaker 2: useful and important because I personally, I sat in a
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Speaker 2: group of men and I took a bit of a
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Speaker 2: sabbatical recently grieving my brother and just stepping aside from
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Speaker 2: something so that I could I could be really close
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Speaker 2: to God's heart and understand what needed to be next
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Speaker 2: in this season. And I sat at a fire with
15:17
Speaker 2: a bunch of guys who have been disconnected from their
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Speaker 2: phones for three days. Okay, so zero foot, we didn't
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Speaker 2: even know what time it was. We didn't know what
15:24
Speaker 2: time it was. We hadn't received a text message, we
15:26
Speaker 2: haven't made a call, we haven't checked the internet, like
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Speaker 2: we had no news, you know, all the stuff that
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Speaker 2: sounds yes right, well it really was. It really was.
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Speaker 2: And so we're all around this and one of the
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Speaker 2: guys said, you know, it really has to do with
15:40
Speaker 2: getting out of here and getting into here. And I
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Speaker 2: asked this question. It was weird how silent it got.
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Speaker 2: I said, you know, when you notice that you're in
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Speaker 2: your head and not in your heart, what do you do, like,
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Speaker 2: what do you do to reconnect with your heart so
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Speaker 2: that you can be close to the heart of the Father?
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Speaker 2: Because you can think about God, but that's not the
16:00
Speaker 2: same thing is spending time with the Father. And the
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Speaker 2: guys got silent. They were like, huh, I don't know
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Speaker 2: what is that? And and I think that's kind of
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Speaker 2: the rub, right because we know we don't even have
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Speaker 2: to think about opening our phone and scrolling. That just happens.
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Speaker 4: And people are afraid of the silence, the silence and
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Speaker 4: the stillness.
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Speaker 2: But that's the Psalma says this too, be still and
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Speaker 2: know that I am God and when we learn how
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Speaker 2: to do that, when we practically understand for us and
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Speaker 2: our situation and our mind and body the way He
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Speaker 2: made us, how to connect with the heart of the
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Speaker 2: Father and be still. That for me, that's that's step
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Speaker 2: one to going like I don't want that. I'd rather
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Speaker 2: be connected to God. It's way better. It's way better
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Speaker 2: than that. So I'm curious for you, when you know
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Speaker 2: you're in your head, how do you get into your heart?
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Speaker 2: And I'll share mine too, Okay.
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Speaker 3: I love this question. I made up something.
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Speaker 4: It's called e MP, and it's called called emotional movement practice.
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Speaker 4: So usually when you're ahead, when you're in your head,
17:14
Speaker 4: there's emotions swirling around, and there's a reason why you're
17:17
Speaker 4: feeling disconnected. Right, we're all holistic beings. But I actually
17:23
Speaker 4: read Alisa Keaton's book The Body Revelation, and she talks
17:30
Speaker 4: a lot about some of these things, and after reading it,
17:33
Speaker 4: I kind of came up with this thing, and I've
17:37
Speaker 4: shared it with some friends and it's helpful to me.
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Speaker 4: So basically what I do is I get out the
17:43
Speaker 4: emotion wheel or a list that I have of emotions,
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Speaker 4: and I.
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Speaker 3: Read it quietly. Stilly stilly, I don't think that's the word.
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Speaker 3: I was still still and in.
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Speaker 4: Stillness, yeah, And I read through the list, and any
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Speaker 4: of them that pricked my heart at all, I just
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Speaker 4: write it down, and I keep going through the list,
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Speaker 4: you know, and I might have some you know, happy
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Speaker 4: emotions and joyful emotions at the same time as having
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Speaker 4: some that are sad or afraid or you know. You know,
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Speaker 4: we feel a lot of emotions concurrently. And so after
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Speaker 4: I read through the list, because a lot of times
18:27
Speaker 4: we feel jumbled up in our head and we don't
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Speaker 4: really know what's even in there. So to take the
18:33
Speaker 4: emotions and write them down on a piece of paper,
18:36
Speaker 4: we're like identifying it. I was struggling with something and
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Speaker 4: I couldn't put my finger on it. I just knew
18:42
Speaker 4: I felt bad and I was really stuck because of
18:46
Speaker 4: a relational trauma that was kind of going on. And
18:49
Speaker 4: what I realized was that the deepest thing that struck
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Speaker 4: me when I read through the emotions was insignificance. Well
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Speaker 4: when and I know insignificance is really at the root
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Speaker 4: of what I'm dealing with. Man, I can go to
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Speaker 4: God's word and I can say, I know that's a
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Speaker 4: lie from the enemy, right, I am significant.
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Speaker 3: He died for me, he loves me, He's some chosen.
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Speaker 3: There's so many.
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Speaker 4: Truths in God's word and scriptures and things like that.
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Speaker 4: And so basically, I take this little note card that
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Speaker 4: I take kind of the top couple emotions that I'm feeling,
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Speaker 4: and I go over to an exercise matt or I
19:34
Speaker 4: go on a walk, or I breathe.
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Speaker 3: So I either do a breathing.
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Speaker 4: Exercise, I do you know, gentle stretching, or I go
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Speaker 4: on a walk with these things and I bring them
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Speaker 4: before the Lord. I use those things as an opportunity
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Speaker 4: to connect to him. So, you know, if the word
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Speaker 4: is insignificant, I could be stretching, I could be doing
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Speaker 4: downward dog, or I could be doing you know whatever,
19:58
Speaker 4: or on a walk or doing deep breathing, using my body,
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Speaker 4: using my mind, using my emotions, you know, putting the
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Speaker 4: whole thing together and saying, God, I'm feeling insignificant, but
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Speaker 4: I know that your word says that I am significant,
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Speaker 4: then I'm chosen. And then I would recite a scripture
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Speaker 4: that had to do with that. And so in the
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Speaker 4: moving of my body, it takes it from my head.
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Speaker 3: And it brings it down to my heart, you know.
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Speaker 4: And I may not fix it all in one session
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Speaker 4: of doing what I call emp emotional movement practice, but man,
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Speaker 4: over time God has taken you know, those truths that
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Speaker 4: I can go, oh, I'm feeling insignificant right now, this
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Speaker 4: is the truth. I'm going to deal with it, and
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Speaker 4: I'm may need to do it more than one time.
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Speaker 4: But it's life giving because you actually can name what's
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Speaker 4: going on inside and not just random bad feeling.
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Speaker 2: Right man, that's so well said. There's so many things
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Speaker 2: I love about about what you just said, so I
20:56
Speaker 2: want to highlight a couple of them. First, you talked
20:58
Speaker 2: about an emotion wheel. If I'm picturing correctly what what
21:01
Speaker 2: you're you're seeing, it's it's kind of this this uh,
21:05
Speaker 2: this six spoked wheel that splits out into multiple spokes,
21:10
Speaker 2: and it's the idea that hey, I need I need
21:12
Speaker 2: to name what I'm feeling more specifically than well, the
21:18
Speaker 2: average person names three emotions. I'm either angry, sad, or
21:21
Speaker 2: or happy, like those are those are the three. But
21:25
Speaker 2: there's a lot more emotions now, Like you said, I
21:28
Speaker 2: could feel sad, Okay, I could feel lonely. That's getting
21:33
Speaker 2: a little closer to it, I could feel overlooked, I
21:37
Speaker 2: could feel insignificant. That's a much more pointed, a much
21:41
Speaker 2: more pointed, because you.
21:42
Speaker 3: Can see the lie of the enemy. At that point.
21:45
Speaker 4: When you just see sad or whatever, there's not really
21:49
Speaker 4: you can't really grasp onto it with God's word as closely.
21:52
Speaker 2: It's a cloud, right, and so and so being specific
21:58
Speaker 2: about naming and and you could call this from a
22:01
Speaker 2: spiritual perspective, you can call this a discernment. I'm going
22:03
Speaker 2: to be specific in the naming, right, the other thing
22:06
Speaker 2: you talked about here, And I think this is important
22:08
Speaker 2: especially for men, but that's because I'm I'm talking to
22:12
Speaker 2: men usually. I imagine for women it's just as important, maybe
22:15
Speaker 2: for different reasons. But that is giving a voice to
22:18
Speaker 2: your emotions. It's it's to say, hey, God made me.
22:21
Speaker 2: What I'm feeling right now is not just in my head,
22:24
Speaker 2: it's in my body. It's a it's a it's a
22:27
Speaker 2: it's a close knit connection with my reactionary nature, my history,
22:34
Speaker 2: my own like everything that makes me up right now,
22:37
Speaker 2: those emotions are are God given gifts when we can
22:40
Speaker 2: name them. And and so, Christ, that's exactly right. If
22:45
Speaker 2: you following, you got to take the second step too,
22:49
Speaker 2: well said so so, so you're giving the emotions a voice,
22:52
Speaker 2: we are naming them. And then finally, as you said,
22:54
Speaker 2: there that is confronting those emotions with with God's truth.
22:59
Speaker 2: Because when some thing feels a wry, when something feels
23:03
Speaker 2: amiss or ascue, it's it's very possible that something is wrong,
23:08
Speaker 2: and you need to bring the truth of God's word
23:12
Speaker 2: into that space. And oftentimes, when this comes back to
23:16
Speaker 2: our original topic of conversation, oftentimes, instead of instead of
23:20
Speaker 2: being there in the stillness spending time with my father
23:23
Speaker 2: about these very intimate things, it's easier to set it
23:29
Speaker 2: to the side and be distracted by something else, or
23:33
Speaker 2: it's easier to try to cover it up, or it's
23:36
Speaker 2: easier to try to make myself feel better with a
23:39
Speaker 2: different emotion which is not the same thing as what
23:42
Speaker 2: you just described.
23:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, and often you did mention anger a lot of times.
23:49
Speaker 4: You know, anger is a secondary emotion. Somebody might be
23:51
Speaker 4: feeling insignificant or guilty, or you know, you name the
23:55
Speaker 4: emotion and it comes out in anger, but there's actually
23:58
Speaker 4: something underneath there that is causing the anger.
24:02
Speaker 3: Because the anger is a protector.
24:04
Speaker 2: M Yeah, well said well, said uh. And and so
24:09
Speaker 2: coming back to coming back to this idea of connecting
24:14
Speaker 2: choosing connection with our father. First, for myself, what I've
24:20
Speaker 2: learned in this, I'm stubborn and hardheaded. It took me
24:22
Speaker 2: many years to come across this in myself and to
24:24
Speaker 2: actually make it a regular practice for me. But the
24:27
Speaker 2: way I get from my heart or excuse me, from
24:29
Speaker 2: my head to my heart is I will I will fast,
24:32
Speaker 2: and I will go for a hike. And I have
24:35
Speaker 2: several spots all over Arkansas that I've I've really found
24:38
Speaker 2: enjoyable and spent time with God in and so I
24:40
Speaker 2: can return to these places or find a new place,
24:43
Speaker 2: and in general do exactly what you just described, which
24:46
Speaker 2: is spend time in conversation with my father about what's
24:49
Speaker 2: going on, what's Wrong's like, let's put a name to it,
24:52
Speaker 2: what are what are his truths that speak into my life?
24:56
Speaker 2: And then for me, the movement is generally my hike
24:59
Speaker 2: turns into some sort of of run, and I usually
25:01
Speaker 2: find some cold water to get into because I enjoy
25:04
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. Not everybody does.
25:05
Speaker 3: So I'm a cold plunger.
25:08
Speaker 2: You're a cold plundered. Nice. Yeah, that's great. I'm like
25:14
Speaker 2: a nature cold plunder. I got to find like a
25:17
Speaker 2: waterfall or something to get into and that that usually
25:20
Speaker 2: that usually kind of seals the deal.
25:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome. I love that.
25:25
Speaker 2: So we've we've talked a bit about stewarding attention here,
25:28
Speaker 2: and I know, having been through Revelation Wellness and and
25:33
Speaker 2: their their certifications, that that that translates to movement and
25:38
Speaker 2: fitness in some forms and fashions. But I want to
25:40
Speaker 2: talk about a trap that people fall into when it
25:42
Speaker 2: comes to stewardship, whether it's attention or or whatever. And
25:46
Speaker 2: they might even be doing it right now. You might
25:48
Speaker 2: be doing this as a listener right now and not
25:49
Speaker 2: even know it. Uh. And the trap is approval. So
25:56
Speaker 2: I'm going to Okay, they're right, I'm consuming too much
25:59
Speaker 2: digital sugar. I'm gonna get my screen time down to
26:03
Speaker 2: ten minutes and I'm going to start telling people that
26:06
Speaker 2: I have figured this thing out right, and look, if
26:10
Speaker 2: you need to work on this, do it. But the
26:12
Speaker 2: approval trap is a real trap because I don't want
26:16
Speaker 2: you to make any changes to your journey to make
26:21
Speaker 2: me or Amy happy. I want you to make changes
26:24
Speaker 2: to your journey because you know that your heavenly Father
26:28
Speaker 2: wants something different from you, and so I want to
26:31
Speaker 2: for you and for you that's the well.
26:35
Speaker 3: There's life on the other side. Yeah.
26:40
Speaker 2: Well, in many of the struggles you shared in your
26:42
Speaker 2: personal journey in preparation for this interview, a lot of
26:46
Speaker 2: it came down to seeking some sort of approval. And
26:50
Speaker 2: so I want to know how that shows up in
26:52
Speaker 2: the health and fitness culture and maybe how that's impact you,
26:56
Speaker 2: and then we can talk about what the gospel answer
26:59
Speaker 2: to that approval trip is.
27:02
Speaker 4: Sure, Uh, proval is a big part of my story.
27:07
Speaker 4: For a long time. I was definitely on this like
27:12
Speaker 4: psycho obsessed neglect. I would obsess, obsessed, obsess over you know,
27:20
Speaker 4: like a carrot or a pee is too sugary, I
27:23
Speaker 4: can't eat that, you know. I was very like low carb,
27:27
Speaker 4: ran a marathon, triathlon, you know, like very goal oriented,
27:33
Speaker 4: always wanting Apel's approval. You never get it enough if
27:38
Speaker 4: you're seeking it, because it's it's an empty well, you know,
27:43
Speaker 4: and you're looking for fulfillment and that you're never going
27:47
Speaker 4: to get it in that and so you know, I
27:51
Speaker 4: tried to be thin enough and to be good enough
27:54
Speaker 4: and to I didn't care about being fast. I just
27:57
Speaker 4: cared about finishing the marathon. I beat my goal, and
28:01
Speaker 4: you know, I got a lot of crops, I guess
28:05
Speaker 4: for doing all the things. And then I got a
28:10
Speaker 4: knee injury. Couldn't run anymore. I can run a little
28:14
Speaker 4: bit now, but gained a lot of weight about ten
28:22
Speaker 4: years ago. And I'm fifty four, so I was in
28:27
Speaker 4: like perimenopause, and and now I'm in post menopause.
28:30
Speaker 3: So you know, that's the whole whole thing for women.
28:35
Speaker 3: Not an excuse.
28:35
Speaker 4: I certainly made some bad choices along the way, too
28:39
Speaker 4: too much checking out and coping. Life was hard for
28:43
Speaker 4: a bit. God's bringing restoration to a lovings. But you
28:48
Speaker 4: know I I definitely fell into the neglect mindset for
28:55
Speaker 4: I would I would you know anyone who's done the
28:59
Speaker 4: whole upset neglect. You can have long cycles or short cycles,
29:03
Speaker 4: right you could be like, I'm totally faithful for six
29:07
Speaker 4: months and then I'm falling off the wagon for three
29:11
Speaker 4: months or whatever. Or it could be I started on
29:14
Speaker 4: Monday and I ended by Monday afternoon.
29:18
Speaker 3: I've done both.
29:21
Speaker 4: But when your goal is approval, it's totally different than
29:27
Speaker 4: the Stewartship. Stewardship is like God made me, He loves
29:32
Speaker 4: me no matter how I am. My body is the
29:35
Speaker 4: temple of the Holy Spirit. If you know anything about
29:38
Speaker 4: the temple, it was overlay in gold. Solomon's temple was
29:42
Speaker 4: worth more than anything else in the ancient world and
29:45
Speaker 4: probably any building ever made. And so we are made
29:50
Speaker 4: of infinite worth, and so we should take care of it.
29:53
Speaker 4: And so if that's a motivation compared to vanity, and
29:58
Speaker 4: i want to be a size A or whatever, and
30:02
Speaker 4: I'm going to kill myself emotionally because physically I want
30:06
Speaker 4: to do this, and then I'm a mess because I'm
30:09
Speaker 4: never good enough for anyone else, and it's not fair.
30:11
Speaker 4: I don't get to try a sliver of cake, so
30:14
Speaker 4: I'm gonna you know, three pieces or whatever. You know,
30:18
Speaker 4: Like our mind goes into these crazy patterns, and so
30:23
Speaker 4: specifically me for revelation and wellness. It really helped me
30:28
Speaker 4: what I would call entangle Christmas tree wire lights, you
30:31
Speaker 4: know how like when you take off your Christmas tree
30:33
Speaker 4: lights and then you just kind of throw them in the.
30:37
Speaker 3: Bin along with your ornaments. I'm not a real wrap
30:42
Speaker 3: them all up perfectly kind of girl.
30:44
Speaker 4: So you know, you have all these jumbled Christmas tree
30:47
Speaker 4: lights and it's impossible to like untangle them. If you
30:51
Speaker 4: work at it, you can, but it feels frustrating, and
30:54
Speaker 4: I feel like that's how my mind was. It was like,
30:56
Speaker 4: do I do low carb if I lose low car?
30:58
Speaker 4: You know, I was going back and forth about I
31:02
Speaker 4: hate doing this, but if I want to be this size,
31:05
Speaker 4: I have to do this. And I was missing God's point,
31:08
Speaker 4: which is I made food as a gift for you.
31:13
Speaker 4: I made movement as a gift for you so that
31:17
Speaker 4: you can take care of your body.
31:19
Speaker 3: And I'm talking real food, you know.
31:22
Speaker 4: I mean I'm not to say can't ever have a
31:24
Speaker 4: Cheeto or whatever, but like he made real food for
31:28
Speaker 4: our pleasure. If you read the Bible, it talks all
31:31
Speaker 4: about feasts, it talks about you know, food was for pleasure,
31:35
Speaker 4: but it was also for nourishment and sustaining our bodies.
31:38
Speaker 4: And our culture has done so much with food. And
31:42
Speaker 4: that was part of my post too, is you know,
31:44
Speaker 4: there are chemists who are making food as hyper palatable
31:49
Speaker 4: as they can, and so we're kind of fighting a
31:52
Speaker 4: battle that maybe you know, people one hundred years ago
31:56
Speaker 4: didn't have to fight against food chemists and and you know,
32:01
Speaker 4: things with poisons, and you know, and so I've really
32:07
Speaker 4: gotten back to like enjoying food and food being a
32:11
Speaker 4: gift from God, and enjoying the act of eating. Asking
32:17
Speaker 4: the Lord to the table. It's interesting in relations three twenty,
32:23
Speaker 4: you know that famous first about Behold, I stand at
32:25
Speaker 4: the door and knock. Anyone hears my voice, I'll enter
32:29
Speaker 4: in and and he says, and I'll.
32:31
Speaker 3: Dine with them, you know.
32:34
Speaker 4: And so I literally before, you know, just silently in
32:38
Speaker 4: my mind, say, God, I asked you to the table.
32:41
Speaker 3: Help me to honor you. I'm weak in this area,
32:46
Speaker 3: so meet me in this.
32:49
Speaker 4: Help me to do this in a way that honors you.
32:52
Speaker 4: You know, saing with movements an opportunity to connect with
32:56
Speaker 4: God too. So well, I don't know if I completely
33:00
Speaker 4: answered your question.
33:01
Speaker 2: There, No, that was that was a great That was
33:03
Speaker 2: a great untangling of the Christmas lights in that sense.
33:06
Speaker 2: And it's always it's always, as you were speaking, it's
33:10
Speaker 2: always come to me that the answer to approval is identity.
33:16
Speaker 2: The approval trap is it's almost like I don't know
33:20
Speaker 2: what it looks like from the female perspective, but from
33:22
Speaker 2: a male perspective, it looks a lot like trying to
33:25
Speaker 2: get trying to get dad to say I'm proud of you,
33:29
Speaker 2: something like that, and striving for some sort of perfection,
33:33
Speaker 2: you know, the shot at the basketball game, at the buzzer,
33:36
Speaker 2: or the or the getting your chores just right, you know,
33:41
Speaker 2: something like that. And you know Jesus as a man
33:44
Speaker 2: encountered this as well. That was actually a big piece
33:48
Speaker 2: of his temptations in the wilderness. In Matthew four, it's
33:51
Speaker 2: not hey, you're super hungry, Jesus, and I know bread
33:54
Speaker 2: smells good, so so change these stones into bread. Satan
33:58
Speaker 2: actually says, if you are the son of God, then
34:02
Speaker 2: change these stones to bread. And he does exactly, brings
34:07
Speaker 2: him to the temple mount and he says, you know,
34:09
Speaker 2: if you are the son of God, it says, this
34:12
Speaker 2: is a scriptural truth. He uses Psalms ninety one. He
34:14
Speaker 2: will command his angels concerning you so that you would
34:17
Speaker 2: not dash your foot against a stone. Right, So he's saying, hey, Jesus,
34:20
Speaker 2: if you really are who you say you are, if
34:22
Speaker 2: you really are who you think you are, then do this.
34:26
Speaker 2: Prove it. Prove it to you, prove it to me,
34:29
Speaker 2: prove it to the world, you know. And what's so
34:31
Speaker 2: cool is is obviously Jesus resists the devil, he resists
34:36
Speaker 2: these temptations. He walks in truth there. But immediately, immediately
34:42
Speaker 2: you're kind of drawn back to what God the Father
34:45
Speaker 2: says to him when John the Baptist baptizes him just
34:49
Speaker 2: before all this, and that is, you are my beloved son,
34:52
Speaker 2: and I am well pleased with you. So Jesus knows
34:54
Speaker 2: who he is. He's not going to fall into the
34:57
Speaker 2: approval trap because he knows who who he is in
35:01
Speaker 2: God's sight. And I would say to our listeners that
35:06
Speaker 2: that that that is the that is the answer to
35:09
Speaker 2: the approval trap. Know who you are in God, know
35:14
Speaker 2: who you are in Christ before God, and you don't
35:18
Speaker 2: have to seek Dad's approval anymore. Like that's that's not
35:22
Speaker 2: something you need to fall into, right.
35:25
Speaker 4: Well, And you know, the body is given to us
35:28
Speaker 4: for ability and so that we can serve the Lord.
35:33
Speaker 3: And you know, part of the stewardship piece.
35:35
Speaker 4: I want to say is like we can be used
35:38
Speaker 4: by God no matter what our physical health is. I
35:40
Speaker 4: know people who are you know, bedroom who are amazing
35:43
Speaker 4: prayer warriors.
35:45
Speaker 3: You know.
35:46
Speaker 4: So, I mean, I don't want to say like, if
35:49
Speaker 4: you're not physically healthy, you can't serve God. But there
35:52
Speaker 4: are things that you can't do if you're not physically healthy.
35:56
Speaker 4: If you're physically struggling to you know, like let's say
36:03
Speaker 4: you're obese and you can't walk up a flight of stairs, Well,
36:08
Speaker 4: then you're not going to be able to help somebody
36:12
Speaker 4: maybe with something that's a little bit more physically demanding.
36:14
Speaker 4: Or you know, maybe you had the opportunity to go
36:18
Speaker 4: on a mission strip somewhere and you can't do it
36:20
Speaker 4: because you can't, you know, handle the physical rigors of
36:26
Speaker 4: whatever it is. And so like, I want to be
36:29
Speaker 4: fit for the Lord so that it doesn't keep me
36:33
Speaker 4: from maybe some opportunities. It could be really anything, but
36:42
Speaker 4: you know, when we keep our eyes on the Lord,
36:45
Speaker 4: that's a totally different than thing than saying, you know,
36:49
Speaker 4: I want to be a certain size.
36:51
Speaker 2: Or a certain weight or sure. And I think that's
36:54
Speaker 2: a really important dichotomy in stewardship versus weight loss, right
36:57
Speaker 2: because in weight loss, if I could get to fifty
37:01
Speaker 2: pounds later than I am now, or if I could
37:03
Speaker 2: just get to this weight or this dress size or
37:05
Speaker 2: something like that. Then then I will be able to
37:09
Speaker 2: do X y Z, I will be able to live,
37:10
Speaker 2: I'll look good, I'll you know, do do this in
37:13
Speaker 2: my job. You know, my husband will think this about me,
37:15
Speaker 2: whatever whatever that is. But stewardship is a daily process
37:21
Speaker 2: of making the most out of what God's given you nutritionally,
37:26
Speaker 2: exercise wise, rest wise, mentally speaking with their attention and
37:29
Speaker 2: the digital sugar thing and maybe being a good steward
37:35
Speaker 2: would also result in weight loss, but that's not the point.
37:39
Speaker 2: It's the point is that I'm going to give God
37:42
Speaker 2: my best here. God's given me this body, I'm going
37:45
Speaker 2: to give God my best here. And what's really cool
37:49
Speaker 2: about that is is that that it's actually something that
37:52
Speaker 2: that you're really passionate about too. Is the idea of
37:54
Speaker 2: a lead goal versus a lag goal. Can you tell
37:57
Speaker 2: me a little bit about what these goal types thing
38:00
Speaker 2: that people set in health and fitness and what's the
38:02
Speaker 2: difference between a lead goal and a lag goal.
38:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
38:05
Speaker 4: I think a lot of times people set lag goals
38:09
Speaker 4: and then they wonder why they never get to them.
38:12
Speaker 4: So a lag goal would be like I want to
38:14
Speaker 4: lose thirty pounds or you know something like that it's
38:17
Speaker 4: the thing that lags behind all the things that need
38:20
Speaker 4: to happen in order for you to meet that goal.
38:24
Speaker 4: So we don't always have control over the lag goal. Like,
38:28
Speaker 4: for example, I'm a postmenopausal woman. My body doesn't lose
38:33
Speaker 4: weight like it used to. So before I could follow
38:36
Speaker 4: this formula and boom, I could lose weight in a
38:39
Speaker 4: really rapid pace and I could be just like, I'm
38:42
Speaker 4: gonna drop twenty pounds before an event or whatever, and
38:47
Speaker 4: I could. It was harmful the way I did it,
38:52
Speaker 4: but you know, I was focused on the lag goal.
38:56
Speaker 4: Now I'm very focused on what I would call lead goals.
39:00
Speaker 3: And I'm going to give a little plug.
39:02
Speaker 4: For something that's been extremely helpful to me. It's called
39:06
Speaker 4: Silk and Sonder. Have you ever heard of that? Okay,
39:11
Speaker 4: it's definitely geared towards women. But they're like these little
39:15
Speaker 4: booklets that you get once a month and there they're
39:18
Speaker 4: they're beautiful, and they have a different focus word a month,
39:22
Speaker 4: so like this month is changed, and then there's like
39:27
Speaker 4: ways you can make it fit whatever your goals are.
39:30
Speaker 4: But it's very goal oriented and it has to do
39:33
Speaker 4: with tracking.
39:34
Speaker 3: You can track your sleep, you can track what you eat, your.
39:37
Speaker 4: Movement, whatever kind of goals you have, whether it be
39:40
Speaker 4: professionally or whatever. But it's very much trying to align
39:44
Speaker 4: your vision and your values to your actual practice and routines.
39:49
Speaker 4: And so I got those about a year ago and
39:52
Speaker 4: it has literally changed my life. It was actually the
39:55
Speaker 4: same time that I have dropped off social media and
39:59
Speaker 4: I spend like, I don't know, ten fifteen minutes a day,
40:02
Speaker 4: but it's all focused on like, these are my goals
40:06
Speaker 4: and what am I doing today or what did I
40:10
Speaker 4: do today? To move closer to what those things are,
40:15
Speaker 4: and they could be you know, spiritual goals, relational goals,
40:20
Speaker 4: physical goals, you know those kind of things. And so
40:23
Speaker 4: a lot of those things that I'm tracking and there
40:26
Speaker 4: are lead goals. So you know, so many days a
40:30
Speaker 4: week for strength training, I do something that I call
40:34
Speaker 4: HMNS and another thing I made up. I guess I
40:39
Speaker 4: like letters, you know, E M P HMNS. Anyway, so
40:44
Speaker 4: H stands for hydrate, M stands for movement, and stands
40:51
Speaker 4: for nutrition, and a S stands for spirit spiritual.
40:56
Speaker 3: And my goal is.
40:57
Speaker 4: To have three HMNS cycles in a day. So it
41:03
Speaker 4: could look different, for example, in the morning every morning,
41:07
Speaker 4: I go for a walk. Usually I go for a
41:11
Speaker 4: walk with a friend who's driving to work, so it's
41:13
Speaker 4: like built in accountability because she drives from you know,
41:17
Speaker 4: six forty in the morning till seven fifteen. So I
41:21
Speaker 4: lace up my shoes. And I live in Illinois, so
41:24
Speaker 4: I don't care if it's negative ten degrees. I'm getting
41:27
Speaker 4: outside first thing in the morning, going on a walk,
41:31
Speaker 4: So that would be my movement. Then hydration would be,
41:34
Speaker 4: you know, having some water. Nutrition would be having something nutritious.
41:38
Speaker 4: You know, it could be eggs, could be smoothie, could
41:41
Speaker 4: be whatever. And then spiritual is you know, it could.
41:45
Speaker 3: Be reading my Bible.
41:47
Speaker 4: It could be listening to worship music. It could be
41:50
Speaker 4: a prayer time. It could be really any kind of
41:52
Speaker 4: spiritual discipline. I don't have a limit of like I
41:56
Speaker 4: have to walk for twenty minutes, or I have to
42:00
Speaker 4: this much water or whatever. It's just kind of like,
42:02
Speaker 4: am I intentionally taking care of my body and my
42:07
Speaker 4: soul in the morning, and am I doing that at lunchtime?
42:11
Speaker 4: I used to get into the trap of not eating
42:13
Speaker 4: all day and then eating a really big dinner, which
42:16
Speaker 4: is what sumo wrestlers do if they want to gain weight, right.
42:21
Speaker 3: Have you heard that?
42:22
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, yes, it's also very common among the It's
42:26
Speaker 2: also very common among menopausal women to do that. And
42:29
Speaker 2: it feels like you don't have an appetite, but your
42:31
Speaker 2: body's like, please feed me something that would be great.
42:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:35
Speaker 4: And so actually that's why I started doing this because
42:37
Speaker 4: I need to. I mean, my husband will come home
42:40
Speaker 4: from work and I'm like, I haven't eaten all day.
42:42
Speaker 4: I've been just working my butt off, and you know
42:45
Speaker 4: it's not healthy for you. You're shutting down your botanicas.
42:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and the calorie culture will celebrate that, like,
42:52
Speaker 2: oh great, you have the calories at the end of
42:54
Speaker 2: the day.
42:55
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
42:56
Speaker 4: And so anyway, that was kind of that whole Or
42:59
Speaker 4: I would not drink, you know, water, I would just
43:02
Speaker 4: have my coffee or whatever. So it's like, are you
43:05
Speaker 4: drinking water? Are you eating something?
43:07
Speaker 3: Are you moving?
43:08
Speaker 1: I work.
43:10
Speaker 4: On a computer a lot, so you know, it's easy
43:14
Speaker 4: to just have that sedentary lifestyle of just sitting and yeah,
43:19
Speaker 4: getting up to go to the bathroom and whatever. But
43:21
Speaker 4: am I intentionally moving my body? So at lunchtime, it
43:25
Speaker 4: could mean I'm doing a workout or I'm going on
43:29
Speaker 4: you know, a walk around the.
43:31
Speaker 3: Block or it.
43:32
Speaker 4: And it could be a five minute thing. I could
43:34
Speaker 4: be doing push ups, I mean for five minutes. It's
43:37
Speaker 4: not like I have to fit in forty five minutes
43:39
Speaker 4: three times a day or you know something like that.
43:42
Speaker 4: It's just kind of that mindset of intentionality. And then
43:46
Speaker 4: at dinnertime, same thing. Oh in the spiritual again, could
43:50
Speaker 4: be anything. And then dinner time, you know, maybe it's
43:53
Speaker 4: going for a run at night, or maybe it's lifting
43:56
Speaker 4: some weights or whatever. So it's just kind of a framework,
44:02
Speaker 4: a light framework for me to be make sure I'm
44:04
Speaker 4: taking care of my body, mind and soul throughout the day.
44:07
Speaker 2: So I think that's a fantastic framework specifically as a
44:11
Speaker 2: mom of six kids. You said you had six kids, right.
44:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, although they're old.
44:17
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, well old or not. So it's so difficult
44:20
Speaker 2: as a mom to say, how am I taking care
44:23
Speaker 2: of me today? And that's not a selfish question, like
44:26
Speaker 2: that's a very important question specifically if you have children
44:31
Speaker 2: coming to you for nurturing, for wisdom, for consultative help,
44:36
Speaker 2: or just to be the emotional sounding board sometimes. Right,
44:41
Speaker 2: and we're planning a wedding right now, Oh my gosh right. Yeah,
44:45
Speaker 2: and it's so I find that so easy for women.
44:48
Speaker 2: Men have their struggles, for sure, but I find that
44:50
Speaker 2: so easy for women to set themselves to the side
44:53
Speaker 2: and go for weeks and weeks and weeks without actually
44:57
Speaker 2: taking care of themselves. And so I think that's a
45:00
Speaker 2: wonderful framework because it sounds like something. I mean, Daniel
45:03
Speaker 2: prayed three times a day. That was his thing. That's
45:06
Speaker 2: how they got him. That's how they knew, like, Hey,
45:07
Speaker 2: we're going to get this guy thrown in the lions,
45:09
Speaker 2: and we're going to catch him praying because we can't
45:11
Speaker 2: find any other beef or not beef dirt dirt, couldn't
45:14
Speaker 2: find any dirt. They had beef with them, they couldn't
45:17
Speaker 2: find dirt anyway. So they caught him in this three
45:20
Speaker 2: times a day practice. It sounds like that framework is
45:23
Speaker 2: working really well for you, and I would encourage other
45:25
Speaker 2: moms to adopt something similar if they haven't quite found
45:28
Speaker 2: that yet.
45:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I.
45:30
Speaker 4: Would say, like for and again, that whole like eating
45:34
Speaker 4: too much at dinner because I haven't taken him care
45:36
Speaker 4: of myself all day. Even the piece of like going
45:39
Speaker 4: for a walk with my husband after dinner is such
45:42
Speaker 4: a better thing than watching TV together, you know, and
45:47
Speaker 4: from it just a taking care of your body perspective,
45:51
Speaker 4: it's a good idea to move after that last meal
45:55
Speaker 4: because we do tend to have our biggest meal at dinner.
45:58
Speaker 4: So it is from physical perspective, I try to have
46:02
Speaker 4: what I call like a nighttime empty or like my
46:05
Speaker 4: stomach is grawling by like nine point thirty at night.
46:08
Speaker 3: So that way I'm not going to bad sluggish.
46:11
Speaker 4: It kind of keeps me from eating too much at
46:13
Speaker 4: dinner to say, like, okay, I want to be hungry
46:16
Speaker 4: and you know two hours or three hours or whatever. Yeah,
46:22
Speaker 4: and then that's kind of a gauge of how did
46:24
Speaker 4: I do in my proportions at dinner time.
46:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.
46:30
Speaker 2: And I want to come back to come back to
46:33
Speaker 2: this idea of leading lag goals because I'm explaining something
46:38
Speaker 2: like this to my son right now. He loves basketball.
46:40
Speaker 2: He's ten years old and he really wants to score
46:43
Speaker 2: a point in a game, like and you know, more
46:46
Speaker 2: power to him. Whatever basketball skills he's got he didn't
46:49
Speaker 2: get from me, you know, more more of a sprinter
46:53
Speaker 2: or something like that. But so he's that's a goal.
46:57
Speaker 2: In his mind. He has the goal of scoring in
47:00
Speaker 2: a game. And what I was teaching him is is
47:02
Speaker 2: that's an awesome thing to want, but it's not really
47:06
Speaker 2: a goal that you have a lot of control over
47:10
Speaker 2: in the moment. Right If you're running around in the
47:12
Speaker 2: game thinking score a goal, score goal, score goal, you're
47:15
Speaker 2: actually going to sabotage the whole process of being a
47:18
Speaker 2: good player, being a good sportsman, stealing the ball, doing
47:21
Speaker 2: all the things that actually lead to a goal scored.
47:24
Speaker 2: I told them what I want you to do is
47:25
Speaker 2: I want you to think about what you can do
47:28
Speaker 2: every day that will increase that likelihood, right like practice
47:34
Speaker 2: one hundred foul shots a day, something like that, because
47:38
Speaker 2: you can put that in your schedule. You can say,
47:41
Speaker 2: I haven't done my file shots today. I'm going to
47:42
Speaker 2: go do my file shots and practice that, and then
47:46
Speaker 2: when the game time comes and you actually have the
47:49
Speaker 2: opportunity to score, you'll have done all the things necessary
47:54
Speaker 2: to be prepared for that opportunity. And I know it's
47:57
Speaker 2: a small thing. It's just you know, a ten year
47:59
Speaker 2: old playing basketball, But in our bodies, nutrition and exercise
48:03
Speaker 2: function normally like that because when we think Oh, I
48:06
Speaker 2: want to lose twenty pounds or I got to run
48:08
Speaker 2: a marathon or whatever. It is. That the lag goal,
48:12
Speaker 2: it's all the things that we do on a daily
48:15
Speaker 2: basis that allow us to be ready prepared for the
48:19
Speaker 2: opportunity God puts in front of us. And in my mind,
48:24
Speaker 2: that's the that's the biggest difference between this mental mindset
48:29
Speaker 2: around lead goals and lag goals is what can I
48:32
Speaker 2: do every day that makes the most out of the
48:36
Speaker 2: body God's given me? And what's cool is that prepares
48:40
Speaker 2: me for those you called lag goals. The thing that
48:44
Speaker 2: just result it's just a given. You know, if I
48:46
Speaker 2: do these things, I'm going to score in a basketball
48:49
Speaker 2: game as long as I keep playing basketball, right, Yeah.
48:52
Speaker 4: And that's really what that HM and us the thing
48:55
Speaker 4: is for me as well as trying to complete my
48:58
Speaker 4: three rings on my watch, that's a goal for me
49:01
Speaker 4: every day. That means that I have moved, you know,
49:04
Speaker 4: a significant amount of time, you know, different things like that,
49:09
Speaker 4: which I do track, which is helpful if you actually track,
49:13
Speaker 4: I think it kind of helps. I don't want to
49:15
Speaker 4: track obsessively, but I enjoy the way I do it.
49:19
Speaker 4: And so that's my focus if I can be consistent
49:23
Speaker 4: and the things that I know are going to be helpful,
49:26
Speaker 4: then the weight loss will occur and getting healthier will occur,
49:31
Speaker 4: and it will occur with my mind be focused on
49:35
Speaker 4: God instead of I got.
49:37
Speaker 3: To do this all for approval.
49:39
Speaker 4: Totally different thing, totally totally different. I wish I could
49:44
Speaker 4: talk to my twenty year old self.
49:48
Speaker 2: Well, you might be talking to some twenty year olds. Yeah, now,
49:52
Speaker 2: so that's useful. If you're twenty, we love you, you
49:55
Speaker 2: have a lot of energy. Let's do this thing. So
49:58
Speaker 2: I do I do want to as I'm as we're
50:01
Speaker 2: nearing the end of our conversation, or I've got two
50:03
Speaker 2: things I want to ask you about. The first will
50:05
Speaker 2: be about how people can get connected to what you're
50:07
Speaker 2: doing in the world, and we'll talk about that in
50:11
Speaker 2: just a second. The second, though, is actually in relationship
50:15
Speaker 2: to something I've been exploring with my guests, and that
50:19
Speaker 2: is this idea of what disciplines are difficult, what disciplines
50:29
Speaker 2: are men and women struggling with right now? And so
50:31
Speaker 2: in faithful Fitness we talk about four disciplines. They are physical,
50:35
Speaker 2: spiritual disciplines. They're integrated. Right. So the first is integrity.
50:40
Speaker 2: The second is grit, the third is growth, and the
50:43
Speaker 2: last ones awe integrity being at this idea of a
50:47
Speaker 2: firm foundation, the food that I consume that becomes a
50:50
Speaker 2: part of me, the alignment that I have in my
50:53
Speaker 2: life under Christ, those things that are pointed in His direction,
50:57
Speaker 2: and anything that's not gets either cut off or bent
51:00
Speaker 2: that way right. That that's that's integrity, That that daily
51:05
Speaker 2: practice of being integrated. The second is grit. You have
51:09
Speaker 2: a story that has a lot of endurance involved. Grit
51:12
Speaker 2: is is the staying power to do things that are
51:16
Speaker 2: difficult when the going gets tough, and and Jesus is
51:20
Speaker 2: the grittiest guy I know. So this is the This
51:23
Speaker 2: is the discipline of of doing the hard things. The
51:26
Speaker 2: James idea that that rejoice when we face trials of
51:30
Speaker 2: many kinds. That's a that's a discipline in our life.
51:32
Speaker 2: The third ist growth, the idea that we can actually
51:35
Speaker 2: become more than we are right now. That's how God
51:38
Speaker 2: made us to adapt and grow, and and that that
51:42
Speaker 2: taking on challenges allows that to happen. Things like weight
51:45
Speaker 2: training would be a good example, or or sports nutrition
51:49
Speaker 2: fueling ourselves for these challenges. I think of David facing Goliath.
51:54
Speaker 2: He didn't do it by his strength, he did it
51:56
Speaker 2: by God's strength, and God grew him in kingship that day.
52:00
Speaker 2: And lastly is all the discipline of coming back to
52:03
Speaker 2: our Father for all of our meaning, all of our identity,
52:08
Speaker 2: and also choosing to be connected rather than isolated in
52:11
Speaker 2: this journey that keeps our cup full, cultivating that sense
52:14
Speaker 2: of reverence before God. So these four disciplines are something
52:18
Speaker 2: we observe in the Faithful Fitness community. And I'm curious
52:22
Speaker 2: in your life and in the those that you're starting
52:25
Speaker 2: to coach, which of those disciplines is what you find
52:29
Speaker 2: people struggling most with right now that you're helping them
52:32
Speaker 2: step into.
52:35
Speaker 3: I think britt is the one that comes to my mind.
52:40
Speaker 4: At least, you know, in my own life, I find
52:44
Speaker 4: that I really was inconsistent or as consistently inconsistent, right,
52:53
Speaker 4: So I would, you know, walk one direction for a
52:56
Speaker 4: few days and then I turn around and walk the other.
52:59
Speaker 4: Something stressed. I like to use the example of popping
53:03
Speaker 4: the breaker. So like it's in the wintertime, we have
53:07
Speaker 4: a we have a Starbucks room in our house, and
53:10
Speaker 4: we have a coffee room, and so we have a
53:11
Speaker 4: microwave in there, and then we had a little heater
53:14
Speaker 4: in there, and if we ran the microwave at the
53:16
Speaker 4: same time as the heater, the popper or the breaker
53:19
Speaker 4: would pop. And I'm like, man, that's how I felt
53:24
Speaker 4: in life. I felt like something stressful would come up
53:28
Speaker 4: and then I would just my breaker would pop. I
53:32
Speaker 4: wouldn't like explode on anyone. I would just kind of
53:35
Speaker 4: give up, you know, I would just feel like this
53:39
Speaker 4: is too hard. So I actually bought angela duckworks book Grit.
53:47
Speaker 4: I haven't started it. Well, I'm in like chapter once. Anyway,
53:51
Speaker 4: that's something I'm personally working on. But I know a
53:53
Speaker 4: lot of people kind of struggle with that. Life's hard,
53:56
Speaker 4: and sometimes we just want that comfort or we want
53:59
Speaker 4: some thing that's easy. And for me, you know, like
54:04
Speaker 4: a blue ice cream or some chips and salsa are
54:07
Speaker 4: going out to eat or whatever just feels like easier,
54:13
Speaker 4: more comforting than doing the hard thing.
54:16
Speaker 3: And so.
54:18
Speaker 4: I'm really working on trying to be consistent this year,
54:23
Speaker 4: and I feel like that's a big piece of the
54:25
Speaker 4: GRIT piece. But I mean, I think all of those
54:27
Speaker 4: are things that people struggle with. Yeah, or when you
54:32
Speaker 4: when you do spend time with that and you're in
54:34
Speaker 4: awe of him. A lot of those other things just
54:37
Speaker 4: kind of work themselves out.
54:40
Speaker 2: That they do that they do. Thank you so much
54:45
Speaker 2: for that, and I appreciate that answer a lot. Cultivating
54:48
Speaker 2: grid is not an easy thing. It's very, very difficult.
54:52
Speaker 2: But that's how you get It's gritty, be gritty. Yeah,
54:55
Speaker 2: that's right, that's right. So Amys, as we're closing down here,
54:59
Speaker 2: I'm going to pray over you and your ministry and
55:01
Speaker 2: what's going on in your world right now. But I
55:03
Speaker 2: want the listeners have an opportunity to get connected with
55:06
Speaker 2: your work. How can people find you in the world.
55:09
Speaker 2: What's going on that they can get connected to?
55:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I believe this will be in the show notes.
55:14
Speaker 4: But I started a blog and a website to kind
55:17
Speaker 4: of highlight my coaching. I actually just wrote a book,
55:21
Speaker 4: although I'm in the editing process right now, but it's
55:24
Speaker 4: kind of like a precursor to the book too.
55:27
Speaker 3: But I do a blog weekly right now.
55:30
Speaker 4: It's been about the ways that women get stuck men also,
55:33
Speaker 4: but I focus primarily on women.
55:37
Speaker 3: And it's a little different than a normal blog.
55:40
Speaker 4: I've really gotten into artwork and I'm not a particularly
55:43
Speaker 4: great artist, but I do try to show like spiritual
55:47
Speaker 4: concepts in art, and so each blog about ways that
55:55
Speaker 4: people get stuck includes some artwork, but then the part
55:59
Speaker 4: I'm really excited about it's called next steps. And so
56:02
Speaker 4: I have physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and relational practices that
56:10
Speaker 4: people can do. So, for example, one of the blogs
56:13
Speaker 4: I did was on well digital sugar was one. I
56:16
Speaker 4: also did one on releasing hurt to the Lord. And
56:20
Speaker 4: so each one has scriptures, has spiritual disciplines, how to
56:26
Speaker 4: get your body involved, you know, how to do it
56:30
Speaker 4: with a friend. So it's kind of like it's it's
56:34
Speaker 4: easy to read or hear a podcast or read a
56:37
Speaker 4: book and be like, yeah, that's great, But if we
56:41
Speaker 4: go away and changed, what's the benefit.
56:44
Speaker 3: So it's really like working through.
56:47
Speaker 4: Releasing hurt or control or letting go of social media
56:54
Speaker 4: or whatever, graving onto stillness, learning about spiritual disciplines.
57:00
Speaker 3: So I do.
57:01
Speaker 4: I think we're holistic people. So that's why every blog
57:04
Speaker 4: has some level of application in.
57:07
Speaker 3: All the different realms.
57:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, I hope it will be benefit beneficial to people.
57:13
Speaker 4: I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this.
57:17
Speaker 4: I feel like the Lord downloaded it in my mind
57:19
Speaker 4: and it came together in about a day or two
57:23
Speaker 4: with everything. I mean, it took some time to actually
57:27
Speaker 4: put it together, but he just gave it to me.
57:30
Speaker 4: So I'm excited to see what happens.
57:33
Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome.
57:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's called purposely Designed dot org. And the reason
57:41
Speaker 4: why I did that is because as a health coach,
57:45
Speaker 4: we're helping people design their rhythms and routines and their
57:52
Speaker 4: life to align it to the Lord. And then there's
57:57
Speaker 4: the aspect of design. I'm an into your design for
58:00
Speaker 4: my job along with other things. But and then the
58:06
Speaker 4: artwork piece and I don't know, it just kind of
58:10
Speaker 4: all came together. But I do believe God made each
58:12
Speaker 4: one of us for a purpose and that we can
58:16
Speaker 4: step into that when we're walking with our eyes fixed
58:21
Speaker 4: on him.
58:23
Speaker 2: Well said Amy, Thank you so much for that, And
58:25
Speaker 2: I've put the link to that in our show notes
58:28
Speaker 2: so that you guys can check that out. Amy. Can
58:31
Speaker 2: I pray over you as we close up our conversation here? Great,
58:35
Speaker 2: Thank you, Father God, thank you so much for this day.
58:37
Speaker 2: Thank you for the opportunity to be with my sister Amy,
58:39
Speaker 2: and thank you for the road that you've let her down.
58:42
Speaker 2: You've been such a good father to her, as you've
58:45
Speaker 2: been such a good father to me, and as you
58:47
Speaker 2: are a good father to each person listening on this
58:50
Speaker 2: right now, Lord, I pray that you would bless them,
58:53
Speaker 2: keep them and teach them, as we've been talking through
58:57
Speaker 2: this whole time, how to find their identity in you,
59:00
Speaker 2: not to fall into the acceptance trap, and also to
59:04
Speaker 2: be wary in good stewards of attention. Lord, I love you,
59:09
Speaker 2: I thank you, and I praise you, and I trust
59:11
Speaker 2: you in these things. In Jesus' name. Amen, guys, this
59:15
Speaker 2: has been coach Alex van Houghton. I'm the Faithful Fitness Podcast.
59:18
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, Train hard, but
59:21
Speaker 2: pray harder.
59:23
Speaker 1: What's up, Faithful? This episode helped you share it with
59:27
Speaker 1: someone who needs to hear it, and don't forget to
59:29
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59:33
Speaker 1: find Faithful Fitness. My dad's devotional Faithful Fitness is available
59:40
Speaker 1: now and you can join our Faithful Fitness community by
59:44
Speaker 1: clicking the links in the show notes. We all have
59:47
Speaker 1: a cross to carry, put each lighter when we do
59:50
Speaker 1: it together. See how later Alligator. But until then train
59:55
Speaker 1: hard and pray even harder.