lift your weights, eat your veggies:

Lifting Weights for the Body

Ooookay….. So, literally, what does that mean for treating my physical body? Here’s a quick health note: the best way to treat osteoporosis, or improve bone health in general, is strength training. When you place stress on your bones through resistance exercises, you actually stimulate them to grow stronger and denser as your muscle builds on top of them. So, as you increase this type of strength/resistance training into your life, not only are you building muscle, but it simultaneously activates the bone tissue around it to grow and thus become more dense. Amazing! Vegetables enter the equation because they are loaded with nutrients like vitamin D and calcium, which are crucial for bone health, among many other things. What weakens the boines? Refined sugars.

What am I trying to get at here?

Lifting Weights for the Soul

As I prayed about this, the parallel to my spiritual life became obvious. I was brought to an awareness of areas I had become weak in my spiritual life and relationship with God. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped “strength training” my soul. I’d grown tired and I found myself more often than not saying things like:

• “I’m so tired.”

• ”It’s not that big of a deal.”

• ”It will get better over time.”

• Or perhaps the worst of them all, “I don’t have the strength to do this on my own.”

These thoughts had quietly weakened my faith, leading me into a comfortable mediocrity. Oof. These were some serious excuses I started making to the Creator of the Universe, let alone, Creator of my very life, heart, soul, and purpose. I didn’t realize how these excuses began to weaken my spirit, letting certain places of my life slowly crumble (kind of like my bones) and me becoming slightly indifferent to it. What had I so subtly stopped doing in certain areas of my life? I stopped the weight training of my soul, chose to lie on the mat of laziness, and chose to eat the so-called “refined sugars” of excuses, slowly causing my interior strength in God to grow brittle. Like my bones, ahem.

Think of an athlete: when competition comes, they either freeze and risk injury, stop trying and gain defeat, or they can face it head-on and with confidence because they’ve trained for it. God allows battles not to harm us, but to strengthen us. He doesn’t have us suffer just to suffer, that’s cruel! He allows it so, like an athlete who leans into the support of their coach and team, we may lean on Him and trust Him in the midst of this competition, battle, or suffering. Like a runner lifting weights for a marathon, I was awakened to the need to train my soul again: in discipline, perseverance, and prayer, sweating and growing with Jesus in the gym room of my soul.

Eating Your Vegetables for the Soul

Okay, so circling back to the vegetables. We all hear that refined sugars, like cookies, cakes, and most anything with high fructose corn syrup in it, weaken our immune system (boy, do I know it.) It just so happens that it also weakens our bone health. How does this equate to the spiritual life? When we consume spiritual “junk food”, it begins to deplete our souls of what is good. I’m talking about all the ways the enemy of our souls comes into our training sessions: unhealthy habits, behaviors, toxic thought patterns, and the 7 vices: pride, anger, gluttony, lust, sloth, envy, and greed. These drain us of spiritual strength, making us more vulnerable to the enemy. (Look to the excuses and thoughts I began to tell myself 2 paragraphs above.) For example, when I choose to eat junk food with high fructose corn syrup in it, it interferes with calcium absorption into my bones. With the reduction of calcium, our bones become feeble and, when put under great stress, they are not fortified enough to protect themselves, and ultimately will lead to a break. If I don’t eat healthy, when the threat of disease comes or severe physical strain is placed on my body, I will either grow sick or fall to injury.

What are the spiritual vegetables that help my body grow, develop, and function properly? That is the Bread and Water of Eternal Life, Jesus Christ Himself, who wants to flood us with “every good and perfect gift from above.” His voice speaks truth, encouragement, and identity. But we have to give Him space to speak, just like how we have to make the active choice to eat our vegetables because they are good for us, because my body is created to rely on them. We are made to rely on God and have Him provide the means to fuel our souls.

Do I give space in my day to allow the Father’s voice to speak into my life? Do I surround myself with friends and community who hold up these realities to me and build me up in Christ? Do I hear the voice of God by reading Scripture and frequently receive Him through the sacraments? Chances are that if you answered no, then you certainly are not eating your vegetables and skipping out on the nutrients you so desperately need.

The Gift of the Diagnosis

Being diagnosed, or should I say gifted with osteoporosis, revealed the true state of my interior life and propelled me to turn back to God with my whole heart. Somewhere along the line, the athlete within me grew submissive to another “trainer,” the one who whispers excuses, telling me to take a break on the mat and eat the spiritual “junk food” rather thann the steady diet of God’s truth and encouraging Word. Now, I’m picking up the weights again, both in the gym and in my walk with God. I’m choosing the vegetables and getting back on the track for the only race that matters: the eternal one.