Choices

“Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.” – 1 Cor 6:19-20 (MSG)

Last Monday, a friend of mine shared to us about choices. Our lives are filled with choices from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, 24/7/365.

God allows us to choose. He gave us free will and it’s one of the things we love most. Hence the protests, demonstrations and referendums around the world, through the years… all demanding freedom of some sort.

One clear pattern among any kind of freedom that’s given by birth or gained automatically, is that we tend to overlook it, take it for granted and sometimes even abuse it. We pay little attention to it until we have problems with it or until it’s taken away from us.

And the most common and basic things in our daily lives that we tend to ignore or abuse is our body, our health.

I was one of those people. I chose to ignore my health.

I didn’t know that taking care of myself has everything to do with my life as a believer, a Christian, or with God’s purpose in my life.

“What? What are you talking about?” you may ask.

Well, being a Christian is supposedly simple (I heard someone said so last night). It’s about (a) loving God; and (b) loving others. It’s the basic yet also the greatest commandment Jesus gave us (Matthew 22:36-40).

But you either can’t do both or will struggle to do both when your health sucks because of your own ignorance.

Let me elaborate because this is my personal experience and at 37 years old, I’m only realizing it now.

Now most of us know that the verse above (from 1 Corinthians) is the most quoted verse when it comes to taking care of our body or health. Some even use it to protest drinking alcohol or getting tattoos. The passage itself is actually talking about sexual sins but the advice to not live “however you please” is sound, logical and practical nonetheless; for we are stewards, managers of everything God has entrusted us with, including our bodies. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we’ll be a walking display of violation to the great commandment aka the whole point of being a believer.

“That’s so extreme!” you might say. “What does my body have to do with the great commandment or with being a Christian?”

Well, first of all, if you love God your creator with all your heart, mind and soul, then you will try to be the best that He created you to be, right? You’ll take good care of the things He has given you. You’d want to make Him happy.

If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, or if you’re married, and your significant other gave you something, you know that you better take good care of it if you want your relationship to last (and if you value your life). Whether it’s a small key chain or clothes (sometimes too ugly or embarrassing to even wear) or a phone or a car, whatever it is… if you love that person and if you appreciate what s/he does for you then you will take good care of it.

Isn’t that the same for God? How can you say or show Him you love Him when you “abuse” or neglect the wonderful thing He’s given to you: your body?

Second of all, how can you love others like you love yourself if you don’t love yourself?

Wait. What?

No no. You read that right the first time because not taking care of your body simply equals not loving yourself. Plus, in the long run, you won’t be the only one affected by what you did. Your loved ones will suffer along either financially or emotionally if something happens to you because of your bad lifestyle.

Forget impacting others. Forget being a blessing. You’ll be too busy trying to stay afloat and get your life in order.

If you’re rolling your eyes and wish to stop reading now because this is causing you discomfort or annoyance, feel free to close this browser tab but know that you should take a good look at your life and evaluate it–for your own and your loved ones’ sake.

If you’re still reading, thank you 🙂 I’m going to stop the “preachy” stuff and start telling you my story.

At first, the idea of a connection between health and being an impact/a blessing also didn’t make sense to me. They were very different things, in my opinion.

I grew up obese. Not when I was a child, thankfully, but I was never slim let alone thin. Those words were never in my daily vocabulary.

My entire family consists of tall, broad-shouldered, big-built people and we usually categorize ourselves as “big boned”. Yes, that’s right. The cliche excuse used by overweight people.

I thought I hit rock bottom back in 2004 when I weighed 102 kg (about 224 lbs). I hit the gym and because I was still in my 20s, the result came faster and easier even though my eating habit was unchanged and I lost about 10 kg (22 lbs).

I gained a few kilograms after that, lingering at 96-98 kg (211-216 lbs) before dropping to around 85 kg (185 lbs) for my best friend’s wedding in 2011 through dieting and daily walks.

When the wedding was over, so was my healthy lifestyle. I let myself go again and passed my heaviest point, reaching 108.7 kg (around 239 lbs) early this year. And since I’m already in my 30s now… Hello, deeper rock bottom. Everything was affected!

Knees became weak and painful especially when I walked down stairs.
Clothes that fit me were hard to find.
My face constantly broke out.
I was lethargic, barely had energy for anything.
I got sick every few days (literally!) with either migraines, vertigo or ulcer.

And the clincher: I had to pull the seat belt buckle on my airplane seat to the max in order to fasten it. Like really pull it until the very end of its strap.

Humiliation Nation, here I come!

One of my personal nightmares is to have to ask the flight attendant for a seat belt extension and I remember freaking out in the plane thinking, “OMG it’s happening! It’s going to happen! (insert a mild curse word here) There’s no freaking way that this is happening in this life time. Something’s gotta change! I refuse to have to wear a seat belt extension!”

It sounds silly, yes, but enlightenment or revelation doesn’t always have to come from some kind of divine moment or intervention. In my case, it was shame that got me to re-evaluate my lifestyle. In others, maybe it’s the fear of not being able to be there for their loved ones. Whatever it is, don’t ignore it. Use it as a starting point.

Anyway, I started doing DDP Yoga after that (if you’re wondering what that is, feel free to Google it) and most importantly, changed how and what I eat.

23 weeks later and I’m down 23 kg (about 50 lbs). I’m still clinically obese and I have 14+ kg to lose, but I’ll get there. I know I will.

You may wonder what made me step over the line like that.

In my case, not only do I love food (Masterchef Australia is my favorite TV show!), I’m also a stress eater. I calmed myself down with food so you can see why I gained so much weight. No amount of food can help me “heal”. What it gave me was temporary calmness because of my increased blood sugar level and that’s pretty much it.

It took me a while to accept the fact that food was my number one comfort regardless of what I said and did at church. God wasn’t my comforter. Food was.

It was easier to eat than to control my emotions. I was lazy to do the right thing, to be more picky with my meals, to get my lazy butt off my chair and exercise.

I’m just glad I’m not too late. Now I choose to get my priorities straight, seek God and not some temporary substitute, and change how I see food.

Last week, I underwent the second (yet most thorough) medical check-up in my entire life.

Overall, my cholesterol levels are within the normal range but my LDL cholesterol level (aka the bad cholesterol) is still high. Worse, because of my lifelong unhealthy lifestyle, the walls of my gallbladder are thickened, coated with cholesterol. Thankfully, there’s no stone in the gallbladder itself so I have to make sure I keep up the healthy lifestyle and get regular check-ups to see whether there’s change/improvements.

There’s no denying that I brought this upon myself. My terrible choice of lifestyle did this to me.

We only have one life (Yes, YOLO is right) so let’s choose to make the best of it. Maybe you won’t travel the world or invent something cool or heal the sick and cure the blind, but at least you won’t spend it on a hospital bed with mounting debt or by being a burden to others.

I personally think that the first step of leading a significant life is by taking good care of yourself. I now realize that–aside from spiritual health and maturity–physical health has everything to do with purpose, fulfilling God’s calling, and to be able to love God and love people.

“But I can still get diagnosed with some kind of illness no matter how healthy my lifestyle is. God has control over those things, not me,” some might argue.

True. We can’t control some things but at least we’ve done our best at making sure that we do our part well. Don’t wait till it’s permanently damaged or taken away from us.

I choose to change my lifestyle so that I can give God the opportunity to work in my life and use it for His glory and His people.

What about you?