Honoring Your Temple: A Christian Guide to Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain

The holiday season is a time of joy, celebration, and for many, an abundance of delicious food. However, it can also be a challenging time for those trying to maintain a healthy weight. As Christians, we are to glorify God with our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) — and this includes taking care of our physical health. Here are some tips to help you avoid holiday weight gain while honoring your temple from a Christian perspective.

Reflect God’s Image in Your Choices

Always keep in mind that we were created in God's image (Genesis 1:27) and our bodies are a reflection of His beauty. Make choices that honor this by choosing healthy food and appropriate portions to avoid the sin of gluttony (Deuteronomy 21:20).

Practice Mindful Eating

Eat slowly and with gratitude, savoring each bite as a gift from God. This means avoiding the temptation to eat on the run or while watching the television. When you eat mindfully and thankfully, you honor the rich blessings that God has provided, while helping to avoid gluttony and the extra calories that lead to weight gain.

Prayer

Don't underestimate the power of prayer not only before a meal in the giving of thanks, but we are also instructed by Paul to pray without ceasing throughout the day. This is an excellent opportunity to ask God to provide us with wisdom (James 1:5) and self-control in all things (Galatians 5:22-23) — including our food choices and portions. 

 Be Active with Family and Friends

Incorporate physical activities into your holiday traditions. A nature walk, ice skating, snowshoeing, skiing, a stroll along the beach, or playing a family-friendly game of tag football are all fantastic options to get everyone moving.  

Snack Wisely

Choose snacks that nourish your body and spirit. Focus on healthy options, such as fruits, nuts, or dark chocolate that is at least 90% cacao. Remember, every choice is an opportunity to honor God with your body.

Seek Fellowship, Not Just Food

Focus on the fellowship and joy of being with loved ones rather than just the food. Engage in meaningful conversations and create memories that feed your soul.

Serve Others

Use the holiday season as an opportunity to serve others. Volunteer at a local shelter or organize a healthy meal for those in need. Serving others can shift the focus away from food and towards God’s love in action.

Give Thanks

Before each meal, take a moment to give thanks to God for His provision. Gratitude can help you approach food with a sense of reverence and contentment, reducing the temptation to overindulge.

Plan Ahead

Prepare healthy dishes to share at gatherings and decide in advance how you will navigate the buffet table. Planning ahead will help you to resist the temptation to overeat and stay true to your health goals and Christian values. 

Remember the Reason for the Season

Keep Christ at the center of your celebrations and make sure to spend plenty of time in His word. When your focus is on the birth of Jesus, it’s easier to make choices that honor Him, including the way you care for your body.

By integrating these tips into your holiday season, you can enjoy the festivities without compromising your health or your faith. Remember, honoring your temple is not just about avoiding weight gain; it’s about living a life that glorifies God in every aspect, including your physical health. 

May your holiday season be filled with joy, love, and wellness as you celebrate the greatest gift of all – the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Deepen your walk with Christ this season.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Advent to Epiphany

3 Post-Pandemic Goals to Achieve

(Contributed post)

With much time on our hands to reflect over the last year, we may have made many goals. Likewise, many of us had time to create some unhealthy habits as well. Here are 3 post-pandemic goals to consider.

Lose the Quarantine 15

Just like the extra weight that most college students gain in their Freshman year, the world tended to gain about fifteen pounds over the course of the pandemic. With all the staying at home, the regular visits to the gym ceased. Plus, the extra snacks with binge-watching Netflix didn’t help most figures either. If you are one of those that could lose those extra pounds, here are some secrets.

Address Addictions

Under tremendous stress during the pandemic, many occasional habits become habitual. Whether it was drug use, smoking, or drinking, many have come out of the pandemic with addictions. To address addictions, the best advice is to find a support group led by an addiction specialist. After which, most suggest changes in lifestyle. One of the best examples is sober living house nj.

Plan an Adventure

After surviving a year of unprecedented challenges, it has changed the world for the better. The same can be said for you if you add a challenge to your life (a.k.a. adventure). By doing something new and all-consuming there are three benefits. You could travel to a new place, go on a blind date, or learn a new sport. It could be lots of fun!

Whether you choose all or just one of the above, you will be well on your way to a great post-pandemic goal. Here’s to your success!

Seeking an Effective Way to Lose Weight? CBD Oil Can Help

(Contributed Post)

If you have been trying to lose weight for some time now, but you have been struggling, there are many different ways that you can give yourself that boost that is required to start seeing the results you hope for. In this post, we will look at one method that has become very popular in recent years.

Cannabidiol, better known by its acronym CBD, is an entirely natural compound that is becoming increasingly popular worldwide for the treatment of many medical conditions from acne to anxiety, and also as a substance that can promote better health and wellbeing in general. One important use for CBD that is gaining traction in the natural health world is to assist in weight loss.

Why Weight Loss Is Important

It’s a widely publicized fact that many of us are carrying far too much weight for our own good. In fact, recent figures from a Health Study for England suggest that around 36% of people in the country are overweight and 29% are obese – in other words, have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or over. Being overweight is not good for our health. Poor health outcomes such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease have all been proven to have a strong link to being overweight. So it’s not just a matter of looking good on the beach – losing weight can also save your life. But we all know that dieting and exercising can be hard. It’s no surprise, therefore, that people are always looking for anything that can help with weight loss.

What Is CBD?

You will no doubt have heard the term CBD used extensively over the media and even in health shops, but you may be unsure as to what the product is and how it can be used. In brief. CBD is short for cannabidiol and it is an ingredient in many products that is entirely natural. Sourced from hemp plants that are specially bred for human consumption, CBD is mainly extracted from the flowers and leaves of the plant which have been made into a paste. Hemp seeds are also crushed to form a paste and CBD is also extracted from this.

Can CBD Help You To Lose Weight?

There is a growing body of anecdotal evidence to suggest that CBD can assist with weight loss, and while there hasn’t yet been a great deal of research in this area, the theory behind how it works is backed up by science. There are other alternative products that you may want to consider, like CBG, and you can read about CBG benefits and the benefits of other cannabinoids online. 

It was only relatively recently, in the 1990s, that scientists discovered the existence of the endocannabinoid system in the human body. The main purpose behind the endocannabinoid system is to help the body adjust to changes in its environment. The body has two forms of cannabinoid receptors, labeled as CB1 (those generally present in the brain and central nervous system) and CB2, which are present throughout the body. 

It’s been discovered that in people with obesity or those who are severely overweight, the CB1 receptors are found to be spread more widely than they should throughout the body. Early research suggests that there’s a link between obesity and the activation of these CB1 receptors.

CBD products act indirectly as triggers to switch those receptors either on or off. And this has three overall effects in simple terms:

• CBD can reduce appetite, which can assist with weight loss.

• CBD can help stabilize or lower insulin levels, which in turn encourages the body to burn fat rather than store it.

• CBD can promote better metabolic health, which helps burn fat faster. 

Does CBD Give You A High And Is It Addictive?

When thinking of CBD (cannabidiol) products, many assume that they are the same as cannabis, particularly marijuana, which is a regulated substance that it is illegal to sell openly on the market. This is not the case. While both CBD and THC (or Tetrahydrocannabinol) are related, and both substances interact in a similar way with the endocannabinoid receptors in the user’s body, each creates very different effects.

 

Cannabis and related substances are derived from marijuana plants that contain high levels of THC. This is a psychoactive compound that gives the user a ‘high’ sensation. Cannabidiol, on the other hand, where it’s used to promote health and wellbeing, is derived from hemp plants. These are a type of cannabis plant, but concentrations of THC in them are less than 0.3%. CBD products, therefore, do not give the user the same kind of high, and because of this, they are preferred by many people who want the benefits cannabidiol can provide without the side effects. 

 

CBD is not addictive, and in some forms, has been judged efficacious and safe enough to be prescribed by medical professionals.

What Should You Look For In CBD For Weight Loss?

It’s important to note that CBD is not a miracle drug that will make the pounds drop off by itself – it should also be combined with an appropriate change of diet and exercise regime. However, buying a high-quality, broad-spectrum CBD oil and using it in the recommended fashion, along with improving your overall lifestyle, can help with weight loss.

Other Benefits

The full range of benefits offered by CBD has not yet been fully explored and evaluated. Nonetheless, there are already a host of conditions for which there is strong evidence to suggest that CBD can help. These include:

• Anxiety and depression;

• Nausea;

• Pain relief;

• Inflammation;

• Epilepsy and other forms of seizures;

• Migraines; and

• Inflammatory bowel disease.

To conclude, losing weight can be incredibly difficult for a lot of people. If you have been following a healthy diet and exercise regime, but you need that extra push, CBD could be the thing for you. Of course, you need to continue eating healthy and exercising regularly to see results. 

Lose weight, increase energy and relieve depression by boosting brain chemical dopamine - Here's how to do it!

By JB Bardot

(NaturalNews) Increase energy, lose weight, feel happier and eliminate depression by raising the levels of the brain neurotransmitter dopamine with simple dietary changes.

Dopamine is naturally produced by the brain and controls the body's movements, stimulates metabolism and proper body weight, supports the circulatory system and governs the brain's information flow. Too little dopamine in the system is responsible for a lack of response in an individual, deadening the ability to feel emotion and creating a sense of indifference. In addition, low dopamine levels slow the metabolism, contributing to weight gain, low energy, sluggishness and depression. Too little dopamine can cause unwanted bodily movements, jerking, twitching and slurred speech. Proper levels of dopamine are necessary to prevent conditions such as Parkinson's disease. In the right amounts, dopamine encourages weight loss and helps the body maintain its proper weight.

A Water Recipe That Literally Flushes Fat

(Natural Blaze)

By Alana Ketler

You may have heard some of the hype about “Fat Flush Water.” But how exactly does water flush fat out of your system? Clearly, water is not some kind of magic diet supplement. Your body needs enough water everyday to keep hydrated and cleanse itself of unwanted materials. Fat deposits that form on the body can be tough to break down and eliminate, but proper nutrition and exercise can help greatly with this.

Fat is broken down when the body uses its fat deposits to produce energy, the triglycerides in the fat cells are removed. Then, these are broken down into fatty acids and glycerols and are then absorbed into your muscle tissue and internal organs where they are then broken down even further through various chemical processes. If the products leftover from these chemical processes are not used by the body as energy, they are then considered waste products and need to be removed from the body. This is where the role of water comes in.

How to Lose Weight With Yoga

(Gaiam)

By Lori Hall Steele

Yoga may not conjure up the same images of a calorie-burning, sweat-inducing workout as bootcamp workouts or cardio dance-party routines.

But don’t be fooled by yoga’s deep breathing and sometimes-slow poses: Doctors and personal training experts say it can seriously trim and tone your body — and also work on your mind and spirit to help you get healthier overall.

So take in what experts say about how to do yoga for weight loss, and get ready to pare down with some downward dogs.

A Natural Approach to Weight Loss

(Women to Women)
by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP 

Over the years I’m sure I’ve lost over 100 pounds — the same 10 pounds, 10 times! And so many of my patients tell me the same thing, I wonder how many American women (and their daughters) are on a diet on any given day. We spend billions of dollars a year on diets and weight loss products, yet nearly two-thirds of us are overweight — a trend that’s steadily inching upwards along with our waistlines!

Never mind that all these weight loss efforts don’t work, we are putting ourselves through hell to get nowhere. I’ve seen women willing to sacrifice just about anything to lose weight – even their health and well-being. But when I tell women I have a solution for them that doesn’t involve suffering or a magical pill, many say, “Oh, come on, Marcelle, can I really lose weight the natural way?”

7 Foods That Are Great For Natural Weight Loss

(MindBodyGreen)

By: Katrina Love Senn

I healed my body naturally from chronic disease, and in the process lost over 60 pounds, without drugs, deprivation or surgery. Along the way, I discovered that some foods are healing and have the ability to promote health within our bodies, while others can actually cause harm and create weight gain.

Here are some of my personal favorite healing foods that can promote health and support natural weight loss.

15 Easy Things You Can Do To Fight Inflammation & Boost Your Metabolism

(MindBodyGreen) Can you relate to any of the following? I follow all the rules, but I still can't lose the weight. I'm just getting old and my metabolism is slow. It's genetic. There's nothing I can do.
Regular readers of MindBodyGreen know that chronic inflammation has been linked to a host of ailments — from depression and weight gain to cancer — but what can we actually do about it?

Rediscover the healing wonders of raw apple cider vinegar

Offering a wealth of outstanding health benefits, raw apple cider vinegar has been the darling of natural remedies for thousands of years. Ancient civilizations used the vinegar as a preservative and condiment, while Hippocrates (otherwise known as the "Father of Medicine") enthusiastically praised its medicinal virtues.

Rich in malic acid, apple cider vinegar may assist in helping reduce the symptoms of fibromyalgia. A preliminary, double-blind trial discovered that malic acid, when combined with magnesium, lessened muscular pain in those who suffer from fibromyalgia. Participants who consumed upwards of 600 mg of magnesium and 2,400 mg malic acid experienced the greatest reduction. Additionally, due to its malic acid content, apple cider vinegar possesses anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, thereby supporting cardiovascular health.

One simple morning trick that can help you shed excess weight

By  Annie Daly

(Women’s Health) "Rise and shine" isn't just something you should say in the morning to drag yourself out of bed. According to a new study from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, published in the journal PLOS ONE, actually doing it—i.e., getting up and catching a couple quick rays—may help you lose weight.

Researchers asked 54 participants, average age 30, to wear a wrist monitor that tracked their exposure to morning light for seven days straight. They also had them keep food diaries to record their caloric intake. As it turns out, the people who got more morning light had lower BMIs than those who got less—and that was regardless of their age, how active they were, and what they ate.