Are you getting Jipped?

Are you getting the short end of the stick when it comes to your health?  There are 3 things you must know if you ever want to reverse the trend and achieve the body you always dreamed of.  Without it, you will find yourself in a constant battle that you won’t win.  Learn these steps and begin moving closer to your goals.

I remember when I tried losing weight in the past, and looking desperately for something to help me.  I invested in some diet pills and I figured I was set.  If I could take them, I knew I would be able to attain the image the people in the advertisements obtained in a few months.  I ate healthy, exercised, and took my weight loss pills religiously.  I lost some weight, but I never obtained the body I had hoped for.  I got jipped.  I was promised something that had no chance of materializing.  But I learned a lot from that experience years ago.

I learned that you can obtain amazing things with your results, but often times the thing that is holding you back is you.  It’s true.  No matter what excuse you have, if you want to get in shape, you are often the one that is keeping you from achieving it.  We have excuses….good excuses for why we can’t though.  We are busy, tired from work, really hungry, just don’t want to think about eating healthy during the Superbowl, Valentine’s Day, birthday, friend/co-worker’s birthday.  Often times, our choices create our future circumstances.  What seems like a great thing at the time, causes us to get jipped in the future.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that every situation we are in is based solely on our choices in the past, but the majority of our circumstances are a result of personal choices.

I’ve shared this story with a couple of you.  I had a roommate who was also a personal trainer and he had an obsession with frozen chocolate covered mint cookies.  I have no idea how it happened, but I ended up getting addicted to those things.  It wasn’t a big deal.  I wasn’t eating a pack of them a day, but after a few weeks of this I did get addicted to them.  It didn’t matter where I was eating, after each meal I would crave these cookies.  I had never experienced anything like that in my life.  When I realized my addiction, I knew I had to do something.  So for a month, I had to force myself not to eat anything sweet after my meal.  It took that long for me to break my after-dinner, sweet-tooth addiction, but I did it.  But it was my previous choices that made me go through that month where I really had to struggle.

There are a few things you need to realize about yourself:

Where you are and what you want to achieve are personal choices.  Deal with where you are right now, and make up your mind about what you want to accomplish.  I have been able to accomplish some amazing things with my physique, but it took time and discipline.  Which leads me to my second point…

What you have to do won’t be socially acceptable.  It is more rare to be lean that it is to be overweight.  If you’ve struggled with being overweight, your family and friends probably won’t encourage you the whole way through to your dream body.  You are going to have to make some unpopular choices along the way.  For instance, I didn’t eat bad food or drink alcohol during the Super Bowl.  My wife and I eat vegetables all the time and only go to restaurants that we know we can eat something healthy.  I often spend time looking up nutritional information of food at restaurants and plug my food into a food log.  Our health is a priority, all the time, which leads me to my next point…

It’s starts over every day.  This doesn’t just last Monday through Thursday and it doesn’t just last 15 weeks.  I started my journey in February of ’95 as a senior in high school. The most unpopular time to be concerned about my health.  I’ve learned a lot along the way.  I’ve failed, and gotten back up more times than you would believe.  But the reality is, this is something that I will continue on forever.

With the three things I’ve listed, I can truly say I enjoy life.  I don’t consider eating fast food a reward, I would consider it a sacrifice.  It takes away from my health that I’ve worked so hard for.  It pulls me in a direction I have no desire to go.  I don’t feel good when I have to eat something like that.  I feel miserable.  I love being able to jump on a bike and see how far I can ride and what I can see.  I enjoy eating healthy food and feeling good throughout the day.  I love the challenge of being able to create healthy snacks that taste good.  Life is an adventure, and I want to experience as much of it as I can for as long as I can.  I want to do everything I can to stay healthy so I can explore new things for as many years as possible.

This is what I desire for you too.  What’s really keeping you from living the life of your dreams and having the body you’ve always wanted?  Has instant gratification jipped you from getting what you truly want?  What are you going to do about it?

If you need help, give us a call at 281-500-6055.  If we can’t answer the phone because we are training clients, we will call you back as soon as we can.

Jason Hodge

This message was based on a sermon preached by Pastor Bob Phillips at Encourager Church on 2/14/10.