Adventist Health Wake-Up Call

Something to think about in the new year:

I took a few minutes this morning to peruse the December 2015 Adventist World and the January 2016 Outlook (Adventist Publication from Mid-America). Between the two publications, there were 3 articles expressing the same topic, the topic of health.

Adventists are KNOWN for their health message. Ellen White expresses the importance of taking care of our bodies to truly do what we are meant to do for Christ. She expresses the best benefits being from a plant-based diet, but how many of us actually follow that advice?

Since I’ve embarked on my own vegan journey, I’ve watched so many documentaries and so many times Loma Linda is listed – the Adventists are listed – for living longer than any other North American groups because of our vegetarian/vegan diets. If the rest of the world is noticing, then why aren’t we following our own message?

We are so quick to apologize for the many sins we accept: lying, envy, stealing, even having bad thoughts towards another. These sins are obvious. But is it not also a sin to avoid taking care of our own health?

Think back to the Garden of Eden, to God’s OPTIMAL design for us. We all know animals weren’t killed then. Everyone lived in harmony, both human and animals alike. We didn’t eat all of this junk food that we have now. We didn’t eat animal flesh. We didn’t eat eggs or drink milk. We had the beautiful fruit from the earth. That was the diet God intended.

Now, the world has continued to become degraded. Our soil quality is not what it used to be. You do need to eat vegetables, fruit, grains and legumes. But the key is, you can still get all the nutrients, even often better received by your body, with an animal-less diet. God hasn’t left us hanging. His diet is still here.

In fact, cultures and groups who eat minimal to no animal products suffer less disease and illness. Why do we put our bodies through this?

As a child, I thought all of these things were ok. But the more research I do, the more I realize how blind we are. The even scarier part is that we refuse to be truthful with ourselves. We don’t consider the fact that the devil can easily use food to get us. Think of all the junk food society craves. Have you ever wondered why the ingredients list is always 10+ items long? Most of them you don’t even know what they are. The food industry wants to get you “hooked” and they know what ingredients to use to do it. We are a society with a “health message” where the majority ignore the truth.

We all know the phrase we long to hear when Jesus returns, “Well done good and faithful servant”. But how many of us can He say that to when it comes to His very temples? These bodies are not ours and we must treat them as such. These bodies are God’s. We invite the Holy Spirit to live within us, and yet we treat His house like garbage.

I’m an avid exerciser, and no it’s not always fun. There are days I drag myself to the gym. But without exercise, my heart would not function like it should, my body would not carry me around like it should, and my health would not be in continuous progress like it is.

I also was a cheese addict. I went vegetarian cold-turkey when I was influenced by my first vegetarians. I remained that way for years, often considering going vegan, but never actually having the willpower to say no to cheese. If I could double cheese on anything and everything, you can bet that I did.

When I decided to go vegan, I went through cheese withdrawal for about a week. Who could have ever thought you could go through cheese withdrawal? But it happens because of the design of cheese. It is meant to be addictive. At times during that week, I had to make sure I had fruit in my hand to shove in my mouth so that I wouldn’t be tempted to eat the cheese. And now? I would never look back.

So where does this leave our society? In my opinion, uneducated. It doesn’t take an Adventist to see the benefits of plant-based diets. The science is spreading through the world like wildfire. Evidence is springing up with the results in peoples’ lives. Several doctors are realizing their lack of nutritional education and are starting to get involved. It’s time for us to learn it for ourselves, to understand the impact we are having on ourselves and others. Can you imagine rarely getting sick? Rarely having headaches? Rarely having to go to a doctor? It’s possible, you just need to want to embark on the journey that is not going to be fun at first.

We also need to remember that everything we do in life – EVERYTHING – is seen by our LORD. He knows our motives, He knows our hearts. Just as it’s not always easy to walk up to someone to share the message of Christ with them (especially if you’re expecting backlash), it’s not easy to want to change your habits. But as we see throughout the Bible and throughout the world still today, God’s call is not an easy one. God doesn’t even bring you to paths you can handle. Instead, He wants your heart to be earnest, and then to walk with Him on the path He wants you to take, even carrying you part of the way when necessary.

This is not meant to be a controversial topic. It is meant to be a reminder of truth, of a journey that I have been on myself lately. I’m not perfect either. Even though I was able to hear the call to better health, to realizing and beating my addiction to cheese, I need to get better at a whole food diet and ditch the convenient, pre-made vegan food that I have made a habit of eating.

Life is a journey and it’s never easy. If it was so easy to be healthy, everybody would be healthy. It takes determination, acceptance of what needs to be changed, and the willpower to do it. And even so, all of our efforts without Christ on our journey with us are of little use. Christ is the extra motivation that we need. Picture this: You know Jesus is coming to your house today. What would you do? I know I would be cleaning like mad, making sure it looked the best it could, and preparing the best food I absolutely could. Our bodies are no different. We invite the Holy Spirit in, but how many of us have cleaned internally? Are you feeding your body the best foods so it runs the healthiest and is the cleanest it can be? That is a question for serious thought.

I’m going to leave you with some quotes from Ellen White and the author of the article, “Adventists Urged to Examine Their Meals,” Andrew McChesney:

“We have had this information for more than 120 years, ” said Dr. Peter N. Landless, director of the Adventist world church’s Health Ministries Department. “Sadly, many have chosen not to follow the advice that has been given to God’s inspired servant, but it is always reassuring when one sees that that which is given by inspiration proven by peer-reviewed, evidence-based science.”

He added: “Our prayer is that our church will take note, not because this is an issue related to salvation, but because it affects the quality of life and our service to a broken world, the mission to which we have been called.”

“Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing,” White wrote in the book Child Guidance. [You would be surprised how much diseased flesh is in your animal products today, since she said this so many years ago! Our world is corrupt and hides many things from us.]

White, who Adventists believe had the gift of prophecy, wrote in the same book that meat would become more contaminated as the earth neared its last days and that Adventists would stop eating it. “Flesh will cease to form a part of their diet,” she said. “We should ever keep this end in view and endeavour to work steadily toward it. I cannot think that in the practice of flesh eating we are in harmony with the light which God has been pleased to give us.”

I wish you all a happy, healthy 2016 as we prepare for the ever-closer coming of our LORD and Saviour. May we leave ourselves behind and put God first, no matter what journey He asks us to embark on. Because unlike many things in life, we know the end. We know that all the evil of the world will fade away, and Christ will reign in the best lives we can’t even possibly imagine. All of our unanswered questions will be answered, and we will no longer have to watch suffering take place. Our LORD will be with us, face-to-face, with the loving embrace that will bring happy tears knowing that everything we’ve suffered, everything we’ve endured, everything we’ve experienced will have all been worth it. I cannot wait to thank Him for all that He has brought me through, and for all that He has done for me. What a glorious day that will be!

Week 5 Day 2

What an awesome day today was! I woke up so happy and excited to go get my first load of Fresh Fit Foods. Today’s delivery was the 10 meals that will cover today and tomorrow. It’s so exciting to go pick up a bag with your name on it! I’m so excited!

Before I talk about the meals, I just want to update you on the workouts. Once again, today was still circuit training, but today was focused on back and legs. I felt so much stronger today which made me so happy. I also am starting to see the division line at the top of my abs. That makes me super happy! But a problem arose when I was doing supermans. I have this one rib muscle on my right side that pops out between my ribs sometimes. It hasn’t been aggravated in a long time, but today seemed to be a terrible day. I ended up getting my husband to help tie a flat-edged resistance band around my ribs to hold them together. I was able to finish the exercises requiring my abs this way. Definitely need to go make an appointment about this… I then finished my workout with 12 minutes of HIIT on the ArcTrainer. Definitely a solid workout!

So back to the meals… I decided to take pictures of the meals so you guys can share in my excitement. However, one didn’t make the camera… apparently I was too hungry to think of the picture until after it was gone. You’ll quickly see which one that is.

*Side note: My phone was dead, so I tried to position my laptop to take these pictures. Sorry for the bad quality. I’ll get better pics tomorrow!

Meal #1

Quinoa and Oatmeal with Cranberry Relish

Meal 2

Oatmeal Protein Muffin = Delicious!!

Meal 3
(Oops.. must have eaten this one too fast…)
Ranch Land Chili (beans, lean beef, rice, etc… with yams)

Meal 4

Apples, Celery and Almond Butter

Meal 5

Grilled Basa and Vegetables

These meals were so tasty, you could tell the products are completely wholesome and homemade, and they’re so convenient to grab out of the fridge and heat up. I’m so glad I’ve started this and look forward to the next 20 days! Off to bed for the first time in months ON TIME. Today has been a phenomenal day!

Sleep Walking: What’s Your Story?

I am NOT a habitual sleep walker, at least I don’t think so. But I do have some instances where it has happened.

Reminds me of Robert Munsch’s 40 Below where the dad went sleepwalking outside in 40 below.

When I was little, and I mean really little, like 4, I can remember living at my grandparents house with my mom and sister (1 at the time). My parents were just going through a separation leading to divorce and so mom had moved “home”. I remember my grandfather informing me of a little event that happened the night before, something I had no recollection of at all. This is what he told me happened:

My grandfather was in the kitchen making a late night snack. Our kitchen was designed as a square with an open rectangle on the edge of it, a mini entrance hallway that opened into the kitchen. So if you were at the sink/stove/cupboards, you could not see the front door. You would have to walk around the wall to look at the door. However, the table was on the opposite wall of the stove so you could easily see both sides at the same time.

Anyways, my grandfather was facing the cupboards, using the counter to make his snack. All of a sudden, he heard the door open, so naturally ran towards the door to see what was going on. Nobody was breaking into the house, his little granddaughter was leaving the house, in the middle of the night! He called my name and asked me where I was going, and I apparently told him I was going to walk the dog. I don’t even think we had a dog at the time. My grandfather told me it was the middle of the night and I needed to go back to bed. I easily complied and walked myself back up to bed, asleep the whole time.

Now, something important to note here is that it was not an easy walk from my bedroom to the kitchen and back. I would have had to go to the stairs, go down the first set of stairs, turn on the landing, go down the long set of stairs, turn, walk down the hallway, turn again, walk through a zigzag hallway, through the doorway into the kitchen, walk around the table but not too close into the cupboards so my grandfather didn’t notice me, around the wall, down the hallway, and open the door! And of course, do all that in reverse on my way back up. Can you imagine this?

After that, I don’t have many stories of sleepwalking until I hit university where my sleep-functioning was due to such extreme lack of sleep. From conversations where people couldn’t even tell I was sleeping, to looking at people in my sleep (they said later the only thing they noticed was that my eyes were red, but honestly had no idea I was asleep), to grabbing the control for the fire place and trying to turn down the tv, to who knows what. That was a time my night-functioning was at an all-time extreme.

Sleepwalking almost always comes with an interesting story. I’m curious to hear yours! Leave your story in a comment below!

Those “Annoying” Slow Drivers

You all know what I’m talking about, especially if you live in a city. Those are the people on the highways and on the roads that just seem to poke along, way under the speed limit. Now, if you go along with the rest of society, you will find these people annoying. You probably think that they don’t care about everyone else, that they don’t understand how people are running late and need to get places quickly. I used to think this way too. I used to, until this year.

This year I realized that time goes by too quickly. We spend way too much of our time rushing to do this, running to do that. We run late, we go to bed exhausted, we wake up to begin our day tired from the day before. Why are we always in a rush? Why are we always finding ourselves with a deficit in time to accomplish the things we want to do or even need to do?

I was part of a conversation yesterday where the other person stated something they had read. We are ADDICTED to being busy. We feel accomplished when we’ve been busy, even if we didn’t really accomplish much of anything. It’s a feeling of busyness that actually helps us feel more important, more needed. Now, I don’t know about you, but I had never thought about that before. It is true that I feel like I accomplish a lot in a day because I’m constantly involved in doing things, both big and small. And yet, when I really stepped back and took a moment to look over my many lists of things to do and accomplish, I noticed there are some things that have literally been on my lists for over a month! Not that I haven’t done anything at all for these things, but I’ve actually never been able to accomplish the entire task! Talk about shock!

It’s true. We are addicted to being busy. I hate to say this, but I think I had become so addicted that even when I have a few moments to sit and be still, I’m not actually being still. I’m constantly thinking of how to build my two businesses better, what I need to prepare for upcoming school days, what might happen to my family’s future. At times this can be a good thing; they are good things to think about. But they are detrimental when I no longer know how to be able to enjoy “time off”. It’s so hard for me to get settled to enjoy something that has nothing to do with any type of work. I’d almost be scared to know what I’d actually do on a “vacation”.

So back to these slow drivers. As of this year, I admire them. They know how to slow down life. They know how to just relax and enjoy the moment. They know how to avoid being in a rush. I admire that. I wish and hope to work towards being able to slow down as they do and just enjoy the moments around me.

Next time you see a slow driver, make a mental note. It’s a reminder to SLOW DOWN, live life a little. Have some fun. Enjoy the moments that God has presented you. You have one life to live, so live it well. Don’t yell at those drivers or honk your horn. Instead, take a deep breath and realize there’s more to life than living in the fast lane. Sometimes you just need to go slow.