Have you ever walked out of a doctor's office feeling unseen… like your health was reduced to a single number on the scale?
We go in hoping for answers, clarity, and care—only to hear the same advice: "Just lose weight." And we're left thinking… but you don't even know how I'm actually taking care of myself.
In this week's episode of Nourished to Bloom (Ep. 110), we're getting real about that experience—and reframing the conversation around what true health actually looks like.
Because real health isn't one-dimensional. It's not just physical. It's holistic—mind, body, and soul.
✨ Together, we zoom out from the pressure of weight loss and ask a better question: What does it actually look like to care for ourselves well?
Spoiler: it's not about shrinking your body—it's about stewardship, balance, and honoring your body as a temple.
Here's what stood out this week…
🌱 Balanced, nourishing, and satisfying meals We explore how honoring hunger and fullness—and including all food groups—helps us find true balance without restriction or guilt.
🏃♀️ Joyful movement We shift from punishment to purpose, choosing movement that energizes us and celebrates what our bodies can do.
🧘♀️ Managing stress and emotions We talk about the hidden impact of stress and the importance of creating space for stillness, awareness, and healthy coping.
😴 Prioritizing quality sleep and rest We're reminded that rest isn't laziness—it's part of how we were designed to function and thrive.
🙏 Developing a strong prayer life We bring God into our health journey, recognizing that true wellness is rooted in a relationship with Him.
💡 The big takeaway: Sustainable health doesn't come from chasing a number—it blooms from daily habits that care for our whole selves.
A gentle challenge for us this week…
Instead of asking, "How do I lose weight?" Let's ask: "How can I care for myself well?"
What would it look like to choose just one of these five areas and take a small, intentional step?
Maybe it's:
- slowing down and savoring a meal
- getting outside for a walk
- turning down the noise and creating space for rest
- or inviting God into your health struggles through prayer
You are not a number. Your health is a story—one that deserves to be seen, supported, and nurtured.
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/karatrochta
The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
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I recently went to the doctor hoping to get some answers about a few
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symptoms I've been experiencing. And while overall we
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had a good conversation, it still came back twice
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to the same suggestion. Weight loss. And I remember
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sitting there thinking, you don't even know how I'm actually
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taking care of myself. Maybe you felt that sitting in
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a provider's office. And so today I want to pull back the
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curtain on my specific experience and share
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five things that matter so much more for your health than the
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number on the scale. And I hope that in doing this, you feel more
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empowered to focus on caring for your
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health instead of just trying to lose weight and empowered to
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have real, deeper conversations with your healthcare providers.
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Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast where your faith meets your
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health. I'm your host, Kara Trochta, a registered dietitian and
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certified Catholic coach, and I'm here to help you cultivate a deeper, deeper connection
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with your body, your spirit, and the nourishment that sustains them
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both. In a world filled with noise and
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confusion about food, health and body image, this podcast
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offers truth and healing from a Christ centered perspective.
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Together, we'll untangle the deep roots of diet culture and discover
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what it means to truly care for ourselves through joyful
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nourishment of mind, body and soul. We're here to dive into
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the transformative power of intuitive eating coupled with the rich teachings of
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our Christian faith. With every episode, I'll be cheering you
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on, offering insights, inspiration and practical tools to
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help you heal your relationship with food and embrace the
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beauty of your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit with
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confidence and courage that can only be found in Christ.
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Join me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach to wellness,
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one that honors the wisdom of your body as God's creation,
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the teachings of our faith, and the unique purpose you're called to
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fulfill. You were made to bloom,
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to come into full beauty and health in order to bear good fruit
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for the Lord with your life. So if you're ready to nourish your body,
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feed your soul, and bloom into the best version of yourself, then
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you're in the right place. And I'm so happy you're here.
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Welcome to Nourish to Bloom, where every day is a sacred
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invitation to thrive. Hey there.
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Welcome back to the Nourish to Bloom podcast. So happy to be
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spending time with you here this week. I hope you each had a
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very blessed Easter weekend.
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Alleluia. He is risen and we are an Easter
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people. Meant to celebrate. Meant to
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Gosh rejoice in the fact that the victory has
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already been won. And I hope that you can take some time and
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just rest in that. But today on the podcast, I
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want to share something that has kind of been on my mind probably the last
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week or so. And I think it's something that many of us have
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experienced before. And so I recently went to the doctor
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because I've been having some ongoing symptoms. It's nothing
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extreme, it's more just some things that I'm noticing, some things that I'm
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experiencing and feeling in my body and just had questions about.
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So it was enough that I wanted to have them run some blood work and
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just check on what might be going on, trying to get to the root
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cause of these symptoms and just get some answers. And
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overall, in the office visit, it was a good
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conversation. We talked through a few different possibilities, a couple of
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things that it could be. But two times in that appointment,
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she said something like, if you lost about 5% of your body
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weight, that would probably help.
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And maybe you've had a similar experience
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where you go in, you are
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worried or you just want answers, you want to have a
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conversation, you want to dig deeper and you
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maybe feel a little bit blown off. The provider sees
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your body or sees the number on the scale and just immediately
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jumps to weight loss being the solution.
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And that's frustrating. It was frustrating for me in that moment
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that she could just push this all off on if, well, if you just lost
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weight, this would take care of all of your problems. But the
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reality is is that I think any weight gain that I had was
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the cause, was the. Not
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the cause of it was the result of these symptoms. Like it was the
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result of a deeper issue. And I didn't really
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feel like I had her full buy in to explore it.
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Because what she didn't ask me was how many times have you tried to lose
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weight in the past? She didn't ask me
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what has your relationship with food looked like over the years? Have you lost
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weight and gained weight? Lost weight and gained weight. She didn't ask me
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what my actual daily habits were because
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if she just would have asked if she would have wanted to get the full
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picture, she would have gotten a very, very different picture. She would
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have known that I eat balanced and nourishing meals and I don't restrict,
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that I can enjoy sweets without overeating,
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that I've healed that restrict binge cycle that once controlled my
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life where I couldn't feel like I could trust myself around food.
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She would have known that I Incorporate strength training and
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cardio multiple times a week, that I walk regularly, that I
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get good sleep, quality sleep, that I
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manage my stress and my emotions intentionally, and that my
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faith and spiritual life are a central part of how I care for myself.
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But none of that was part of the conversation. Instead,
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my health and what I was experiencing was reduced down to
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a number. And gosh,
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is that frustrating, because I think for so many of us,
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that number used to define everything.
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Maybe it still does. I know for a long time that it
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defined everything I did. There was a season where all I
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was doing was chasing weight loss at all costs. And
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ironically, it was the least healthy I'd ever been physically,
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mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. But everything
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shifted when I zoomed out and I started asking a different
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question. What does it actually look like to
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care for myself? Well,
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not just focus on shrinking my body or changing a number on the scale,
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but really steward my health, steward my body, care
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for myself. From First
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Corinthians, chapter 6, 19, 20, Scripture reminds us,
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do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within
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you, therefore glorify God in your body.
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That while society tries to tell us that our health is about control
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or perfection, our faith reminds us that it's about
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stewardship and it's about caring. So if you've been
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told directly or indirectly that your health is
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defined by your weight, or your problems with
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your health would be solved if you just lost some weight,
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or maybe you just really want to focus on
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creating a more grounded, sustainable way forward, then
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today I want to share five things that I think you should focus on
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instead of weight loss that are better overall for
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your health. Number one is eating
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balanced, nourishing and satisfying meals. You
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have to remember that your body was designed with that internal wisdom.
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And part of healing your health and promoting your health is learning to
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listen to that wisdom again. And so that looks like
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honoring those hunger and fullness cues. Building balanced
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meals that include all food groups, protein,
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carbohydrates, healthy fats, fiber, fruits and vegetables.
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Choosing foods that are both nourishing and satisfying,
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not always restricting. Because when your body is
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adequately nourished, something naturally tends to happen.
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You naturally find that balance. You naturally find that
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moderation. You're not constantly thinking about food,
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you're not swinging between the extremes, or that all or nothing.
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And this actually aligns with the beautiful virtue that we see
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throughout the Christian life of temperance. The
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catechism teaches that temperance is the moral virtue that
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moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the Use
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of created goods. Notice
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they include the words balance and moderation.
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I also want to lump in here. Learning to be mindful
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when you are eating. Putting away the distractions, focusing on.
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On chewing your food, taking it bite by bite,
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enjoying the different flavors. And this helps aid in your
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digestion and it also helps promote
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time for your body to send the signals back to your brain to say that
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I am full and that you can stop eating. And this
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is going to help prevent overeating.
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Number two is learning to practice joyful movement.
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If you come from a diet culture mindset, you know that movement
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has been used to as a form of punishment or
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a way of making up for being bad.
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But movement was never meant to be punishment. It was meant to be
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life giving. So instead of asking how can I burn the most
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calories? Maybe we should start asking what kind of movement
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helps me feel strong, more energized and alive.
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And that can look like a variety of things. Maybe it's walking
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regularly. Maybe it's incorporating strength training for muscle and
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bone health, cardio for heart health,
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stretching and balance work for mobility and
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flexibility. Maybe that looks like
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engaging in some sort of adult sport league or
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doing a class or learning a new skill like
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martial arts. We have to remember that your body
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is a gift and that movement becomes a way to participate
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in that gift, not try to control or
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change it. Number three,
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learn to manage stress and emotions. I
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think this is one of the most overlooked aspects of health and one
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of the most impactful because we live in a world of
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constant noise, pressure, comparison and stimulation.
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And if we don't process in a healthy way what's happening internally,
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it shows up externally. It shows up in our eating
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habits. When we find ourselves reaching for food to
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comfort ourselves, it shows up in our inner energy
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levels. It affects our sleep and our overall health.
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We can look to Jesus himself who modeled what it looks like to step
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away to rest, to pray. The
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Gospel of Mark, chapter six, verse 31,
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encourages to go away by yourselves to a deserted place and
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rest a while. We have to
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remember that we are not meant to carry everything on our own.
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Emotional awareness and developing healthy coping skills,
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creating space for stillness, these are not
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luxuries, y'. All. These are essential to our overall
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health and well being. Number
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four, prioritize quality sleep and rest. We
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often underestimate how foundational sleep is. But sleep
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impacts our hormones, our hunger cues, our metabolism,
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our mood and our cognitive function. But yet it's often the
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first thing we sacrifice. Oh, I'll just stay up a little Bit
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later scrolling. Because we feel like it's that time for ourselves. It's that
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treat that we deserve at the end of the day, instead of putting it away
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and focusing on creating a bedtime routine that
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allows us to get that adequate rest. We
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have to remember, though, that rest is actually built into the
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rhythm of creation itself, night
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and day, our circadian rhythm.
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We can even see that, you know, God didn't need to rest, but he chose
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to. The book of Genesis, chapter 2, verse 2,
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reminds us that on the seventh day, God rested from all his work.
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Rest is not laziness. Prioritizing good sleep is not
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meaning that you're missing out on anything. It's learning to
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embrace and live in how we
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are designed to function well. And
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number five, develop a strong prayer life. This is where everything
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comes together. Because true health just isn't just physical,
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it's whole person. You are an integrated person. God created
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you as an integrated person, mind, body and soul.
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And so when we bring these struggles, our frustrations, even our body
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image and health concern to the Lord, something shifts.
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We stop striving in this alone. We start
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being open and creating space for the Lord to pour down his grace
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upon us, to help us in these struggles.
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Jesus understands what it means to live in a human body.
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He experienced things like hunger, fatigue,
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emotions, and we know physical suffering.
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And we are invited to unite our struggles with His.
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The first letter of Peter, chapter five, verse seven,
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encourages to cast all your anxieties on him because he
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cares for you. Your health journey is not
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separate from your faith. It's all integrated. And it's the
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foundational part of being a good steward for
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the gift and the design of your body, the one that
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houses the Holy Spirit and your soul.
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So at the end of the day, I want to remind you that weight is
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a single data point. It cannot
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possibly tell the full story of your health. But your
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habits, the patterns that you've developed, your relationship with
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food, your body, your mind, and the Lord, that tells
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a much richer story. So I
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encourage you, instead of asking, how do I lose weight? I
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encourage you to start asking, how can I care for myself? Well,
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because when you focus on that, you step into a kind of health that is
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sustainable and peaceful and deeply aligned with who
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God created you to be. I thank you
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so much for joining me here on the podcast this week. I hope you had
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a beautiful and blessed, blessed week and I will see you right back
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here in a week.
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Remember, beauty held is the seed, beauty shared is a flower. It is your
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time to bloom Take care and God bless. Bye.