Isaac and Angie share their personal stories of the challenge to stay healthy and the different approaches they have taken to get back in shape amongst the busy life of having littles, teenagers, and kids in between. Angie’s story is still developing as she has lost over 24 pounds recently and continues to press forward. Be encouraged as they get real about it all.

Main Tips From This Episode:

1. Define what healthy means to you.
2. Pursue your health goals for the right reasons.
3. Let’s not make an idol out of health, but let’s steward our bodies well.

 

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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from courageous

Mom and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man.

We’ve been married for twenty one years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the

Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18, and it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting and the fall. Hey, welcome to the podcast, we have a great topic today, and it’s live in true to Angie here lately.

That’s true. We are talking about the importance of staying healthy while raising a family, but this is actually a challenge for people, so we’re titling this one. Overcoming the challenge to stay healthy,

Raising family because it’s not easy. Well, it’s not easy whether you have a family or not, but adding a family and all those obligations and extra people in your home and all that stuff definitely makes it more tricky sometimes, especially for the ladies who are experiencing pregnancy, birth and postpartum and all those things.

Right. And I would say that I mean, there’s different challenges to different seasons, obviously, when it comes to like working out. There comes a point in your pregnancy for everybody. Sometimes for some people, it’s the first trimester. For me, it’s definitely a first trimester when I’m vomiting and I have HCG and I’m so sick and I’m puking a ton don’t really feel like working out, you know what I mean? But then of course, there’s like the third trimester when you’re hardly sleeping at night and you’re tossing and turning at times and you’re just like awkwardly big at at the last month, right? And so same again where it can be difficult to want to work out. And then there’s postpartum when you’re breastfeeding.

Yeah. And I know you recently did a post and you’ve been several posts. You’ve been very, very candid on your Insta stories and so forth about the experience you’ve been going through. And I’m just really proud of you. I just it’s just amazing you. You made a decision and you made multiple decisions at the same time that have made a big difference on your health.

Yeah. And we’ll get into sharing some of those in this podcast. I think that sometimes it’s hard when you’re limited to like one hundred and fifty words in an Instagram post or whatever the limit is. I don’t even know to really get everything in which is part of why, like some of my posts have like, overflowed into the comments and then into another post and then into the comments. But you guys are such good question anchors that it keeps on bringing up more and more things that I keep posting about. Yeah, and so we thought that it would be awesome to do a podcast that kind of answers some of those questions that I’ve gotten. But also like, obviously, you can’t share everything in a tiny post like that. And Isaac and I have a really cool story. Even he has a journey in a story, too of becoming more healthy, and this is something that we’re still working at. And still like forming better habits like constantly learning new things like, here’s an example sprouting grains and, you know, glassing eggs and fermenting foods so that we have better gut health. Like, that’s all stuff I’m learning how to do now. And I wasn’t raised eating that way. And so the reality is there’s two kinds of people in the world. There are those that go, I don’t know how to do that or I don’t have a habit of doing that, so I can’t do that. And then there’s the type of people that are like, I may not know how to do it, but I’m going to learn, Hey, man.

So let’s kick it off with key scripture. And before you do, we’re getting that ready. You know, thanks for being part of the one million legacies movement. Every time you share, it makes a difference with the algorithms and everything. The written comments on iTunes, all of it is a massive difference and we’re as motivated as ever. We have lots of new, exciting things coming out and nothing that we’re currently doing is disappearing. Some of it just changes slightly, but it’ll be for the betterment of everybody’s experience, whether it’s the parenting mentor program or you know where you can gather with us to get the deepest, best content and interaction and really join the tribe. One of the things that I think has been missing because of the challenges of social media and being Christians on social media these days, we’re all there. Most of us, but it’s it’s challenging to really be mobilized as a group and really develop those deep connections with people. So we aim to solve that and that’ll be out in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, we’re very excited about the new well, tools that we’re launching. Really, they’re tools. Yeah. And so please stay tuned. Pay attention to your emails. I know that some people are courageous. Parenting emails will wind up in their spam box. So if you could just like double check your spam box

To train your inbox so that it says this is not spam and then forever more, they’ll come

In. That’s right, because we get a lot of messages from people saying, Hey, how do I get on your email list? I thought I was on it and I’m not getting them well. It’s probably because it’s

It’s hard to communicate as a Christian these days.

So that’s right. All right. So the first verse that we’re going to go to is First Timothy Chapter four, verse eight, and this is a really

So powerful scripture. Paul’s talking here for a while bottle. Training is of some value, godliness is a value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. So basically what he’s saying is it is good. There is value in bodily training, exercise, fitness to be able to be effective while we’re on this Earth, right? But what’s even more important is the spiritual because that

Affects spiritually fit while

You’re here and eternity with God. And so that’s even more important. So I think that this brings up a question of we got to keep things in balance, don’t we?

Yeah. And that’s something that like before we dive into like our story and the mission behind why we want to stay healthy and encourage you guys in those things Isaac and I were talking about like the temptation that there is in humanity, but I think especially, well, it doesn’t matter what gender you are. Actually, the temptation is there to make an idol out of health or to make an idol out of your your quiet time working out even or to make an idol out of the time you have when you’re away at the gym. If you go to the gym to work out and we just want to warn you. We want to warn you guys, because we have seen the massive impact, detrimental impact that that has had on many people’s families. Listen, when you’re a parent, this is courageous parenting. When you’re a parent, you are a leader. Yeah, you are to lead your family. And that means that when it comes to all things spiritual fitness, physical fitness, you want to lead by example to your children. You want to set a foundation that they can. Then this is like a habit that they grew up with. Doing right, working out, get working out their mind in the word of God is another spiritual habit.

There shouldn’t be one that is like the physical fitness should not be a greater habit that’s easier for your kids to take from your home than being in the word. But we need to have our priorities straight. And oftentimes when when people start going away to the gym, for example, it becomes this like fun hobby, too. And sometimes it can even be escapism right to where people maybe start feeling overwhelmed by their home and all the things that they have to do there. Maybe they don’t even enjoy necessarily some of the things that they are committed to, and they’re committed to doing them because they know this is just a mundane thing that I have to do. Everybody has those things and I’m committed to doing it, but I really don’t enjoy it. And so they want to escape to the gym and then they want to stay there longer. And the problem is is if you allow that to take root in your heart, that’s when it can become very dangerous for your marriage and for your family, and it can start becoming an idol in your life.

However, she’s not saying that going to the gym is a bad idea. It’s a fantastic idea, she’s saying. The intentions behind it are what matter and do check yourself so they don’t become the wrong intentions, for sure.

So we’ll get into some of our journey and what we’ve done over the years because we’ve done a lot of different things. Yeah, there have been long seasons where I’ve used the gym and where I’ve gone swimming or different things like that for physical therapy and all useful. But definitely what Isaac just said. I want to reiterate. You have to evaluate where is my heart and this and my yearning to go, be there. Why is that and deal with that? Like, be honest about that before God and recognize that, you know, when it comes to taking care of your body, it is something that we’re all called to do. Mm hmm.

Right.

So as we’re diving in, the first thing that we wanted to talk about and challenge you guys with is this idea that there are different definitions of healthy.

Oh, that’s a good point.

So when we’re talking about being healthy, like we don’t want you guys to mistake what we’re saying here, like when we say healthy, we’re not saying like that. You have to be a bodybuilder that’s able to be competing and doing these huge triathlons and different things like that, although maybe that’s something that you do, and that would be fine if you did do that. But that’s not like everybody has a different idea of healthy in their brains

Or their goals. It sounds like you know what you’re trying to do it for and what level you’re trying to get to and so forth. I know for me it was to be, you know, a little kids and I’m an older man now. So it’s to be able to be around for the grandkids and for my own kids while they’re still in my home because, you know, I’m forty six and I’ve got a five month old.

That’s right. So when he’s 20, you’ll be sixty six.

Yeah, yeah, be sweet. So I hope to be in really good shape when I’m sixty six.

That’s right. No. But in all seriousness, we talk about that kind of stuff a lot. Isaac and I, because we we want to be wise when we make wise decisions and we want our kids to have respect for us too. Like there’s this element of like not being a hypocrite. We’ve talked about that so much over the years. Yeah, like in podcasts and parenting programs.

Yeah. Do we want our kids to find a way to make exercise a priority when they’re super busy in the future? Or are they going to fall to making the same reasons or excuses that maybe we are? And so we got to do a gut check on that. It’s not to make anybody feel bad or anything like that. Self-discipline is a key ingredient to all this, but I think your point is on this is pay attention to what your goals are and make them reachable and make sure the the reason behind those goals is a healthy reason. Yeah.

So for us, we’ll just share briefly like what ours are to maybe that inspires you to have this. You can totally share our reasons. They’re not ours. So Isaac mentioned one, which is that we want to be around when our kids are, when our youngest kids are still young. I mean, in their 20s, I

Still want to be playing spike ball, on the beach, on the river with my kids

Right in my sixties with Zander. Yeah, totally. And fishing in our seventies.

Canoeing and kayaking and RV, which I don’t kayak, but I’d

Like to get, but we want to get

Into that even tennis and I don’t play tennis, but I’d love to. Yeah, you know, I still have things I want to do.

Dreams and goals, you know,

I’m still going to snowboard.

Hopefully, you snowboard. He just sometimes now that we have Solomons snowboarding, sometimes when he takes Solomon up on the mountain, he has to go a little slower.

It’s really nice, actually, because I have older kids now and they’re really intense.

I heard some stories about how intense you get at times on the mountain. Anyway, so you guys, you know, obviously, like if you don’t take care of yourself and then you go get on a mountain and snowboard and it’s been how many years, 20 years you get up there. You’re going to be kind of sore if you don’t pace yourself, right? And so that was one of the things that, like Isaac and I started thinking about and really wanting to be more intentional with when our kids were younger, we definitely had P.E. physical education as part of our home schooling. So you guys know that we’ve homeschooled our kids forever. If you don’t home school, you can still do this in your family. And that’s what’s so beautiful about it is think about your family culture and what do you want to be passed down to your kids? What kind of habits? What do you want to model for your kids to do with their kids when they’re younger? And so remember when we lived in Damascus and we had that side guestroom? Yeah. And we had a bunch of different

Workout equipment and we had kids size workout equipment.

Oh, it was so cool. I don’t know if the company one step ahead is around anymore, but they used to have these like four year old sized treadmill for four year olds size. Part of it was

Because it rained almost every day of the year in Portland, Oregon.

So yeah, it was like 10 months of rain. So we have like outdoor bikes and we had so much fun playing outside and in the rain too. But sometimes you know you don’t want to deal with all the mud, and not everybody wants to go outside. And when you have a lot of little kids, you can’t. You have to be outside together or inside together. You can’t split up. So I would rotate the kids on these different pieces of workout equipment, and they would do 20 minutes on and then 20 minutes off. And we even put like a mat down on. The kids would do somersaults and then I’d rotate them to who was doing piano, who was doing guitar, who was doing violin. That was super fun. And we did this for like an hour where the four oldest would all do that. And then, of course, the baby toddler would just be like playing on the ground. And so just imagine what that was like.

Well, and it’s so important to for obedience reasons, you know, can’t expect kids to be obedient and respectful if God gave them lots of energy and they can’t get that energy out during the day, right? It’s really, oh, they

Offer so much better. And it was honestly like, we didn’t do it first thing in the morning, we would wake up doing chores, take care of the chicken, get the laundry going. All those things eat breakfast, get ready for the day, do our devotions, and then we would start doing our first subject in school, which was usually the hardest. So I would have them do math and then we would do our P.E. for the day. And so that was like a really fun morning routine when we had four or five kids that were under 10 years old. And so we go more into depth in that kind of stuff and what our routines and schedules look like and the parenting mentor program, which you can find out about at courageous parenting. But that’s just like one season of our life where we tried to incorporate some kind of physical education, not just for us, but for our kids. And I’ll I’ll say, like, there are seasons when I was really good about getting on the Tread climber and being healthy. And then there were seasons where I was really not good at it where like, if I was on bed rest or just came off of bed rest, which was two of my pregnancies, right? And then having to cook for the family and feeling like I was so far behind on other things that I would put my health back on the back burner. I don’t know if you can relate as a mom, but that is really unhealthy. Yeah, like we have to be. Isaac’s brought up the word self-discipline multiple times so far. And I think that when it comes to self-discipline, we as parents have to understand that if we want our kids to have good habits, we have to model that by what we do. And it may be hard to incorporate the kids, depending on their age, but you can. You can do little things like I remember when you started really getting serious about working out and the kids joined you.

They did. It was amazing. And prior to that, Austin was a big motivation because he was already taking action. My oldest son and, you know, getting fit, and he was interested in using the random things that we had. It’s not like we had this elaborate gym or anything, but we had a few things and he was using them. And I’m like, Wow, you know, that’s really motivating. And but I needed help. Honestly, I needed somebody to kick my butt. And so I had a friend who reached out and he decided to help me, Joseph Hunt. And it was amazing. And he’s he’s a Chris. And he’s younger than me, and he is a coach, and he I just needed someone to go. Here’s exactly what to do because I’ve never had the working out habit in my whole life, and I still would say I don’t fully have the habit, but I can get into a rhythm of having the habit. But I did a 90 day, you know, custom diet, custom workout plan and went from the heaviest in my life. I think I was actually a little heavier, but I waited a few days and, you know, drank water and did some things before. So when I took, I had to take up picture. I had to take a picture with my shirt off in the mirror and send it to my coach. And it was so before now I just looked at him recently, so embarrassing. I actually gave them to him and gave him permission to use them the before and after. But it was wild how bad I in heavy and unhealthy I was and getting unhealthy.

I think that that would be an important thing for other people to hear because they may be in the midst of the journey of becoming unhealthy and not realize that they are, because maybe they’re only a year or two

Incrementally happens over time. I was up to, you know, two, 30 or something, two hundred and thirty pounds. And, you know, I’m just shy. I’m basically just shy of six feet. So, you know,

That’s on the heavy side and the heavy side of things. Yeah, huge. But on the heavy side

And and then I lost. I went down to 195 and gained lots of muscle at the same time. Like, you know, muscle weighs more than fat. So I lost like thirty four pounds and then I gained muscle at the same time in 90, 90 days and it was wild. But there’s a beauty and discipline once you embrace it. Once you have a program and a plan and you follow through, you’re like developing a new identity with yourself. If I’m a person that follows through every time you do that, and I was so particular about following precisely what he told me, and I gained great joy in the precision. It was really weird. Actually, that’s where it was. It was really wild. And to the point where it was too much to ask Angie to continue making my custom three meals a day, plus all the family’s meals. And so I stopped what I’m doing and I find myself cooking. I’ve never enjoyed cooking. I don’t know how to cook. And here I am, cooking fish and making this horrible salad I absolutely hate hated it. Every single day.

It was a quinoa salad, the same garbanzo beans.

Three meals, like every day for 90 days, had

Many ingredients

And it was this horrible, horrible salad and I just would stuff it down. I’d just go, It’s fuel, it doesn’t matter. It’s fuel doesn’t matter. The taste doesn’t matter. It’s just fuel. And I just convinced myself and repeat it over and over again as I ate this horrible salad. But I was cooking and it was beautiful. It was like, I’m not working right now. I’m paying attention to my holy temple. God will take care of the work. I’m taking a break, I’m cooking. Everybody has different work circumstances. I know not everybody works at home

And we worked. We worked early in the morning and late at night as well. And I think that one of the things that you know. So when Isaac first started his journey, I was actually pregnant with Eli because that was right before our RV trip and I was pregnant with Eli during the RV trip, which is why I had to stop cooking because I got super sick with him in the first trimester. But the first like month and a half ish, I was cooking the three meals a day and I still continue getting him what he needed like for supplies. But I literally could not cook the fish because it would send me running.

So you were super helpful, very helpful and it was amazing. Like, I literally stopped drinking coffee. I went from, you know, six cups a day kind of situation to no coffee for 90 days. And it wasn’t that coffee was bad is I always put Creamer in my coffee. And then he said I could have coffee, but no creamer. And then I didn’t like it. So then I just bailed on the coffee. Yeah. Anyways, just interesting things that you can let go of and not let anything on you and how beautiful my energy just surged. It was so wild and the good news I’ve kept within 10 pounds of that, and

It’s been four

Years, it’s been four years. And you know, I don’t I’m not like this big exercise person, but I go, do things. I go, do things with my kids.

I you go down to the beach and play spike ball. You go snowboarding. I think that you do really active things for being forty six years old.

I’m proud of you. Yeah. Anyways, I want to hear your story, though, Angie, because yours is recent and it’s really remarkable because you’ve had 11 pregnancies, nine kids. You know,

When you put it that way

And and you’re not a young chicken.

So that’s true. You know, the reality is that it’s at first it was easy. So before when I met Isaac, I actually was teaching aqua aerobics, and I continued doing that until I got pregnant with Austin. He was our second baby, and so I always loved being in the water. I was a swimmer for a long time. I was an athlete through high school. I I loved working out. But when Isaac and I got married, that was not something that he got grew up doing. So that wasn’t something that he and I did together, per say. She had

This dream. So. Is going to the gym together. We tried it a couple times. This is unbelievable, inefficient use of time. I mean, it takes you have to drive there. You have to drive back out. You have to drive back. You have to change your clothes a couple of times. Shower in the daytime. Stuff I got to do.

Ok, so back then, though, Isaac had a kind of an unhealthy view of work though, too, because there was an element of workaholic that was that was there

Was at the beginning I had to build, you know, build it.

That’s right. But you even shared this in the parenting program that, you know, because we had just to

Lose it all anyway.

Yeah, we we got humbled us and taught us some things. And you used to think, Well, if I work super hard when the kids are little, they’re not going to really miss me that much because they don’t remember it’s a baby. And so but I think it’s good to verbalize those because a lot of men have those same beliefs.

Oh yeah. Listening. I thought I’d be retired at thirty five and that if I work hard now, then I would work hard later and all this stuff. And while that does happen for some people, usually it doesn’t. The reason is they might get the money, but usually what happens is whatever habits you cultivate. Men tend to continue, right? So even when they get the money and they could retire if that was the case, if that happened, which it’s never enough, it’s never enough and they just continue to work hard. And so I, you know, obviously tapered off of that. You know, that didn’t happen too long. And I learned a lot and then God took everything away from us anyways for other reasons.

But and that’s a different story. Yeah. But you know, in reality, though, looking back on those years, you know, there was this this lesson that we had to learn that maybe you’ve learned or maybe you’re walking through. And hopefully if you’re listening to us, you can learn from our mistakes. Yeah. And so one of the things that we realized is that, you know, you can’t put your health on the back burner. You definitely can’t. Otherwise, things will start to creep up on you, whether it’s weight, autoimmune diseases, different things like that. And that’s also important for women in regards to taking care of yourself in between pregnancies. One of the things I tried hard to take care of myself. I was very disciplined. I was going to the gym during certain seasons. Other seasons I would work out at home, but I would say it was probably at my most consistent. I was like three to four days a week was probably the most that I got away to work out when we had between two and six kids, OK? And then when we moved, that kind of tapered off into nothingness for about five six years in in my mid, my mid to late thirties early forties, which was not the best timing, actually. That’s when I should have been more faithful at working out.

But, you know, life was starting to get busy as it was running a building, a different business at the time, and we had high schoolers for the first time. I could give you a million excuses, but here’s the thing none of them matter. Yeah, because any anybody can say, Oh, I can’t work out because I home school or I have this many kids or I work outside of the home too. Or what? You know what the reality is like? I could give you a million excuses as to why I should. I can’t work out now. But I had to realize that my health, if I don’t take care of myself, then I might not be able to do any of those other things in five or 10 years because I might not be here or I might be ill, right with my autoimmune diseases started flaring up different things like that. And so we had some I had some warning signs in between my fifth and sixth pregnancy when I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis. That was about 12, 13 years ago now. And that was a wake up call for me, and I got serious again about health and started eating juicing. We started doing smoothies. This was back when BPA was a thing that everybody was getting out of their kitchen and buying glass again.

I mean, like, we were doing all kinds of things right. Oil started being more introduced into our family. Homeopathy, I learned how to use natural remedies more, which is part of the health process. It’s part of the journey. And I would say that the biggest aspect for me, looking back on in between the babies is recognizing now I look back and I go, You know, what would have helped me the most is if I actually got more sleep, like if I went to bed just even a half an hour to forty five minutes earlier because that’s a big deal. Sleep has been, I would say, when I look at everything that I did. Yes, getting your body active. Mm hmm. Even going on a walk, it doesn’t have to be going to a gym, going on a walk. For me, I’ve been doing the Tread climber three to four days a week since. August, right, since Austin got engaged August 7th, and when we got home from that trip, it was like mom was serious and I was getting on the Tread climber and I was working hard and then I would do some weights, do some stretches, do some plotting.

I’m only sharing this because I’ve had a lot of people asking me what I did and yes, I was breastfeeding. This was when Zander was like eight weeks postpartum, nine weeks after having him. And you know, I’ve had those seasons where I’ve worked out after having a baby. You know, after I get to the six week mark and then something happens to my milk and the lactic acid, it makes them more spit up. And so that kind of in my was in the back of my head as like, Oh, I can’t work out because this happens to my babies. And so I need a nurse them and they’ll spit it up. So I’m not going to do it. And again, another excuse. And so I had to go, You know what? My I’m literally having a hard time holding him like, I’m getting older, carrying him, even wrapping him onto me, putting him in an infant carrier and going to the grocery store. My lower back was killing me. Yeah. So it was those realizations of I have not been taking care of myself for far too long. It’s been six seven years. And if I want to be around and active when he’s a little older but still young, I really have to be serious about that.

And the whole family was super supportive and helpful. Valjean is a quote that someone once said, I don’t know who is. Are you arguing for your excuses or are you arguing for reasons why you can? And so it’s really important to ask yourself, what am I subconsciously arguing for, right? Ok? Are you arguing for reasons why you can or for a reasons why you can’t? You have to argue with yourself in one direction or another, and the natural direction we do is we argue for reasons why we can’t, right?

And you know, another aspect of this is blame shifting. Like, when you start giving excuses, another human tendency is to blame shift and to say, I can’t do this because you or I can’t do this because of them. So, all right. And so I would just warn you, like, don’t allow the devil to have a foothold in your marriage. Don’t blame your husband for you not working out. Don’t blame your kids for you not working out that that would be giving the devil a foothold. And I know that for myself, it wasn’t that I would like necessarily blame them, but I would. I would. I would look at it and go, No, I’ve got a home school like, I have to do this with them. I don’t do this. Yeah, and I struggled with so much mommy guilt. Maybe you guys can relate. But I just had to say I had to tell that guilt. Like Satan, you have no power here. Go away, like and remind myself of what the real goal is. And the real goal is not to be like this a supermodel or to get to a specific size pants or a specific size shirt. The goal was I want to be able to do fun things with my kids and not be in pain. The goal was I want to be able to fulfill the purposes that God has me here for and not be sick and not be, you know, disabled or or less energetic and unable to travel, to speak at a conference in 10 or 15 years or or travel with my kids. Or or here’s one be the kind of grandma that I want to be right.

And let’s face it, the is coming out are going to be more weird. I have a feeling as time goes on and we’ve all learned that to stay out of the hospital is important. If you can and to stay out of the hospital, you have to have a strong immune system. You have to be

Healthy, right? Because these different viruses that are coming out are definitely most dangerous for people who are immune compromised, right? People who are older. And so as we grow older, we have to be proactive about our health. But how much better off are you if you’re listening and you’re 20 years younger than us or you’re 10 years younger and maybe you haven’t been proactive about getting outside and taking a walk for half an hour, you guys, you’re getting so much good vitamin D. In addition to working your heart and building a habit and taking your kids on that walk with you or letting them ride bikes while you’re kind of jogging or, you know, there’s so many ideas that I could give you. The important thing, though, is that you recognize your Y so that when you get into those pitfall moments where you’re fighting for your excuses or your blame shifting, you remind yourself of your why my why was I want to obey God and take care of my holy temple, which is the next verse that we have for you guys, which is in, let’s see, Colossians three twenty three, which says. Oh, well, actually, this this is a different verse, but says whatever you do work heartily. As for the Lord and not for men knowing that from the Lord, you will receive an inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. And so one of the reasons why I wanted to share that scripture is because there are so many times when I’m like, distracted even in the moment of working out and I’m thinking about the other things that I need to be doing that I potentially think are more important, like homeschooling or cleaning or whatever.

And I’m going to tell you a little secret. When you’re working out, if you are a one hundred percent there where you are and you’re thinking about how you’re taking care of your body because you want to do it to steward the Holy Temple, that God has given you, that you want to be taking care of this fleshly embodiment that he gave you to take care of so that you can do his works when you are thinking that way while you’re working now, I really believe that God blesses your efforts while you’re working out. And I I will also say that there is an element there, too. It’s very worshipful. Yeah, right. It’s I think of Romans 12 to which we’ve quoted so many times do not be conformed of this world, but be transformed, transformed by the renewing of your mind when you’re working out. You can also be listening to podcasts and your mind can be being renewed. Your eyes can be on the Lord. And he also talks about in that same passage of scripture, not allowing your your body to to be defiled, right, but to be a living sacrifice unto the Lord that’s in Romans 12 also. And so when we’re taking care of our bodies, you guys, we are stewarding our bodies as a holy temple. But we’re also giving our bodies as a living sacrifice to the Lord so that we can obey him to do the things that he has called us to do. But Isaac has the scripture in First Corinthians that talks about, you know, treating your body as a holy temple. It’s Chapter six verse 19 through 20.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not your own for you or bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.

Now, this particular passage of scripture before that is talking about not defiling your body, and it’s talking about it’s warning us against sexual sin, actually. But I think that it fully applies to taking care of your body and recognizing that God does view our bodies as a holy temple. We should view them that way.

I have a couple of thoughts at self-discipline because really discipline is important and you’ve got to teach it to your kids and they’ve got to see it modeled. And this is one area. There’s many areas you can see it modeled. But sometimes we have to just decide the definition of the word decide means to to take away from it means it means to cut away from the previous. So it’s a whole new thing. Unfortunately, in this world, decide doesn’t seem to mean that in our culture. I mean, I decided to do this. Then I decided to do that. I decided to do what I feel in this moment than the next and all these distractions coming at me. I forgot what I decided to do five minutes ago. And so it’s really important to make real concrete decisions that you move forward with and whatever works for you to make a real decision, you’ve got to do that. You probably know about yourself in this. You know what doesn’t work and what does work? Think back to the times where you made a real decision. You follow through on something really hard but worthy and made a difference in your life. Think back to the things you did then, so you can repeat those now because we’re all very different and how I’m disciplined and motivated is going to be different than how you are.

You need to know yourself in that way. You need to think back. You need to pray to God and have them tell you how you are best disciplined, but you decide is to cut away for me. Like when we did the vineyard and no idea how to do a vineyard, I told a thousand people on stage we were creating a vineyard. For me, the accountability of lots of people knowing something makes me do things. That’s one of the things that does it. I did that on purpose because it was important thing I felt we were supposed to do, and it ended up being very important. That’s a whole nother topic, but discipline, what is what? And Angie talked about your whys. You got to know those crystal clear the whys behind it and then you’ve got to have plan of action. And sometimes we’re too ambitious in the beginning. We make our steps too big in the beginning, make some small, consistent steps forward and develop a track record of yourself and start to see the results of what you’re doing.

So on the plan, Isaac is totally leading us into what you’re probably wondering the most. This is one of the biggest questions that I was getting after my very first post that I shared on Instagram. I’m just going to share with you guys the few things that I made, the few changes I made and implemented that helped me. But before I share those with you, I’m just going to. How are you the numbers I’m going to share with you that the real deal, raw truth of how heavy I got so in the Isaac mentioned that I’ve had 11 pregnancies in the last six years because Solomon is almost six. I’ve had five pregnancies. Those were all from the age thirty seven to forty two. So in those five or six years, I have had five pregnancies. Two of them were losses and the two losses. Definitely there was an element of grieving, which I think that that grief, I am certain that I gained weight during the stress of of losing a baby for sure. That was really hard for me and then getting pregnant after that very within like six months, especially after Sela. When we lost Kayla, I was in my second trimester. I I hemorrhaged 67 percent of my blood and almost died, had to have emergency surgery and blood transfusions to stay alive. God saved me in that that whole testimony is in another podcast and YouTube video. And so if you guys can go find it, but my point is is I’ve been through some really hard things physically on my body in the last five years that I think really helped helped put on the way, if you will.

Yeah, stress is a big deal for sure. But I think that, you know, pregnancy postpartum losing babies it in in middle age is different than when you’re having babies in your twenties and thirties. I know because I’ve done it in my 20s, my thirties and my forties. And so I for sure gained a lot of weight. The highest that I got was around one hundred and ninety seven that I’m aware of. I might have gotten over two hundred because I’ll be honest with you, once I got on this scale and I was 190 seven while I was pregnant with Zander, I made a decision not to get on the scale again. I’m not really a big scale person. I’m not one of those people that really looks at numbers. I’m more think about how I’m feeling and I’m honest with myself. And if I can’t do certain things or I’m in pain, that’s my motivator for getting healthy, which I think is actually really healthy. However, I needed to for my for just my care, my midwife needed me to get on scale. And so when I saw that, I was very embarrassed. I for the first time in my life, I struggled with body image stuff and we went on a trip to Arizona as a family. It was our vacation before the baby was born and of course it was in the hundreds while we were there. So swimsuit

Time got to 100, but it was there was some 80s, not

Days too. Yeah, but it was. It was hot. Yeah. And for me, being, you know, eight, I was actually almost nine months pregnant because we went just before my due date. We went the beginning of May and I was due May. Twenty first and swimsuits were an everyday occurrence for this woman who had a body image issue. And I but but obviously that body image like I would preach to myself most women, I think when they’re in that predicament would hesitate, getting in a swimsuit and getting in the pool. But I told myself many years ago that I would never be that mom. That would be the sideline

Where you would have cancelled the trip and you could have easily just said, I’m too far along pregnant. I don’t think it’s a good idea. We go with maybe something behind the scenes of going, I just don’t want to wear a bathing suit.

Right? I wouldn’t

Do that, but I know that that’s something that happens

To me. That could have been me, though that could have. I mean, I and no one would have thought anything of it because we literally went two weeks. Gilmore didn’t go on the trip. Yeah, I mean, and that was part of it was a surprise, too, because we thought I was doing June and then we found out I was due five weeks earlier, which is another story also in a different way.

And you didn’t have the baby. You’re on the road. Nope, great.

And I swam every single day and it felt so good. And I think that, you know, for me, I’ve been on RV three month RV trips, pregnant with my eighth with Eli and hiking all over in the Great Smoky Mountains and New York. And I mean, we went all over. We were visited thirty four states and it was good for me during that part of my pregnancy. I actually came back from that three month RV trip and only had gained two pounds. Wow. And it was during my third trimester and he was a nine pound,

Five lbs baby. And then everywhere else on, you got smaller.

That’s right. And so I think my point is is sometimes working out doesn’t always have to look the same. Sometimes it’s doing hard things like for us going on an RV trip when I was seven, six, seven and eight months pregnant with Eli while I was doing hard things and and it was good for me, though it got my body moving. So this time around, being postpartum, my son gets engaged and I’m like, Oh man, I’m going to have a nursing baby at the wedding. Now I get that. That’s probably like three percent of the population, right? Like if you try to. Google nursing friendly mother of the groom dresses, you’re not going to find a niche for that.

All right, what but what are the tips on?

That’s right. So what I did was I started working out three to five times a week. That was something you were super helpful with because obviously I need somebody to help me with Zander and the kids like we had a family meeting. Isaac actually led the family meeting after I shared with him that I was really feeling low, that I needed to have a regiment of working out. I really needed a boot camp myself into gear so that I would have the energy for all the things that I knew were coming up with the wedding, right? Because honestly, I was getting tired. It was hard for me to go down to the beach with you when you wanted to play, you know, that was a bummer for you. And so we had a family meeting. The whole family was behind me and so supportive and was on gear to help with the baby and help with the other toddlers so that I could work out three to five days a week. In addition, I started really cutting down my portion size. So aside from doing, you know, up to 30 minutes of cardio and doing some weights and stretching, I started paying attention to the portion size of every meal. Now when you’re breastfeeding, I get this question a lot.

How many calories did you take in Angie? So I tried to take in between 20 and twenty two hundred calories every day because that’s what’s recommended for breastfeeding moms. But I would calculate how many calories I was taking, and I would count in that. When you’re breastfeeding, fully breastfeeding because he wasn’t on baby food yet. You’re burning about 500 calories a day, just breastfeeding. And so it’s a give and take, obviously based upon your kid and how much they’re nursing. But that was in my mind. And then working out, I would I would spend about 200 calories. I didn’t really know for sure regarding the weights and the different exercises, but I could calculate as far as the cardio goes. And so on average I was I was spending burning between seven hundred and eight hundred calories a day, maybe more if I was going out in grocery shopping and different things like that. One way to keep track is using like an Apple Watch or something like that that helps you keep track of your steps as well. And I have to tell you, like it was super encouraging, like the days where I could calculate, Wow, I’ve burned like thirteen hundred calories or fourteen hundred calories. That’s exciting.

Yeah. And so I did start losing weight pretty quickly. So the caloric deficit is definitely a way to go. But I found that getting sleep was also a huge thing because when I don’t get sleep, it puts stress on my body and then I hang on to weight. And so I kind of made this like rule for myself, and I asked a few people on my young living team actually to hold me accountable, feel free to hold me accountable because I want to be in bed by this time. And I told them and they would text me every now and again and say, Hey, how’s that going? And so having accountability partners is another huge benefit. Obviously had family, but having people outside family is good too. But also telling people, you mentioned that you shared with a thousand people, I did that by sharing my Insta stories like, Hey, I’m doing this, and some of you joined me in in this effort. And that motivated me like the fact that I was somehow being able to inspire you to do something like that held me accountable because I was like, if I work out them, they’re going to work out and then we’re both going to be doing better. And so that was a huge blessing to me to be doing it with community and with people.

And so there was food like portion size, sleep becoming active, drinking lots of water and electrolytes. Isaac wanted me to put this down on the ground because it’s not part of the brand. But if you’re watching the video, I don’t know if it’s still going or not, but I have this huge bottle that I’m. I drink this at least four times a day to make sure that I am drinking enough water and I make sure I get electrolytes so I don’t get over hydrated because that was a problem that I was experiencing as well. Super important to have sodium based electrolyte drinks. So that and then prayer. I invited God into this journey with me, and I really do think that he blessed me because I was doing it for the right reasons not to, like, get skinny for the wedding because that would have been like impossible. But I did it because I I wanted to be healthy and I wanted to make it to the all the events and I wanted to not be too tired and I wanted to. I wanted to feel good. I didn’t want to be sore and achy and in pain.

Yeah, at the wedding. Well, what’s really cool too is you’ve continued, nothing’s changed since the wedding. If you make a goal, there’s a warning. If you make a goal for a short term event after the event’s over, you’re going to go back to your old habits, right? So this needs to be a permanent long term. Don’t don’t make a deadline on the end of your effort, right? Ok. Like, Oh, I’m going on this vacation and then but then after the vacation, you just go back to your old. No. You don’t want that. You can. You can have that in your sights, but it really needs to be a life change. And and I’ve seen that in you, and I was joking with you the other day that your skinny jeans are baggy and true, and she laughs at me. But I think it’s really cool because you’ve got to give them the numbers. So one ninety seven is probably over two hundred, actually. I better one ninety seven. And then you’re down

To right now I’m at one sixty two. It’s amazing. And it’s been since the third week of August actually is when I started. Yeah, so and right now, it’s the first week of November.

So it’s so amazing and so encouraging to so many people. And I think all of you who have encouraged Angie because I know you’ve made a difference. Yeah, even if you’ve never met her before, but you’ve connected on social media and stuff, it makes a difference. We pay attention to everything.

You know, one of the things that was a huge motivation to me, too is Proverbs. Thirty 17, it says she dresses herself with strength. What does that mean to dress yourself with strength? And then it gets really clear and makes her arms strong. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. And this is again, Proverbs 31. If you go and you read the entire chapter, it’s talking about all the different things that she’s doing an excellent life wife who can find she’s far more precious than jewels. It’s this passage of scripture where she’s going out and she’s seeking warm flax and she’s buying the vineyard and she’s doing all these things right. And then it says she makes herself dresses. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arm strong. Why does she do that? She does it so she can do her work that God has given her to do. And that was my whole motivation is like, I want to be able to take care of my kids. I want to go be able to pick up my azure order by myself with my toddlers and not be like, Oh man, I can’t lift this 50 pound bag of chicken people.

By the way, she’s such good food. Thank you.

Yeah, but you guys, when I did that, like when I went and I picked up our Azure order and I had like a 50 pound bag of chicken feed and a 50 pound bag of diatomaceous earth, I was like, I did this and it felt good because I used to do that in my 20s and my 30s. But then I like had to start taking a teenager to help me every time because it was too heavy for me. And like now, I can do that again. And I like it’s not about like, Oh, look at me. Hear me roar. It’s no like, these are jurisdictions that God has given me, and it’s feels good to be able to do the jobs that God’s giving you to do. And so like, I am super motivated to try to stay, to try to stay going at the habits that I’ve been developing. I think that, you know, adding in a protein shake when I get tired versus snacking, like one of the other things that I just have to add to the list of things that I did, I stopped eating after dinner like and I didn’t realize that just even like eating one almond or eating one thing at like 10 or 11 o’clock at night was going to put on the weight. But it really actually does. Because when I cut doing that, I that’s when I saw the inches start falling off was like the little sneaky snack over here and there and like going, Why am I even buying those silly goldfish crackers? They’re so bad for me and the kids,

And it messes with your metabolism. You’re trying to train your body, to burn fat and to use their nutrients. It’s taking in the right timings of the day and things, and you’re kind of confusing it. The best way I can say you can look it up. You’re confusing your body when you have that little snack later, right?

So starting your day off and getting your metabolism going earlier in the morning is super important, but then ending it at an earlier hour and then going to bed early. I just think that those are the hugest game changers, but, you know, doing all in the name of Lord.

Amen. Well, we hope this was helpful for you. I’m so glad you wanted to do this, Angie. I think it’s really important, more important than ever. And how can you, you know, equip confident Christian kids for an uncertain world if we don’t have the energy to be active and involved and we need to be and we need to help with those grandkids down the road. So I think it’s a really relevant message and I appreciate you being so transparent as usual with everybody and sharing because I know it helps a lot of people. So yeah. Anyways, courageous parenting, get all the show notes and everything, and we hope you love the episode and it was helpful.

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