Revitalize Your Life: A Journey to Abundant Health and Fulfilling Your God-Given Purpose w/ Katrina Sequenzia

Ever wondered how your physical health and spiritual journey intersect? Get ready to shed light on this critical, yet often overlooked, aspect of our Christian walk with our inspiring guest, Katrina Sequenzia. As someone who has personally undergone a health transformation, she passionately conveys why our bodies, as God's temples, must be cared for and nourished.

We kick off our conversation by reflecting on the profound Scripture from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. With an engaging exploration of its context and relevance to our bodies as God's dwelling place, we connect the dots between the Old Testament Tabernacle and how we should treat our bodies today. Katrina then reveals her valuable Bible study tools that keep her anchored in the Word, providing insights that you can easily incorporate into your routine.

In our pursuit of physical health, we cover seven key areas:

• worship
• rest
• hydration
• sleep
• movement
• nutrition
• exercise

With Katrina's expert guidance, we unpack the significance of each and provide practical tips to make healthier choices. Hear about her simple yet effective Bible reading plan, her favorite study tools, and why nutrition is instrumental in glorifying God. We wrap up our enriching episode by stressing the need to be intentional in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and reinforcing the connection between our physical and spiritual well-being. We're confident that this enlightening conversation with Katrina will inspire you to prioritize health as a key part of your faith journey.

Website: healthyfreelife.com/coffeenandbibletime
Bible: CSB She Reads Truth
Staedtler Fineliner Pens
App/Website: Bible Gateway

Transcript

Mentor Mama: 0:07

Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. For those that may be listening for the first time, our podcast is an offshoot from our main platform, YouTube. Our channel is called Coffee and Bible Time, where our goal is to help people delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. We also have a website and storefront with Bible studies, prayer journals, courses, and more. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.

Mentor Mama: 0:35

I'm Mentor Mama, and today we're going to be talking about how our bodies are a temple and why that matters when we consider our health journey.

Mentor Mama: 0:46

You know, the passage in First Corinthians talks about our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit and to honor God with our bodies, and in these verses, Paul urges us to remember that our bodies are not our own, but they belong to God, and sometimes we just need a reminder that our bodies are instruments of righteousness and a reflection of God to the world around us, and our guest today, Katrina Sequenzia, is here to do just that reminding us of the importance of caring for our bodies so that we can be of use for God's glory wherever he calls us.

Mentor Mama: 1:32

She will also share ways in which to treat our bodies like the temple that they are. Katrina is the founder of Healthy Fr ee Life and is on a mission to help Christians ditch disease, lose weight, gain energy, and find food freedom by teaching them to create a sustainably healthy lifestyle in God's way. As a certified integrative nutrition health coach and registered nurse, along with experience from her own personal health transformation journey that she is going to share with us, she has coached thousands of others, helping them to transform their life and health so that they can live abundantly and fulfill their God given purpose. Please welcome Katrina.

Katrina Sequenzia: 2:19

Yay, thank you so much for having me here today.

Mentor Mama: 2:23

I'm so excited to have you here because this topic really is near and dear to my heart, but I want you to start with just telling us about this personal health transformation journey that you experienced.

Katrina Sequenzia: 2:41

Absolutely. I think it's important because who you see and who you hear in front of you right now is definitely not the girl I once was back in my early 20s. So a week before my 22nd birthday, I married the love of my life, my husband Chris, and it was just a few short weeks after I had graduated from nursing school and we spent that first decade of our married life living a very unhealthy lifestyle. So we eat fast food every day. I hated veggies.

Katrina Sequenzia: 3:09

I love Dr Pepper, worked the night shift as a registered nurse highly intense, very stressful trauma units, labor and delivery and because of this unhealthy lifestyle I suffered from things like chronic fatigue, allergy, asthma like in the ICU kind of asthma acne, excess weight and it was causing anxiety and I was really boarding on depression. And it wasn't as if we weren't trying to break free from all of these diseases, because my husband was just as burdened as I was. We did all of the diets and so I'm probably going to date myself here but the Atkins diet, the zone, the South Beach Diet, cabbage soup, flat belly, body for life all of the diets. Back in the day we tried to try to break free from some of these things that we experienced, but it was a but God moment for me. By the time I hit 30, you see, I was a wholly hot mess and I was miserable, and I finally, finally, was like I'm going to start praying about this right. And so, as I began crying out to God for relief from the physical burdens you know, he didn't heal me overnight, as I had hoped. Instead, he really showed me how to eat and live his way and then forever walk away from that diseased diodera path that I had been on.

Katrina Sequenzia: 4:25

And so it was in 2009, several years after I had started my health transformation, that God really spoke to me and gave me a mission to teach others how to get healthy and free as well, because he gave me this vision that his church is sick and dying and that God just lit a fire under me that we, his people, must be physically healthy if we were to fulfill our God given purpose.

Katrina Sequenzia: 4:47

And so I made that mission official back in 2009.

Katrina Sequenzia: 4:51

And I attended the largest nutrition school in the world, became an integrative nutrition health coach, and which really worked beautifully.

Katrina Sequenzia: 4:58

With my past experience, and since 2010, I've dedicated my life to sharing this message of health and healing with over 100,000 Christians, and and then in 2018, my husband and I decided to work more globally in and try to impact God's people all over the world, and so we founded our healthy, free life Academy, where we've been teaching and supporting thousands of students to get healthy and free, and I'm so excited I'm here to share my message with you, and I can't wait because I think that it's really important for us to remember that. You know, I didn't learn how to eat and live healthy as a child in church, right, or as an adult, for that matter, and our bodies really are the temple of God and we want to care for our bodies in order to keep them healthy, and I know that because we didn't learn this in church and how to do that. I'm on a mission to change that, and so that's why I'm really excited for us to talk today.

Mentor Mama: 5:53

You know, I think what you you touched on there is just so critical in the sense that if we are going to fulfill our God given purpose, we need to be right at the optimum, just like an athlete would be in optimum format to do what they do best In every way to. We want to take care of ourselves, and I'm really fascinated by you know the fact that you, like myself, didn't. I didn't grow up in a home where food was seen as medicine or as a way of really taking care of your body. But what I hope our listeners here today is that you can change. Like you know, I once thought it was impossible, and it's only because I got an autoimmune disease that my my lifestyle habits really changed and turned around. But it can be done, and so please stay with us. If you're listening, I think this is going to be so encouraging. So, Katrina, let's go back to what the Bible says about our bodies as temples. Tell us a little bit about what you've learned about that.

Katrina Sequenzia: 7:13

Yeah, so I think that the most famous Scripture that we can all probably think about is in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19 and 20, where and I'll just go ahead and read it for us where it says don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own for your bought at a price, and so, therefore, glorify God with your body? And so I mean that's, your body is a temple. I mean, I just listened to a secular show last week that talked about my body's a temple. You know, it's like it's thrown around so very much in all realms, right, but really let's. I think that it's important for us to even go through the framework of that Bible verse, kind of like you teach with your easy framework for Bible study, and I think that we should talk kind of first about the context of that scripture and what's happening in the book of Corinthians, and then how do we then connect the dots and apply it to our own life in the here and now? And so, just like you talk about in that easy framework. So we've got to go back to that original context and we want to understand that the book of 1 Corinthians is technically Paul's second letter to the church of Corinth and he's addressing a plethora of issues and challenges that that very vibrant but very imperfect church is facing. So things like rivalry and division and theological confusion and sexual immorality, which was really the where we're going to be heading in our in our next section here. So really the main theme, if I were to like sum it up, is Jesus is Lord, we are his, we are believe or believers are his possession, and he implores them to live in a way that reflects their identity as God's people, right? So that's really kind of my own personal summary there.

Katrina Sequenzia: 9:03

So this Scripture, 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20, is really nestled in to the section where Paul is addressing the Corinthians views on sexual immorality, and so he's really correcting their perspective on the sexual behavior and relationships. And he, you know he says that you know, our bodies are not our own. We were bought with a price to glorify God with our bodies because the Holy Spirit is living inside of us. Right, theologically, this is profound.

Katrina Sequenzia: 9:32

This is like a mic drop moment in, you know, in in that letter, in my personal opinion, and it because it really highlights that as Christians, we know this, but to remind ourselves, like we're the end, we're endweld by the Holy Spirit, right? Our bodies, therefore, are not our own. They are the dwelling places of the Holy Spirit, but with a price, and what were they bought with? It was the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and so we've got to understand this context, to remind ourselves that our bodies are sacred and our actions should therefore honor God. As a result of that, God calls us to be holy, and so we must seek to live in a way that reflects his holiness in our personal lives, including how we care for that temple.

Mentor Mama: 10:18

Yes, absolutely. You know, when I knew we were going to talk about this passage today. I just want to applaud you for putting it into context that, yes, it absolutely is in the context of sexual purity, and I was looking up this commentary on it and just a couple of things I pulled out of the commentary that I thought were so cool was it says you know, your body is the temple, the Holy Spirit. A temple is a place sacred to God and pure from immorality. So if it is true, we are filled with the spirit, this truth must influence our sexual behavior in this context. And another thing too that it said that really I thought was so fascinating as well was that this principle applies to more than our sexual conduct.

Mentor Mama: 11:11

If our bodies belong to Jesus, we also have no right to be idle with or wasteful of what belongs to him. Our bodies should be put to use glorifying God. So I love that you have sort of pulled from this passage and are encouraging us with that. So tell us about. How does the Old Testament then relate to our New Testament? Temple of our body.

Katrina Sequenzia: 12:33

Yes, absolutely. I think that if I could go around just helping connect those dots for people, I like my mission would be accomplished, because I think we need to understand what that really means for us here in our New Testament, the New Covenant timing. So we really need to go back to the Tabernacle and the temple from the Old Testament. And so in the book of Exodus, if we were to read chapters 25 through 31, it is one of my favorite passages in Exodus because it's talking about the intricate instructions for the construction of that Tabernacle. And then later, if we were to fast forward to when Solomon was building the physical building of a temple, starting in First Kings six, it was a marvel of craftsmanship and beauty and people came from all over the world to see it and it was. You know, both of these structures were just adorned with precious metals and fine materials and beautiful fabrics and stunning artistry. These were like marvels of their time and they were a sacred place that reflected God's glory. And so I believe that this, like we just need to be in awe of what that was, even if we to see it in our minds what that was, if we could read those scripture and let it come alive. It is a powerful backdrop to understanding the transition to the New Testament and the New Covenant. So, instead of a physical structure, our bodies are now God's dwelling place, and so, as we talked about, we're that sacred place that reflects God's glory.

Katrina Sequenzia: 14:03

And so this is, you know, whereas before, in the Tabernacle and Temple, where God would only dwell in the Holy of Holies, that inner chamber right, it's a foreshadowing of now, like we have that Holy of Holy inside us, and I think that that significance that's that's incredibly significant to how we care for our bodies and how we treat our bodies, and so to I think that women especially need to be reminded that they're holy and beautiful in God's sight and that we are His and that this house, we carry His presence wherever we go.

Katrina Sequenzia: 14:45

And so we are beautiful because God is beautiful. And so I think that it should just inspire us to treat our bodies with reverence and care, just like in the Old Testament, where the instructions were, you know, books long of instructions on just how to care for that temple, and if you missteped, like, there was like consequences, death was a consequence of a misstep with the care of that temple. And so I think that we just need to recognize that we need to have that same reference for caring for caring for our bodies in a way that that has that like if we were sitting in the Holy of Holies, under the light of God, in that Old Testament temple, what would it? What you know? What would we? Where would that light shine that we would be like? Oh, these are the areas of my physical health and my mind health and my emotional health that I need to care for, because he's holy and he's good and I want to be holy as well.

Mentor Mama: 15:43

And I love how you just you know, you brought it back to the fact that the holy of holies was such a sacred place, and to think that in the New Testament, then under the New Covenant, that God has allowed us to be that place is mind-blowing, and it should bring us to a place where we really do reflect on the importance, then, of taking care of this temple that the Holy Spirit is living in. Well, what would you say, does it mean to honor God with our bodies?

Katrina Sequenzia: 16:29

Yes, so you know, in 1 Corinthians 6, so, again, going back, paul is addressing that issue of sexual morality, and so he reminds them that their bodies are that temple, and he's cautioning against that sexual sin. But to honor God with our bodies in this context, obviously, you know, is that refrain from that sexual immorality, right? So don't defile your bodies. But I don't think that we have to stop there, and, like you were saying so, we can definitely expand upon that. And so, because those bodies are our bodies, are precious gifts from God, intricately, fearfully made, then how do we then begin to respect and care for it and just find gratitude with it? So we've got to take care of our physical health, just like the Old Testament, when they were caring for those temples, they cared for the temple physically, they spent hours a day caring for that temple, and so we do not want to defile the holy of holies in the Old Testament temple.

Katrina Sequenzia: 17:29

So we want to avoid habits that also harm our bodies as well. So neglecting our physical being is really not honoring God to our fullest, and so so there's that. And then I also believe that the Bible emphasizes self control as one of the fruits of the spirit. Right, so we want to want to avoid overindulgence, not just in sexual matters but, like you were mentioning, in all areas of our life, and so this includes our relationship with food. Over eating and indulging can lead us to unhealthy disease bodies, which ultimately dishonors God and his temple that he's given us, and I believe that we are called to be the healthy hands and feet of Jesus, and if we're burdened with excess disease and excess weight and exhaustion, then there really is no way that we could be effective in ministry.

Mentor Mama: 18:19

It certainly does make it, I'm sure, more challenging, that's for sure. Well, why do you think the health of our temple really matters, when it comes right down to it?

Katrina Sequenzia: 18:35

Yeah, I think there's. I think there's several reasons. When I talk to women, one of their deepest desires is to grow in relationship with God, and what I love is that's exactly what your ministry is about, right, so I love that. So my journey to a healthy, free life brought me closer to God as I followed him and his plan for my health. So back when I cried out to God like he brought me on a journey right as I walked through this physical transformation, my spirit also was transformed and my relationship was deepened with the Lord. And so many women don't realize this that their physical transformation facilitates a deeper connection with God and their spiritual life. So I know that many of your listeners are like you know. They want to go deeper and deeper in their, in their understanding of the word and in their relationship with God, and physical transformation can definitely take us there. I'm sure that you can attest to that, ellen, with your story as well.

Mentor Mama: 19:35

Well, if anything, I can relate to it from the standpoint of really having to put it in God's hands and rely on him to help me transform some really behavioral habits, if you will. That you know on my own doing would have been impossible, especially when they were just like ingrained ways of living. So, really taking the time to educate myself or, in the case if this is all new to you, I mean there has to be a period of really educating yourself to understand what. What exactly do we mean here? And I know you'll have an opportunity. Well, let's just jump right into that. So how can we start treating our bodies like a temple and honoring God with it?

Katrina Sequenzia: 20:29

Yeah, I think that it's important to you know, just be reminded of, you know, the other reasons why our health matters is that we are called to serve God and others effectively, right? So our healthy body enables us to do that, because when our physical health is in good condition, we have the energy and the vitality to fulfill our God given purpose. And so healthy body is going to enable us to fill all of our roles and responsibilities effectively. So it's going to allow us to provide for our family. We're going to be able to care for loved ones, whether that's our children or our grandchildren or our alien parents. And it's also going to empower us to say yes to ministry opportunities to serve our communities, not just now, but five years, 10 years, decades from now. We want to be healthy and vibrant in order to be able to truly live that out and fulfill our calling, and so, therefore, like, how do we then begin to do that? How do we begin to treat our bodies like a temple? How do we begin to honor it? So we, as Christians, we really want to begin to seek to align our lifestyle with God's plan for health. So, honestly, jesus gives us the model throughout scripture. And so, because we understand that God does focus on our body health, our mind health, our spirit health. He sees us as a whole person. Right, then we also need to take this God focused, holistic approach to our health as well. It's going to require us to depart from fad diets and man made approaches. It's because we're not going to find the answer in the latest fad diet or the latest weight loss drug. And so and the beautiful thing is is we don't need something fancy or complicated like all those diets I tried in my past. We just need simple eating and living God's way. And so there are a hundred of ways that we could possibly improve our body, mind and spirit health, but with my education and experience, along with the Lord's wisdom, I've determined that there are seven critical areas of health that we must focus on if we want to maintain a healthy temple, and so these are my seven habits of a healthy, free life.

Katrina Sequenzia: 22:38

So there's, and it's holistic. So it's worship, rest, hydrate, sleep, move, eat and exercise. So worshiping God by treating your body as a temple, through worship, stressing less and embracing God's gift of rest. We want to hydrate our temples with water. We want to rejuvenate our temple through eight to nine hours of sleep. We want to honor God through loving movement throughout our day. We don't just want to be sitting all day long, which is many of us are prone to if we're not careful. We want to nourish our temple with what I call God's glorious foods and eat these whole foods that God's given us to heal, nourish and energize our bodies, and we even need to embrace exercise, which is to strengthen our temple for God's work and God's glory right. We want to be strong, healthy temples that God can use now and decades from now. I want to be on the mission field still when I'm 90. I don't know about you.

Mentor Mama: 23:33

You know what? Absolutely. I think. You know one thing that was so inspirational to me. It was actually just like a month ago. I was at a museum and I looked over and I saw this woman and my guess is she was probably in maybe her early 90s, but she was there walking on her own, completely erect. She had a pair of jeans on. I just I was so inspired because I hear she was still fully enjoying life and I said to myself at the time I'm like I'm sure it's because she's taking such good care of her herself and she's really able to live life to its fullest, hopefully for a very long time, God willing right.

Katrina Sequenzia: 24:28

Yes, yes, I'd love to. It's one of my future goals to do a documentary on women such as her and go around and say what is your key to success? Because you know, it's not as if we're doing any of these healthy habits in our lives to live longer. My goal is not to live to 105. That's not what I'm doing this for. It's that whenever the Lord decides to take me home, I want to be the healthiest I can up until that point, or just that life span where it's like those last years that the Lord would have me on earth, would. It would just be a short, sweet death where, like my great grandmother, who woke up one day, she was 94 years old and she looked at her husband, she said, earl, I think I'm going to, I think the Lord's going to take me home today, and and he did Right, and. But she, you know what a what if a man wish we could all go that way, but she was not sick and diseased up until that point because she too cared for her temple and valued that in her own life as well.

Katrina Sequenzia: 25:23

And so these seven healthy habits are habits that we want to do and incorporate into our life, and we want to do them for the rest of our every day, for the rest of our life, and so, unlike a diet that we do for 30 days, or we're going to do for a season, or it's the new year, we're going to do this new thing, I think that we've got to break away from those things and we've got to walk towards this, creating this healthy lifestyle that serves us without effort and work. These are things that I love doing every day, throughout my day. Why? So I can be here, like doing what God's called me to do, to have the energy to talk and to and to be used by God wherever he would bring me Absolutely.

Mentor Mama: 26:02

And there's one thing that I've learned, so, coming out of having an autoimmune disease and really sort of reshaping, through functional medicine, my whole way of eating and exercising, even on the exercise part, I've learned that my body is capable of so much more than I thought it was. I think I had a lot of mental blocks and barriers to what I thought I could do and things like that.

Katrina Sequenzia: 26:35

So yeah, you know, exercise, I think, is one of the exercise of all the habits, is definitely the hardest one for my students to get up and going with, and I think that because we've thought of exercise wrong. We always have thought of exercise as something we should do and it's something to burn calories and all of those things. But the real, the reality is that, of all the healthy habits, exercise is the one that, like you said, build strength on our frame and it is the most powerful habit for longevity. And if we don't move it and if we don't rebuild muscle because it's, we're losing it every day, especially those of us who are perimenopause, postmenopause, as we age, we are like losing muscles on the daily, losing muscle on the daily. And the only way to bring that back is through strength training and proper nutrition. And we need this frame in order to be able to have that strength when we are 70 and 80 and 90 and beyond.

Mentor Mama: 27:33

Absolutely Well, tell us some. Somebody might be listening today. That's like I'm not even sure if my temple is unhealthy Like what. What are some signs that people should be? I'm sure some are obvious, but maybe some other ones aren't. So tell us what. Yeah.

Katrina Sequenzia: 27:50

Yeah. So you know, obviously we're going to think about our physical, physical things, that we can look at ourselves physically in the mirror and say, yes, this is, you know, an unhealthy physical frame. So we might have things like obesity or chronic fatigue or chronic pain and disease. So you know, it's really important to look at things like being overweight or are being obese, because it is like it's not just about how we look, it's really those. You know, obesity and is really linked to things like diabetes and heart disease and hormonal balances and cancer and autoimmune disease and and all of the things that will, if we're, if we don't take care of it, will lead to chronic diseases that will kill the majority of us. And so physical is easier to see those. But I really love us, love for us to really kind of dive a little bit deeper and look at some emotional, mental and even behavioral signs. So, even though we might look in the mirror and maybe we're not, we're not physically suffering from diseases yet let's look at some emotional, mental and behavioral signs as well. So our emotional, mental being is because it's definitely connected to that physical health. So signs would be emotionally you're increased stress, you have may have anxiety or depression or mood swings, right. So when our bodies are not well, it's going to affect our emotional resilience and mental stability. So, for instance, back when I was, you know, I hit that holy hot mess moment in my when I was 30, like I had anxiety that was buzzing inside my chest and I remember talking with one of my pastors and going like my chest feels like it's buzzing all of the time and I was tired and I was wired, I was exhausted and I was making me depressed and I thought it was a spiritual, mental, emotional issue. But come to find out, I had hormonal imbalances that were driving this anxiety inside and it wasn't until I began to heal my temple like it, like I did, I thought I was going to need medication to overcome and really all I needed was a physical transformation that really began to balance things in my, in my hormones and in my body.

Katrina Sequenzia: 29:56

But then you know, we also can look at nutrient deficiencies from our poor diet choices, like eating too much sugar. It can begin to affect our brain function. So maybe we have brain fog and fatigue and things like that. They can also lead to anxiety and depression. But I think that one thing that we really need to look at which is kind of where it gets a little ouchy is our behavior. So we can really look to our behavior to find clues about the health of our temple.

Katrina Sequenzia: 30:24

So when I think about that, it goes back to like, what are? How are we eating? Are we overeating or indulging on unhealthy, unhealthy habits? Are we neglecting self care? Right? So are we not exercising? Are we not getting adequate sleep, for example?

Katrina Sequenzia: 30:40

You know, and going back to that overeating and emotional eating, it can be response to stress, right, or emotional struggles, and so these are definitely behavioral signs that we want to look at, that if we're not careful, these will lead to a diseased body as well.

Katrina Sequenzia: 30:56

And so you know, something that I think is super important is that I believe that when we fully understand that the you know if we are three or four on the emotional or behavioral scale. So, out of a scale of one to 10, if we were to say you know what? If I were to ask you, okay, tell me about your emotional eating, or tell me about you know how you care for your body, and if you were to give yourself a three or four, we can't be in nine on the spiritual scale, and so there's absolutely connected that we must be all healthy, right To be truly spiritually healthy, we need our behaviors to be in alignment, we need our emotional health to be in alignment, our physical health to be in alignment, because we are body, mind and spirit, and so those are definitely signs that we can look at to say, okay, where do I rate myself here? And, most importantly, maybe it's time for me to do something.

Mentor Mama: 31:52

Well, for people that you know are hearing this and maybe they're thinking, and maybe feeling encouraged to go about sort of updating their temple, what are some steps that people can take for restoration?

Katrina Sequenzia: 32:11

Yeah, I think that there's some key steps that I have recognized that are some of the first steps that people need to make before even doing their first action, if you would.

Katrina Sequenzia: 32:24

So, instead of thinking about exercise, I think that we've got to go through a little series of things first, as first is just a willingness to begin, and it seems so simple, but it often is. The most challenging one is that we have resistance to start, and I believe the enemy would love nothing more than for us to stay the same, stay stuck in our poor habits, stay stuck in our poor health and to stay incapacitated from being able to do his work. And so this first step of just being willing to get on the path on the journey to a healthy, free life is the number one step. So we've got to lay down our excuses, we've got to get past failures that we've had in our life, we've got to overcome any fears, and we just need to be willing to take that first step. And so that very first step, after that willingness like, okay, I'm going to do this is we've got to partner with God. And so the next step is to realize that, like you even said, like your journey was linked to all right God. I can't do this on my own. Mine was as well. Like all right God, all these man-made ways are not working and I'm a holy hop mess. What are we doing? And so what do I need to do here in this moment? And I'm willing to partner with you, and then we need to look to his word and we need to find the wisdom and the strength that we need for this journey and remember that God is with us every step of the way. But it's important to surrender the results to the Lord at that point as well, recognizing that the results belong to the Lord and we're just here to take those faithful steps, one after the other. So that's really one of the first things I have my students do is to really partner with the Lord, and I give them a prayer, and in fact, I can share that with your listeners here in a minute when I share how to connect.

Katrina Sequenzia: 34:03

But I think that one thing as well is that we need to really make our health a priority, and I think that we've not really been taught how to do that in our life. We've taught how to prioritize work. We've been taught how to maybe prioritize family, prioritize our spiritual health, prioritize time of the word, prioritize our church ministry, like we have all of these great things that we are doing in our life and people in our life that we are prioritizing, but we really prioritize our health and it's not being selfish to care for your body. So many women believe, especially in the church, believe that it's vain or it's selfish to take care of their physical health, and I would argue with that night and day, because I believe that we've already discussed how important that it is, and so we really wanna be able to look at our calendars and our to-do list on a daily basis and we wanna see health actions listed there, and so that's super important that we prioritize it.

Katrina Sequenzia: 35:02

I also think that joining a community because, listen, they could be like I did this on my own and I clawed my way back to health.

Katrina Sequenzia: 35:08

This was back before the internet was what it was, and so I clawed my way back to health, read any books that I could, and it was a long, lonely journey, and a community would really have helped me to expedite that process, because they would have picked me up when I'd fall in.

Katrina Sequenzia: 35:25

They would have encouraged me along the way and kept me motivated and going, and then I think it's really important to follow a proven blueprint. So it's a blueprint that is not man-based, that's not based on the latest fad diet, like we've talked about, but really that's Bible-based, like what does God's word say? We need to keep our eyes on Jesus as we're going through this and really follow that his plan for health and eating, and so that's exactly what we do inside of our Healthy for Life Academy and we keep God at the center right. We're a community of believers that are there to support one another. My husband and I teach on all of these topics and provide that blueprint, providing the guidance and support to get healthy, ditch disease, lose weight and to really build that healthy lifestyle that lasts a lifetime.

Mentor Mama: 36:15

That's so encouraging. I was thinking about from my own perspective as well, just like what helped me sort of make this transformation. And one thing was sort of, like you said, getting in a community or finding other people who I can sort of hang out with that enjoy talking about. You know good health, or you know, I love listening to podcasts that are really encouraging that where you see someone like Dr Hyman, for example, who has dealt with patients who have diabetes you know, stage two diabetes and they've actually been able to completely transform their lives just by eating healthy. And so whenever I feel like maybe I might be hitting a setback, I definitely I put those on and I listen and I'm. It reminds me again and again like okay, I need to, because I do. You know, I'm sure, like all people, want to live in honor God as long as he calls me here to do that.

Katrina Sequenzia: 37:34

So yeah, and I'm sure that as you have journeyed, you've began to feel the freedom from the habits that you did and still in your life, right. So you're feeling the freedom physically from that, right. And so we're all bound to go astray in that, because, while it like we want to begin to create that healthy lifestyle that is easy and serves us, it doesn't mean that we were not prone to lose sight of that. And because we just lose, we can lose focus in our life. Maybe it's a season that we hit or a timing that we hit in our life.

Katrina Sequenzia: 38:07

And you know, there was a season in mind, even like five, six years ago, going through some trauma in our home, with, with my children, and I put myself on the back burner as I was, as I was serving my family to my fullest capacity.

Katrina Sequenzia: 38:19

My health in my, in my own habits went to the back burner as I did that, right, and it was after that season that you know, okay, alright, lord, I know exactly where, what I need to be doing and what I should be doing. And then it's a reorienting to that and bringing back awareness to it. And it's because we're just, we're habitual creatures by nature for not right and we are going to want to go back to old, easy ways because that's just, you know, that's our fleshly human nature, and so it does take intentionality, staying aware and being present and and just you know, day in and day out, and that's why I just love that, you know. You know, creating that simple system of looking at those seven areas of health can really create some simplicity, a simple framework to say, okay, these are the things that matter most. All the other things sure are great, but they're what's really going to move the needle with our health?

Mentor Mama: 39:11

Yeah, absolutely, and I think you know, just in the society that we live in, there are so many distractions that can pull us away from trying to stay on course, and that's why, again, I think, when you can be doing this with other people, it really really, it really helps. So does well, katrina, how can people connect with you and learn more about your ministry?

Katrina Sequenzia: 39:45

Yes, I would just love to stay in touch with your listeners and just encourage them on their journey to a healthy, free life, wherever they're at, from the beginning to the to the, you know, at any place in that journey, just to be connected and give them that next step.

Katrina Sequenzia: 39:58

And so the best way to do that is just to subscribe to our lifer newsletter, and it's one of the few emails that you're really going to look forward to receiving every single week.

Katrina Sequenzia: 40:09

So you're going to get an email from me that, just as a dose of learning and inspiration, a fun food fact and engaging story, and because we do have a community, I want to share a result with you every single week of somebody in the community that's busy doing the thing and what's happening in their life, just to encourage you and inspire you in your own.

Katrina Sequenzia: 40:28

And so when you sign up for my life for newsletter, I'm going to also send you my healthy, free life starter kit. So it has the glorious God's glorious food listing in it, along with a seven day devotional and a prayer, the one I talked about, partner with God. So I have a prayer there that you can use to get started with that, and so it's just going to be a great way to let you know exactly what are those those additional steps past that and so you can go to healthyfreelife. com/coffeeandbibletime. So, all one word healthyfreelife. com/coffeeandbibletime. And I assume, Ellen, that you'll also put that in the show notes for people to easily link to.

Mentor Mama: 41:11

Yes, we will include all that information in the show notes, for sure. Well, Katrina, before I let you go, I want to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions. What Bible is your go to Bible? Which translation is it?

Katrina Sequenzia: 41:26

Yes, yes, so I am. You know, I've been a believer since I was a child and I've been in the church ever since then and I have collected many of Bibles throughout my lifetime and I still have my precious moments Bible, my King James version from back in the day, and so I am currently. For last few years, I've been using a Christian Standard Bible version from She Reads Truth. I love my, the leather and the in the tabs on the side here, and I just I've come to love this version so, very much, and so that's the version that I'm using.

Mentor Mama: 42:04

Awesome. Okay, we will include a link for that as well. Do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you like to use to enhance your Bible study experience?

Katrina Sequenzia: 42:15

Yeah, I'm a, I'm a very simple girl. So I follow a five a day Bible reading plan. So I used to try to read through the Bible in a year but realize that I never fully got into the depth and the breadth of God's word that quick of a pace. And so I read the New Testament one year and the Old Testament the next year, and I cycle back and forth between them and so I, so I follow by Bible reading plan for that. So I believe it's five a day Bible reading plan is is all that is. It's not very complex and what's wonderful is we actually follow that together as a community inside of our our program. So it's something that we just share if people want to follow along.

Katrina Sequenzia: 42:58

But I am super simple. I use Stadler Stadler pens, so these are their fine liner pens. I've tried various different highlighters in my life, but I'm an underliner, not a highlighter, so I love to underline things. And then, because the she reads truth has the margins, so I'll just jot, jot notes. I've always wanted to be like this a fancy journal or that wrote draws beautifully.

Katrina Sequenzia: 43:26

But I overthink and I'm too much of perfectionist and so I don't and so I don't actually journal and much as much in my Bible as I should, because it's just like it's so holy and I want to be perfect and I don't know why I do that. But those are my, those are my resources that I use, and then just a notebook to jot down the word that God has for me. I have two sections in my notebook. One is what God is showing me personally, and then what is. And because I, because God is the center of our programs, it's like if there's a word that he has for me to give to our people, then I have like a separate section in my notebook for words that God has for the people that I serve. So I'm just the vessel that go through and so I share that when I can.

Mentor Mama: 44:12

That's beautiful, all right. Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Katrina Sequenzia: 44:20

Yeah, so I think it goes back to the simplicity. For me it goes back to always obviously having the Youversion app so I can reference. I'm always referencing Bible Gateway in my studies and the and the, the sort of art I'm sorry the concordance options that you can find, but I think that for me it's just super simple and just the one page PDF from the website five, you know five a day Bible reading plan and and I keep it super simple I'm a little old school, I guess you could say Awesome, I love it.

Mentor Mama: 44:54

Okay, well, katrina, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your expertise in this area of nutrition and reminding us of the importance of taking care of our bodies so that we can glorify God.

Katrina Sequenzia: 45:11

Yes, Ellen, it was an honor. I pray that it's a blessing to those who listen.

Mentor Mama: 45:16

Thank you and for our listeners. If this topic resonates with you and you would like to learn more, be sure to connect with Katrina. We will have all of the links in our show notes. Thank you for joining us. We love you all. Have a blessed day.