From Chaos to Consistency: How to Stick to Your Meal Plan with God's Help

Listen, if there's been an excuse to be made about eating a treat, I've made it. I love to eat and I love to cook, I love homemade desserts made with love and I love it when people love the things I make. I feel like cooking is my love language, so learning to set boundaries with myself here is often difficult, but I believe it's key to spiritual discipline practices and God's call on our lives. Here are a few things that helped me take responsibility for my choices and biblical eating journey.

1. I have to ask myself what I really want. Do you want to be overweight and reliant on food for joy? I don't and I imagine you don't either. Start to ask yourself this question any time you're faced with a question or struggle area. It works on more than food

2. Pray for strength to eat what God was calling me to, even if I am the only one. There were times, out to eat with people that I had to really pray for strength to stay on course with God's leading. It isn't always easy in the moment, but you ALWAYS feel SO GOOD when you are obedient! 

3. Trust Him, listen and obey, let Him give you a win so you have the courage to continue. The win won't come fast but it WILL come!

4. Know when it's time to feast and time to fast then DO IT. No shame, no guilt, no caving into the flesh. We're Holy Spirit led sis! 

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and NOT losing weight?

Hey there friend, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach. I gained 100 pounds in my late twenties and struggled for years to get it off. Seven years ago, I found a basic system that worked and has helped me lose 90 of those pounds. I’ve been working with women in online fitness and nutrition ever since to break chains of diet culture, embrace their bodies and fueling instead of dieting.

In this podcast, I'll teach you how to:

• • Lose Weight in a Way that honors God without obsessing about the scale
  • Meal Plan and Prep for Your Family
  • Follow a MACRO based plan that allows you to eat the foods you love.
  • Recognize and pray through triggers keeping you stuck.
  • I’ll help you Plan your week and schedule your self-care time.
  • Cultivate a spirit of self-discipline in your workouts you actually enjoy.
  
  It's time to give God your health journey and watch Him make you new, from the inside, OUT.

Join The Biblical Weight Loss Framework: https://www.herweightlossmindset.com/framework

Join my FREE Community: https://bit.ly/JoinTheChristianWeightLossCommunity

Join my Insiders List with weekly tips for weight loss for Christian women: http://herweightlossmindset.com/herweightlossmindsetinsiders

Transcript

Ooh, today we're gonna talk about chaos.

I know all about chaos.

Being 100 pounds overweight, constantly obsessing about food, it literally ruled my life for probably seven years, if not more.

It wasn't until I started studying nutrition and what my body actually needed, did I start to see the value in meal prep.

And this is how I built consistency in my plan with God's help.

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and not losing weight?

Are you tired of doubting your ability to actually lose weight in a healthy way?

Do you wish you could find a laid out for you plan that will help you stay accountable to your goals?

Hey, friends, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach.

I gained 100 pounds in my late 20s and struggled for years to get it off.

So grab your pre-workout and let's chat.

Being overweight is hard.

Knowing what to do is overwhelming and knowing who to trust is a struggle.

The Biblical Weight Loss Framework is a five step proven framework that will help you heal and healthy mindsets, set goals with God, help with meal planning, macros, and create a fitness plan just for you.

Through video training, homework prompts, accountability, and group coaching in the student community, you will stay encouraged on your journey.

If you are ready to take this step, visit the link in the show notes below at herweightlossmindset.com/framework.

That's herweightlossmindset.com/framework.

Oh, eating out, spending too much money, not buying whole foods.

I was always making excuses as to why meal prep just, you know, lax quote, didn't work for me.

It was a lie.

I knew that if I wanted to stop flinging spaghetti at the wall, I was going to have to pray for discernment and let God show me exactly what I needed and then ask him for the strength and conviction to actually like walk in obedience.

So here are a couple of things that I did in my personal journey to go from chaos to consistency and sticking to my meal plan.

It was only through prayer, Holy Spirit conviction that I've been able to do that.

Even on the days that I struggle, even on the days that I mess up, it's waking up in the morning with a clean slate, knowing his mercies are new every day and that I am not my food choices, I am not my body, I am a beloved daughter of the Most High God and so are you.

So a couple of things that I want to encourage you on, that I hope you will write these down and start to make them part of your daily habit.

I had to ask myself what I really wanted.

Did I want to be stuck in unhealthy mindsets, overweight, or did I want to be obedient to that Holy Spirit conviction inside of me that knew that God was calling me to change?

So in the morning when you're in your prayer time and you're asking him, you're praying that Psalm 139, 23, and 24, and you're asking him to dig up all the things in you that are not of him and to replace you or replace all of these things with his righteousness.

Ask yourself, what do I really want?

Do I want a 10-second burst of taste bud sugar high, or do I want to reach my God-given weight loss goals?

Do I want to walk confidently in my body?

Do I want to be consistent in a routine, knowing that even on the days that are harder and mess up, or I eat too much, or I don't eat enough, that God's grace is sufficient for me?

If you want to be consistent in your meal plan, you have to start just giving it to God.

I know I say that a million times over and over in this podcast.

You have to be obedient to the conviction to change.

You have to learn to say, in that moment where someone puts down a plate of donuts at work when you've said you're doing a 40-day sugar fast, Lord, give me what I need.

Father, give me strength.

Help me.

I know that this is an area of weakness for me.

Your word tells me that you're not going to give me a temptation more than I can bear, and that you're going to give me what I need to endure it.

He will provide for you.

Then you have to pray for the strength to eat what you know you need, even when you didn't feel like it, even when others are eating all the sugar, when they're living on that 330 caffeine jolt, when they're not working towards their goals, even though they told you that they'll be your accountability partner.

Trust me, I've been there a million times.

I've busted through so many accountability partners, it's not even funny.

But you stay true to your conviction.

I'm on the second read of the 40-day Sugar Fast, and in this lunch season, I'm fasting sugar.

I'm fasting snacky foods.

I'm fasting fried food, which I don't eat a lot of anyway.

And I'm fasting, well, I'm not fasting social media because I use it a lot for my work and my student community, but I'm really trying to limit the time that I spend there.

And so praying for God's strength, you know, day one and day two, it's like, oh yeah, it's a breeze, no problem.

But then the weekend comes and we go to my Amish family night tomorrow night and there's like the most amazing desserts there and like my temptation rises.

And even when I pray for strength before I go, like the thought is still there, oh, well, just what's one little bite?

One little bite is sacrificing your conviction.

If God has called you to fast, then fast and trust that praying through it, he's going to give you exactly what you need.

Trust him, trust him, trust him, trust him.

So he can show you a win to help you keep moving ahead.

He did this for me this past year when he really called me to lay down macros or lay down my weights and eat a macro-based plan.

And the year before, he'd called me to it, and I didn't listen.

And that first six weeks were really hard, but he just kept saying, trust me, trust me, trust me.

And then, I don't even think it was two months.

I lost 24 pounds.

Trust him, walk in obedience.

The first 45 days, I think I gained like six or eight pounds.

But then over the course of three months, like it just started falling off.

Don't trust the feelings in your head.

Don't trust the lies that tell you it's not going to work.

Trust that if God guides you there, he's going to give you exactly what you need.

Let him show you a win.

And that only comes through walking in obedience to his voice.

When you're tempted to treat at times, he will give you the strength to endure it and resist.

There will be times to feast and times to fast.

And discerning the difference will be key into how you change from the inside out.

So as I've been– I mean God's basically called me since October to give up sugar.

And so I bought this book.

A girl I follow on Instagram is reading it.

And I made– like I committed to this.

I think it was like middle of January.

And I went two weeks no sugar.

I didn't have any issue.

And then like I had one little bite.

And then you know how it is.

It's like the next day you have a little bite.

And then the next day you have a little bite.

And then like a week later, I like ate an entire like bucket of sugar basically in like 20 minutes.

And then I like didn't eat any.

And then I didn't eat any.

And then I didn't eat any.

And then I had a little bit.

And then I had a little bit.

And it like becomes this justification that you think it's so small, it's not a big deal.

But if God called me to it, it's a big deal.

He needs to be sufficient in him.

We're in a season of Lent right now.

And this time, all those years ago, Jesus was fasting in the desert for 40 days, no food or water.

And then he was gonna go die on a cross for our sins.

Can you imagine how weak he was after 40 days without food and water?

Even after the Last Supper.

I mean, it was, you know, Jesus' time.

And they were eating, like, loaves and nuts and things of that nature.

The Bible says we have more power than Jesus did when he rose from the grave.

So doesn't that mean we should be able to go 40 days without food?

I know people that go 40 days without food now.

Every year they do it as part of their Lent sacrifice.

We're called to self-sacrifice.

We're called to die to self every day.

Yet I ask my students in the biblical weight loss framework to do a fast in their last step, and they're like, oh!

But it's a spiritual discipline.

The Bible says when you fast, not if you fast.

It is required by God's Word in the New Testament.

We read all throughout scripture of people fasting and praying.

Esther fasted and prayed.

Everybody fasted and prayed.

You will never feel more connected to God than when you fast and pray because it's his power taking over.

So if you want to build consistency and remove the chaos from your life and remove the temptation that's constantly plaguing you, you have to start leaning into the cult of where he's going to lead you and then have faith to walk out that obedience regardless of the outcome.

We don't fast for vanity.

We don't fast for weight loss if it's a spiritual discipline.

We fast to connect intimately and deeply with our Holy and Heavenly Father.

If you think about food through the day more than you think about Jesus, it could potentially be an idol in your life.

This is a struggle I face.

Anything you're putting ahead of him could potentially be an idol in your life.

I'm not saying it is, I'm saying it has the potential to be.

Social media could potentially be an idol in your life.

Your Amazon cart could potentially be an idol in your life.

Shopping, comparison, there's so many things that can potentially become idols in our life.

I've made exercise and legalistic meal plans an idol in my life.

Stupid little things, but it's the truth.

Because the enemy wants us distracted and our flesh wants us giving in, because our human nature is not good.

So if you're hanging out with people who don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, and they're just living how they want to, and you're over here trying to walk in Holy Spirit obedience, it's going to be real hard to live life with that person.

When you're trying to maintain a spiritual discipline of fasting and listening to the Holy Spirit and finding consistency from chaos and letting God lead this plan that He has called you to.

They say that you become the sum circle of like the five people that you spend the most time with, right?

Something like that.

How does that make you feel?

Who are you becoming?

God will give you exactly what you need.

He will help you create consistency from chaos in your meal plan, in your life, in your relationships, in your finances, in your workout, in your body.

But you have to surrender control.

You don't have it anyway.

He's just waiting for you to stop and be still.

You can do it.

You can do it, you can do it, you can do it.

As Ice Cube would say, put your back into it.

It's a daily choice.

Don't think about tomorrow.

Don't think about a week from now.

Don't think about the party that you have coming up on such and such a date.

Focus on today.

Lord, give me what I need today in this moment.

Let him be your strength.

Let him be your provider because tomorrow doesn't matter.

It's not here yet.

If you're blessed with another day, let's start to live a self-sacrificial life because we're preparing for eternity instead of focusing on what our taste buds need today, or what our dopamine hit from social needs today, or what our endorphins need from a good workout.

I'm not opposed to any of those things.

I'm just saying perspective is key.

How does your perspective look?

Are you ready to remove the chaos, step into consistency, and let God help you in your planning?

I hope so.