Choose the Narrow Path: Healthy Choices in a Fast Food World

Matthew 7:13-14 says “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy1 that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. 

That tells us clearly that we are to be set apart and not conform to the pattern of the world. Making time to food prep weekly will help you make better choices. There are so many ways to prep snacks and meals but you have to MAKE the time. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, you may just need to prioritize better. 

How much time are you scrolling social each week? If I had to guess it'd be enough time to prep food for your family. In the BWLF I encourage students to do a social media audit. 100% of the time they've been shocked to see how much time is wasted on social, mindless scrolling which is NOT biblical and keeps us distracted from doing what's best for ourselves and our families. 

I like to bulk prep my proteins, keep full cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, Shakeology, fruits, easy to snack veggies and steamable options for when I need a quick throw together. If you have to run through the drive through in a pinch opt for a grilled chicken wrap or salad and if you prefer a sandwich, skip half the bun. Make sure you have an Rx bar and a palm full of nuts on hand, they're a great go to instead of the drive through. 

You can make better choices, have a plan and go! And don't forget, Thursday at 12pm EST I'm giving away 1 hour of coaching to 3 people who review my podcast and share a screenshot in my Free Community! Find the links to join below! 

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

I worked in outside sales for over 15 years.

I mean, it was not uncommon for me to hit the drive-thru very often.

Like, I would hit Subway for breakfast.

I'd go through McDonald's for what was at a Carmel Macchiato on Friday.

Like, that was my Friday treat.

And I'd grab a hash brown.

Like, it was easy, but it was not cheap, and it definitely did not make me feel good, like at all.

When we go on road trips, Darryl and I love to travel.

We love to do road trips.

And on occasion, like, we'll run through a drive-thru.

And we're both like, why do we eat that?

Like, I'll pack wraps.

I'll pack all kinds of snacks.

But sometimes, like, on the way home, you just got to grab something fast.

And it never makes us feel good.

And my gosh, you can't go to McDonald's and spend less than $20 anymore.

Like, it's crazy.

And we know that easy does not get us to our goals.

And convenience, oftentimes, means that we're sacrificing our convictions for a quick fix.

But is that what God calls us to?

I have read the Bible over and over for almost 10 years, and I've never ever read anything about doing something that's easy or convenient.

Quick and convenient is not a way to honor God.

How can we honor him with healthy choices in a culture that is convenience driven?

We're all about being busy.

We're all about filling our calendars so full that we don't have time to food prep for our families or sit around the dinner table and eat.

How can we stop focusing on what's easy and start focusing what's right and God-honoring in our Biblical Weight Loss Journey?

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.

So Thursday, the 22nd of May, I'm giving away three hours of free coaching, but you have to be in my free community and you have to go review my podcast on Apple Podcasts and share a screenshot in that free community.

In the show notes, you can find the links to my Insiders List.

So if you click on the Insiders List, enter your email.

I will send you a link to the free community and I'm going to send you weekly Biblical Weight Loss encouragement, inspiration, recipes, all kinds of things.

No spam ever, I promise.

So go to the show notes, join my email list.

I will send you a link to the free community, go review my podcast, share a screenshot in there, and Thursday, I am going to select three people for one hour of free coaching.

So Matthew 7, 13 to 14 says, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard and leads to life and those who find it are few.

Ooh, that's pretty heavy.

That tells us clearly that we are to be set apart and as we know from Romans, we're not to conform to the pattern of the world.

I know that this is not easy.

Making time to fruit prep weekly will help you make better choices, not just for you, but for your family.

There are so many ways to prep snacks and meals, but you have to make the time.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day.

You might just need to prioritize a little bit better.

I really want you to think about how much time you're spending scrolling on social media each week and do an audit.

If I had to guess, it would probably be enough to food prep for your family.

So in the Biblical Weight Loss Framework, I encourage students to do a social media audit.

We will work on this in the first two steps of your program.

100% of the time that we've gone through this, I've been doing this now for over seven months, they have been shocked to see how much time they're actually wasting on social media.

We know that mindless growling is not Biblical and it keeps us distracted, which is what the enemy wants.

And we know that we do not want to stay distracted.

We do not want to stay in doubt and defeat in our weight loss journey.

Distraction keeps us with doing best for ourselves and our families.

So for me personally, like I like to bulk prep my proteins.

I've done tons of podcasts on how to prep.

I keep full fat cottage cheese, Greek yogurt.

I drink Shakeology.

I've done Beachbody since 2017 as a coach.

I do Shakeology for lunch every single day.

I keep easy to grab fruits, snackable veggies, steamable options for when I need a quick throw together for dinner.

If you have to run through the drive-through, maybe in a pinch, opt for a grilled chicken wrap or a salad.

If you prefer a sandwich, maybe just eat half of the bun and make sure I love those RX bars.

I keep the variety pack, they're like 20 bucks.

I keep a variety pack in the pantry at all times, so I always throw one in my bag when I'm heading out because I never know when I'm going to get hungry and need a healthy snack.

You can grab, we are Costco shoppers, so they have this massive bag of raw deluxe nuts.

If you like the salted, that's fine, I prefer to salt my own, but they have this bag of raw nuts and I will scoop out a quarter cup serving of nuts, throw them in a plastic baggie or my little Tupperware to go, and I will keep that in a bag in my car.

They are a great go-to, like if you pop a handful of nuts in your mouth once or twice a day, don't overdo your fat serving, you want to stick to a quarter cup total per day, but to throw half of that or in your morning snack and then the other half in your afternoon snack, that is a great way, you're getting protein, you're getting a little bit of carb, and you're getting a healthy fat.

That is the best way to keep up that hormone production, make sure you're staying full, and it will help you skip that drive-thru.

So in the Biblical Weight Loss Framework Nutrition Step, we go through and plan a daily meal together to make sure you're getting enough of the right foods, and I give you a prep schedule with the recipes to help too.

So if you have a mental block about prepping, I really want you to take it to prayer and seek God's direction.

He will not guide you to the drive-thru.

He will call you to lay down yourself, lay down your excuses, and get to the grocery store and buy whole healthy foods to cook for your family.

This is not about prepping processed food from the middle of the aisle either.

This is about learning to prayerfully cook and eat the way that God has called us to, to take advantage of the plants and the grains and the beans and the fruits and veggies that he has put on this earth for the animals that he has given us to eat.

Avoiding McDonald's and fast food with seed oils especially is key to reaching your Biblical Weight Loss goals.

You have to know what you're eating.

So if you have a drive-thru place or you just know that that is going to be part of your daily life, go look at the menus at some of your favorite places and check the ingredients and the fat count.

If they are using seed oils, avoid it.

These are things that can build up cancer cells in our bodies.

So many of the women I work with think that they need to eliminate carbs from their diet and that their weight loss issues is coming from a high carb diet and usually it's fat.

It's fat that's keeping them stuck and fast food is the worst kind of fat to put in your body.

Now listen, I am not promoting low fat, no fat.

I am absolutely a proponent of fat.

I eat 72 to 75 grams of fat every single day.

But they're not coming from seed oils.

They're not coming from fried fast food.

They're coming from nuts, avocados, hummus.

They're coming from cheese, from whole organic milk.

The quality of the things that you put in your body are going to determine if you are reaching your goals or not.

Listen, I know that this takes time.

But you have to ask yourself, are you ready to truly make a change?

Or are you going to stay stuck in your excuses and lack of time management?

Listen, I love you enough to tell you you need to do an audit of where you're spending your time.

If you are taking kids to sports practices and all of these things every single night, and you don't have any time to eat as a family, you really need to ask, is that what God calls us to?

I just read a book in our discipleship class, I think I've talked about this before, and it talks about how we make our kids idols.

We want our kids to be involved in this and involved in that, and it takes away from the family unit.

They're not spending time in church, they're not spending time together as a family with no screens.

It's constantly running from place to place, practice to practice.

It is not glorifying God.

Eating healthy whole foods is a way to honor God.

And leaning into that fruit of self-control that we read about in Galatians.

Ask him to help you and lead you and guide you, and I promise that he will.

You are worth making time to spend three hours in the kitchen if it's going to make feeling better and feeding your family better.

Do you want them walking through the wide gate or the narrow gate?

Because they're gonna learn by what you show them, not by what you say.

So be sure that you are setting the right example.

My niece, she's six years old, and from the time she was little, I had her a lot.

My sister-in-law went right back to work after she had her.

My brother stayed home, so every week I would go get her.

And I had her a lot on the weekends.

We still try to get them.

And spending time in the kitchen, like I would prop her tiny little tushy on the counter, and she would help me cook.

She loves to make a milkshake.

We make Shakeology shakes when they're here.

Like that is one thing that she's always done is we like to be in the kitchen together.

They learn by what we show them, not by what we say.

You can do this.

You are strong and bold, and you are created in the image of the god of the universe who created everything that we see.

So I want to challenge you to commit to making one intentional food choice today.

And don't forget, I'm giving away free coaching this coming Thursday.

It's not too late to review my podcast and post in the free community.

The links are in the show notes.

Okay?

I will see you in there.

I know these lessons are hard.

I know this is going to take some rearranging of your time and some thoughtful prayer and leaning into the Holy Spirit of Conviction.

But we operate in a heart posture of obedience to what God is calling us to do.

All right?

You can do this, my friend.

Happy eating.

Hey, sis.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend?

Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple Podcasts.

It lights me up to know this podcast is helping you.

Okay, it's time to go make a protein shake and get my sweat on.

No more standing in the kitchen waiting for motivation to appear.

I will meet you back here for another episode.

God bless.