You're Not Stuck - You're Avoiding the Hard Thing

Proverbs 4:1 “Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching." 

Proverbs 4:4; "Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth."

Proverbs 4:12 "When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble."

Proverbs 26-27; “Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil." 

4 Ways Step towards God:

STEP 1: IDENTIFY WHAT YOU’RE AVOIDING - Be honest. 

STEP 2: DO THE HARD THING FIRST - Not later in the day. First.

STEP 3: STOP WAITING FOR EASY - It’s not coming. If it were easy everyone would do it. 

STEP 4: BUILD ONE HABIT - Every hard choice builds confidence. 

What hard thing have you been avoiding? Name it. Then make a plan to start today.

Today’s Action Step is to do the hard thing first. 

Holy Father forgive me again. I come to You with a weary heart. I am so tired of making excuses and thinking I know everything, yet do nothing. Give me courage to face what I’ve been avoiding Lord. Help me to choose strength and growth over comfort. I have too much information in my head Lord, help me to forget it and focus on You and where You are leading me. Help me take action, even when it’s hard or doesn’t make sense. I trust You Father, lead me to Your perfect and everlasting path. Amen.

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

Do you feel stuck, like nothing is working, like you keep trying, but you're not getting anywhere? Even after, well, this time, listen to me, yak on and give you tips, like it's still a struggle. I wanna gently challenge you today.

What if you're not stuck? What if you're just avoiding the hard things that would actually move you forward? Have you ever heard of analysis paralysis or information overload?

I need you to stay with me here. This one might step on some toes. Hey, friend, welcome to the podcast where we talk about weight loss a little differently.

Not just calories and workouts, but the heart, the habits, and the beliefs behind it all. Because this isn't about just losing weight. It's about becoming the woman God is calling you to be.

So if you're tired of starting over, stuck in cycles with food, and ready to invite God into this journey for real change, once and for all, you're in the right place. So let's get into today's episode.

Don't forget that the 30% off of the Biblical Weight Loss Framework is still available to you through the end of the month. That's $150 in savings, and you still have a split payment option. So go to herweightlossmindset.com and check it out.

So today's word comes from Proverbs 4.1. I'm going to share with you quite a bit from Proverbs 4 today. So verse 1 says, Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight.

For I give you good precepts, do not forsake my teaching. Did you hear that? I give you good precepts, do not forsake my teaching.

Then we move down to verse 4. It says, get wisdom, get insight. Do not forget and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

Oh, so good. All right, now we're going to skip down to verse 12. When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble.

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines ever brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble.

Then we go to 26 and 27. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the left or the right, turn your foot away from evil.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that the process of growth is simple, but it's not easy. And most of the time, we avoid discipline, discomfort, we avoid consistency, because it's easier to stay where we are even if we're frustrated there.

Listen, I have worked with women trying to lose weight and to get healthy for over nine years, and I have learned one consistent truth. This applies to myself and my own personal journey as well.

We take in more information that we even know what to do with. It swirls in our heads. We know all the things.

We eat healthy. We move. We pray.

We study. Yet we're still stuck, or maybe not stuck, but stubborn. I recognize these habits in myself often.

We have so much knowledge, yet little movement. We've tried everything on our own to lose weight, except actually listen to the direction that God is taking us and where we're to trust him.

For years, years, I've heard women say, I've said it a thousand times myself. I just want to eat what I want and lose weight. Then when I tell them that they actually can, they look at me like I have horns growing out of my head.

Surely, I can't. Surely, you don't want me to eat all this food, gain a little weight, and then trust that I'll lose it plus more. Surely, that's not right.

Yet, that's exactly right. And there's an entire science behind it, but we don't want to hear that. We'd rather starve ourselves in an effort to lose a pound than implement a macro plan that allows us to live life and reach our goals.

Like, you're not stuck, you're stubborn, and you're not listening to God. I mean, there it is, my friend, plain and simple. So do you know what would help?

Planning your meals, saying no to late night snacking and scrolling, moving your body consistently, following a macro plan. But those things require effort. They require discipline.

So instead, we delay, we make excuses, we go on to the next diet, we get an ozumpek shot. Like, your brain is still stuck, your waist size keeps growing, your head is not healed. But God's plan is better.

Most women out there just aren't willing to let go and let him work. I know it took me 18 months to figure out that he was still waiting there for me to listen.

Avoidance, it might feel safe in the moment, but it keeps us stuck in endless cycles of defeat, starvation, frustration, over training, lack of energy, self-loathing, saving recipes. We're never going to cook. Like, the list goes on and on and on.

Aren't you tired of all of that?

Today, I'm sharing four ways that you can stop this cycle and take a step towards God. Step one, identify what you're avoiding and be honest. God already knows, so you might as well face it.

What's the one thing that you know that would help that you keep not doing? Well, I would say one thing is joining the biblical weight loss framework, and maybe another is following a macro plan.

Maybe it's your fear of exercise or tracking food or deleting social media. Maybe it's getting up early. Like, what's your number one?

Or maybe what's your top three? Write them down, pray over them, and ask the Lord where you have a mental block, and ask Him to help you take that away. These are things we specifically implement in the framework.

Step two is do the hard thing first. Not later in the day, not when you feel like it, first. Okay.

Well, we always get up and pray and read first. Like, pray for one to three minutes just to get started. Read your Bible for three minutes, journal for one to two minutes.

Like, there you go, five-minute miracle morning, and then get your sweat on, and then get your food prep on. That's, then do your hard thing. Like, you're always praying and reading first.

If it's getting up early, if that's your number one hard thing, then that's what you write down. Step three, listen to me. Don't tune out.

Stop waiting for easy. It's not coming. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Ease will not come, but Holy Spirit strength will. Discipline will. Conviction will, and God will lead you through.

This is not easy. It's gonna suck. You're gonna want to quit.

You're gonna want to give in to your cravings. You're gonna want to give in to the lies in your head. You're gonna want to give in when you're on your bike at 5.15 in the morning, and your legs give out and say, I don't want to anymore.

I haven't ridden my stationary bike in probably a year and a half, probably since we brought Attlee home. This morning the Lord was like, get on. I wanted to quit eight minutes in.

I looked at the clock at three minutes in, six minutes in, eight minutes in, 11 minutes in, 12 minutes in, 13 minutes, like literally it was the longest 30 minutes of my life. I was pouring sweat by the time I was finished. I didn't go fast.

I'm trying to maintain that steady state zone to cardio. I was pouring sweat. I literally the entire ride said, Lord, help.

Lord, give me what I need. Lord, thank you for this body. I wanted to quit a thousand times.

I love to exercise. It's my favorite part of the day besides drinking coffee and talking to Jesus. I didn't want to.

It pushed me. It's not easy. This is not easy for me.

Doing leg day yesterday was not easy for me, but it is part of a discipline that I have built because I know when I struggle three minutes into my workout and I call on the name of the Lord that He's going to show up for me and He's going to do the

same thing for you. But you have to show up. You have to start the hard thing. You have to say, you know what, this is probably going to suck today, but that's okay.

I'm not doing it for myself. I'm doing it because the Lord told me to obey Him and this is my temple that He lives in and I'm unhealthy and I'm sick of it. Like I'm done.

Easy is not coming, my friend. There's nowhere in scripture that says that life is going to be easy. In fact, it says it's going to be hard.

What I have found is the more I learn to lean on Jesus, the harder it gets. Can I get an amen? Your last step is build one habit.

I talk to you about this constantly. Every hard choice builds confidence. Every time you follow through, you grow.

Pick that one thing again after prayer and study and do that one thing every day for a month, even if it sucks. When I was 250 pounds, I could not finish the warm up in my turbo jam workout. I couldn't do the warm up.

I quit after the first time for almost a year. Then one day, I decided to try again. I didn't even have the Lord back then.

I mean, I did. He was there for me. I just wasn't even trying to connect with him.

It didn't get easier, but by golly, I kept going. One minute, one minute longer, one minute longer, one minute longer. Now it's a workout I do for fun, but it took time.

It took years. It will take you a year to get in a good headspace. So sit back and make time.

Stop being in a hurry. Heal your brain so you can heal your body. One prayer, one verse, one meal, one push-up at a time, slow and steady wins every time, my friend.

But slow and steady doing it, God's way, not yours, because clearly your way has not worked.

You can save all the recipes and the workouts and the cute outfits you're going to buy, but they don't mean diddly if you're not actually making the time and the effort to do the work. I love this Thomas Edison quote.

He said, opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and it looks like work. It doesn't get much clearer than that. If you want it, you have to work for it.

Most people are going to listen to this podcast and doing the same mundane crap day after day after day. I pray that you'll finally take this step to something different and only you can decide.

Are you going to let God change you or will you stay stuck and be exactly where you are one year from now?

You are standing at the edge of change and hesitating. You don't need to feel ready. You're never going to feel ready.

You just have to start. Did you listen to Mel Robbins' TED Talk yet? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go.

You just need to move and trust that you will fall. You're going to fall. You're going to have one really good workout one day and you're going to half butt it the next.

So what? Good for you for showing up. The Lord is going to catch you every time.

Just because you have a really good workout one day and one struggle the next day, that doesn't mean that you're failing or that you're not strong. It means the opposite. It means that your body is growing.

Keep pushing. The Lord is there to catch you and if you join the framework, I'll be there for you too. So you have two action steps for today.

I want you to name the thing that you've been avoiding and then make a plan to start. Do the hard thing first today, not tomorrow. Today, unless it's 10 p.m., then you need to stop listening to a podcast and go to bed and you can do it tomorrow.

Do the hard thing first, right after you shut off this podcast, right after you wake up, as soon as you get home from work or lay the baby down for a nap. Five, four, three, two, one, go. Lord, forgive me again.

I come to you with a weary heart. I am so tired of making excuses and think that I know everything, yet I do nothing. Give me courage to face what I've been avoiding, Lord, and help me to choose strength and growth over comfort.

I have too much information in my head, Jesus. Help me to forget it and focus on you and where you are leading me. I want to take action, Lord.

Even when it's hard, it doesn't make sense or it doesn't feel good. And I trust you, Father. Lead me to your perfect and everlasting path and help me remember that when the time gets hard and I know it's going to get hard, that you're there with me.

And it's not about the weight loss. It's not about my waist size. It's not about the cute outfit.

It's about honoring this temple that you have given me. I love her, Lord. Thank you for blessing me with this body that I get to live in every single day.

Let me never take her for granted. Amen. Beloved, this isn't about doing everything perfectly, okay?

This is about becoming consistent in the things that actually matter. Waking up, spending time with the Lord in prayer and in the word. So don't just walk away from this episode inspired.

Walk away making a decision to start every day with Jesus. What is one thing that you're going to do differently today? Just start there.

And if this episode spoke to you, share it with a friend who needs it too. Because you are not the only one who's walking through this. And if you would, would you go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review?

It helps me to know that these messages are encouraging you. Please know that I am here cheering you on. I am praying for you.

And if you want to work with me one on one, just shoot me an email to info at herweightlossmindset.com and let's talk about how we can work through your personal journey. And I will see you back here for the next episode. God bless.