Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton

God's Temple: Taking Ownership of Your Physical and Mental Wellbeing

• Matt Walton • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Faith and physical discipline are deeply interconnected, with scripture providing motivation for bodily stewardship. Taking care of our health isn't just about physical appearance but about honoring God's temple and developing mental fortitude for Kingdom work.

• The transformative power of 1 Corinthians 9:27: "I discipline my body and make it my slave"
• Losing 55-60 pounds through an animal-based diet focused on nutrient-dense foods
• Progression from simple morning walks to running and bodyweight training
• Pushing through mental resistance builds spiritual muscles alongside physical ones
• Eliminating distractions like podcasts and social media creates space to hear God's voice
• Maintaining healthy accountability through mentors and trusted relationships
• God provides everything we need when we quiet external voices and listen to Him

Focus on the Lord, remove the noise, and listen for His next instructions. Your next season may look different, but clarity comes from seeking Him first.


Speaker 0:

What's up, guys? This is Matt with A Vota Talk, or the Real Matt Walton. This is your hub for all things Kingdom, business, businesses, ministry, business strategy. My goal is to provide as much value, minute by minute, each podcast that you listen to. So let's get to it. What's up, guys? This is Matt Walton with A Vota Talk, or At the Real Matt Walton, depending on how you found me and welcome back.

Speaker 0:

So today I'm gonna try something a little bit different. These are gonna be shorter videos of exactly where the Lord has me right now on a couple of different things, and one of the things is my bodily and mental discipline. So there's a couple of things that I've always struggled with, and that is taking care of my health, specifically watching how I eat and then exercising right. So back in high school I had no problem exercising, but it was more in vain, if you will. And what God's done now? Since surrendering my life to the Lord, he has restructured it to have more of a biblical value to it. So what I mean by that is in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 27,. It says but I discipline my body and make it my slave. That's huge for me, because what that has done is it helps you also develop the mental discipline that a lot of us lack. That is restraining us from getting to the place where I believe God wants us to get to. So there's some things that we have to do and I want to really be graceful with this but also understand that I've been there and I am still working off my fat, but I do not believe for a second. Now, I understand there can be illnesses and all of that, and this is not. That's not what I'm talking about, unless you're using it as an excuse. But we need to quit allowing ourselves to be unhealthy. That's equating us to us being fat. That's equating to us not being present. That's equating to us not having the energy or the mental clarity that we need to have. So quit allowing yourself to fool yourself into believing that it's okay to be overweight or to be fat and I realize those are the same thing but we need to start really asking God to change our mind on those things.

Speaker 0:

The next thing is with this. So one of the things here's my steps of how it's worked for me. Specifically, I changed my eating, so I don't know. Y'all can go back maybe 20, 30 videos and y'all can see my face is like a balloon faces like a balloon. I was 216 pounds about six months ago or so. I've lost close to 55, sometimes 55, 60 pounds right around there. Now I'm trying to put on some weight, but put on more muscle weight, and I'm really focused on losing my lower belly fat. I've never been able to do that ever in my life. I've always had a little bit of pudge, regardless if we're talking whenever I was a child or not. I was never a fat kid, but I always had a little bit of pudge and so right now I'm working to overcome that.

Speaker 0:

And how is I am eating very strictly. I am watching my diet and I specifically eat meat like organs, eggs, raw dairy like raw milk, raw cheese and a lot of fruits it's known as animal based and I cook with tallow and salt and grass-fed butter, depending on what what I'm cooking, but I eat a lot of hamburger, some chicken steak. I eat a lot of organs when it comes to liver and heart, I'm getting into spleen and different things like that. But what it does is it makes me feel absolutely incredible. Though the weight loss is like a, like a side thing to me, it gives me mental clarity. I feel incredible. Weight loss is like a side thing to me. It gives me mental clarity. I feel incredible. My energy is through the roof and it helps me every single day work on not going and doing the things that I would have always done. I had no problem eating out three times a day. Ordering DoorDash three times a day that was easy for me and I was packing on the pounds. I had lost a lot of weight before.

Speaker 0:

After I bought this business, I lost a ton of weight, but that was because I was changing other things. I quit smoking and that aided in me just dropping weight quickly. But I was still eating garbage. It was always a joke in my mind. I can still go to McDonald's and still lose a ton of weight. But I started to put back on weight and now I've restructured all of that so that I can have more of a biblical perspective. This is my temple, this is God's temple, and so God has given me that perspective through scripture reading and through prayer. He's renewed my mind on that.

Speaker 0:

With that now I have started exercising. So I would always go on walks. I would go on morning walks. I started waking up earlier and going on morning walks and I would just make goals. Today I want to walk 25 minutes, 30 minutes, and then that rolled into running. And how I started running was I started doing 30 second intervals, so I'd run for 30 seconds, I would rest for 30 seconds, I would repeat that eight times. Now that's gotten to the point pretty quickly to where I'll run for seven and a half eight minutes. And then I'm also exercising.

Speaker 0:

Now, when it comes to I'm not lifting weights just yet. I'm doing a lot of body weight. So I have a circuit that I've built in my garage. I got a power tower to where I can do pull-ups and dips and crunches and different things like that. But I do burpees and sit-ups and pull-ups and just different things that I'm working on the discipline of exercising more than just walking and running. I'm also doing some things that are very, very hard, to the point to where you have to push past not wanting to do it. Your mind is going to tell you not to do it. This is when you know to be doing it.

Speaker 0:

I will find myself walking at 9 pm on Friday nights to overcome my mental laziness. And hey, it's okay, man, if you use tonight to watch a movie or whatever. It's not okay for me. I do not want to spend my time wasting my time watching movies or watching pointless television. In fact, I've completely eradicated that stuff out of my life. But then there's times whenever I get bored, and so what I started doing outside of reading is and reading scripture, studying scripture, reading books is now I'll go out and I'll run or a walk and actually I don't run at nighttime because my heart rate gets going and it's hard for me to sleep and I end up being restless but do the hard things and push past like they. I was pushing past me not to complete my morning workout, and this is like one of the days that I do actual bodyweight exercises, and to the point of like almost because I was pushing back and I was saying, matt, you're becoming the man that is in alignment with scripture and that I believe that God has wanted me to be. But we have to push past those very hard things.

Speaker 0:

The next thing with this is what God has really been speaking to me about lately is no more podcast and this is just the season that God has me and he may change that a month from now but no more podcast, no more exterior external noise. I am only reading books, or I'll listen to an audio book that is aiding in my relationship with Jesus Christ. I have put away the business books for now. I have only been consuming scripture and or books that are aiding in my relationship with the Lord. No more social media. I do not consume social media. I post on social media, but I do not consume social media, and these are things that I know God is calling some of you to do is to get back into that mental lab.

Speaker 0:

I know for me, like what God has continued to share with me is like, matt, I have given you everything, every idea, every one of your desires. I've given it all to you, all the systems, processes, people, relationships, rooms, favor, you name it. God has given it. But what I've noticed is whenever I take that into my own hands and say, hey, I can find maybe the next level in a podcast or in a book, I find myself like I am literally doing all of this and God continues to say, matt, I will give you everything. So I know God's speaking to somebody out there, but that is where everything I strive and desire for everything to come from is from the Lord and from that relationship with the Lord. So yesterday I spent several hours up into the mountains I live right by the mountains here in Las Vegas and I spent several hours up in the mountains just hearing the birds and the air and the Lord, and I read scripture. I made an altar right there. I just spent a lot of time with the Lord, hearing from the Lord, and God is speaking to somebody out there of just pursue the Lord. He will give you everything the new business idea, your identity, maybe the new system, process, relationship, whatever that is. God was so faithful, he will give that to you. But he is calling some of us to shut the noise out and only pursue him. And let me preface it by saying this then I'm done.

Speaker 0:

I'm not speaking about the isolation form of Christianity. That goes against scripture. That is not what I'm saying whenever I say just me and the Lord. I am around people. I have a mentor, I have a few people that are speaking into my life, my wife included, and I've got like about four people four people total, including my wife that speak directly into my life, and one of them I meet with on a monthly basis.

Speaker 0:

So make sure that you are allowing people to speak into your life because I promise you, like sin is blinding. This is according to scripture. We can be so blinded to our sin, and other people can help us see through our blindness and see exactly what it is that the Lord is telling us to do. So hopefully this encourages some of you today. The Lord wants to tell you everything and be the reason for your everything. So say focus on the Lord, get it done, remove the noise and just listen for the Lord, for those next instructions. And who knows what that next season will look like. Maybe you're back on podcasts, reading different books, doing different things, but I only want to do that whenever I get clarity from the Lord on that.