Changing opinions on exercise

I laughed out loud over a week ago when I read an article in my local newspaper reporting a survey that stated exercise is not necessarily helpful in losing weight. Unfortunately, I can’t find a link on the Internet to the article, but it was a substantial study done by reputable researchers.

They were not discrediting benefits from exercise, but wanted people to know that exercise is not a cure all for losing extra pounds.

Why?

Because too many people after a heavy workout at the gym go home and reward themselves with food—eating more than they would have eaten if they had skipped the gym and just come home. The net effect of eating more as a personal reward negated any caloric benefit from exercising.

Oh, the changing winds of mortal opinion and belief…and they will continue to change and revise until thought settles on a spiritual solution for extra weight gain.

I thought the report was healthy for public consumption because it declared that there is no single material remedy for conquering obesity. To make flat statements of “exercise more,” may not be helpful for many people.

The Bible teaching, “Exercise thyself to godliness,” is perhaps the healthiest program to follow. A godly thought will manifest itself as godly action, and godly action will in turn protect the body from mental influence that throws it out of balance.

With recessionary pressures felt in many places, a spiritual exercise program such as this is budget friendly too!

Shaping up from within

I haven’t read Victoria Moran’s book “Fit from within,” but I like some of the ideas she has to share on losing weight without diets by integrating a spiritual component.

She wrote in part:

The people I know who maintain weight losses indefinitely and who do so without anxiety, are those who have, in whatever way fits their own religious and philosophical sense of things, surrendered their eating and weight issues to some Higher Power. This is not the same as promising God you'll never overeat again, nor is it making deals, begging and pleading, or acting pitiful in hopes of receiving divine pity. (If you've done those things, you know how poorly they work.)

Instead, including a spiritual component is simply knowing when you're
up against something that is too much for you and your best intentions to handle on your own. It's realizing where you're weak and depending on something strong, whether you think of that as God in heaven or a Power that, although beyond your human ego, resides inside yourself.

She also wrote with tongue-in-cheek:

Anybody who has been able to made a god out of a snack cake certainly has enough imagination to envision Someone who gave you the stars and the seasons, your son and your daughter.

As I read the above, I was reminded that true fitness is a state of Mind, of the divine Mind expressed through us. Any ideas that help us demonstrate more dominion in our thinking over the excesses of mortal mind that lead to excess on the body are going to benefit humanity’s effort to lose unnecessary extra weight.

Thank you, Victoria, for sharing your life experience in tackling a tough problem for many from a spiritual point of view.