Absolute.

TTTT: “Sugar is not a drug.” Truth:  If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it's probably a duck.  Or in this case, a drug.  I can picture it like it was yesterday.   I remember the scene perfectly.   The first time I ever heard someone compare sugar to a drug.   I was approaching 200 pounds and in a room full of people of similar and larger sizes.   …And stilllll oblivious to the fact that this was an effort to get me (and others) to think critically about what we were eating.   He spoke of his own efforts to avoid added sugars.   He told “folklore” of how processed sugar was originally kept under lock and key.   I didn’t think he was lying, but I thought he was seriously misguided.   I compared the lock and key story to prohibition and dismissed both as mistakes.   (Alcohol not addressed in this post, TMTR for sure!) About 3 years later, I did my first round of Whole30 .   Whole30 allows ZERO sugars- natura...

 TTTT: “My physical health doesn’t affect my ability to lead others.” Truth: ‘Good leadership starts with leading yourself well and then letting that overflow into the lives of others.’  ...paraphrased from Steven Furtick I once believed there was a dichotomy separating my leadership and my physical health.  I was reading leadership books and having lots of leadership conversations.  I served as a volunteer leading the children’s ministry at my church.  I was young.  I made lots of mistakes and I did a few things well.  I knew my physical health was lacking, but I didn’t believe that it had any impact on my leadership.   I thought- ‘if it isn’t important to me, why should it be important to anyone else?’   As I have improved my health year over year, I have been shocked by how much my physical health is connected to every other component of health.     It sounds crazy until you experience it for yourself, but I can’t tell you ...

“The ideal weight range for my height is an unrealistic standard for me.” Truth:  Your mindset is what needs to be adjusted, not the standard.   I used to say this one A LOT!  I would look at those numbers and it felt like they were on a completely different planet.  At one point, I was 100 pounds heavier than the bottom number for my height, almost double the “recommended” size.  It’s no surprise that those numbers felt impossible.  I had a long list of reasons why those numbers were unrealistic (my weight in high school, my athletic build, prescriptions I was taking, etc.).  There are a LOT of factors that affect your weight.  That is real.  ANNND that is why the recommended weight is given as a weight range , not a singular number. The range accounts for the variables and factors.  Don’t be confused, I’m not dismissing your list.  Even today, as a “healthy weight” individual, I still have a list of variables and factors ...

  TTTT: “Diets don’t work for me.” Truth:   Diets don’t work for anyone, lifestyle changes do.   I don’t recall ever saying this one out loud.   I reserved this one exclusively for the internal dialogue because, even back then, I knew it was a lie .   Verbally lying to someone else is a sin, but somehow lying to myself felt less dramatic.   I told myself that diets (plural) didn’t work for me, but I had made a respectable effort on only one (singular) diet.   It WAS working.   …It was also working for Matt (my husband).   It worked better for him than it did for me.   I fell victim to the comparison trap and I quit. I said it didn’t work for me.   But it did work.   It worked better for him, and I used the relative comparison to convince myself that it wasn’t working for me . Many of us are susceptible to this.   Maybe it is working but it’s not working as well for us as it did for someone else.   Or, m...

TTTT: “I’m too old to change.” Truth: It’s still worth it! This is a special edition in the TTTT series spotlighting a guest contributor, Louise Lefler.  This is her story... Two years ago, at the age of 68, my health was spiraling down.   I was eating fast food for most meals, not exercising, and stress was a huge issue.   I started having daily digestive problems.   I was telling myself, “ I am too old to make any changes and too old to start trying to lose weight and eat healthy.”   No one else told me that I was too old, but I believed this for several years. I was missing out on family gatherings and my grandchildren’s sports activities.   Continuing to miss their important future events was a struggle I had to overcome.   Something had to change.   After much prayer and listening to what God said about me, not what I said, things started to change.   My mind was where all the negative talk and self-destructive conversati...

  TTTT: “I got fat genes.” Truth: Weight is not an inherited trait. I used to say it a little differently.   I would say “I didn’t get skinny genes.”   Or “Everyone in my family is fat.   I am supposed to be fat and there’s nothing I can do about that.”   This wasn’t a huge exaggeration.   Both sides of my family tree are filled with people who are overweight and obese.   It is a prevalent theme in my family heritage, and those who don’t measure up to these labels are the outliers.    I don’t know EVERY one of their stories, but I do know several- many of them maintain terrible diets, lead inactive lifestyles, have physical handicaps, unaddressed traumas, etc.   There are SO many factors outside of genetics that are contributing to the shape of my family tree.   Yes, genetics and DNA are real, but BMI is not an inherited trait.   Your height is an inherited trait.   Certain things about your skeletal frame influen...