How to be Consistent with Healthy Eating, Working Out, and Staying Motivated: 5 Steps to Overcome Quitting!

Ever wonder why being consistent with your food, workouts, and motivation is SO hard?

This blog will give you the reasons why and 5 things you can do to that work!

I want to introduce you to Christine because her problem is many of our problems, but she beat it in the Lord.

She came to me because she couldn’t stick to her goals. She would do really well for a couple of weeks, but then she would quit. She asked me to help her understand why she kept quitting. I asked Christine if she had ever made God the God of her fitness goals. She laughed and said, “What do you mean? He doesn’t care about the forty pounds I need to lose.” As we spoke, Christine started to cry and said, “I did this to myself. I did this to my body. Why would God want to help me, and how could He help me?”

Maybe today you feel like Christine. You’ve started and stopped your fitness goals more times than you can count—but you really want to see them through.

If you struggle with consistency, have you ever felt like this?

• I’m so discouraged that I’m not seeing any results.
• No one notices the changes I’ve made, so what’s the point?
• My life is so busy, that I can’t take care of myself.
• I’m not measuring up to my expectations.
• Why does this seem easier for everyone else?
• I’m burnt out. I went all in, and now I’m all out.
• There’s got to be an easier way. This is too hard.

I’m going to share a lot, maybe too much, but I couldn’t resist. You see, I just got the final draft of Fit God’s Way, and I wanted to give you a sister secret look at what you can expect in my new book Fit God’s Way, out 1/17/23. You can preorder your copy, HERE.

Okay, let’s think about this...

If you are a Jesus follower, anything you leave Him out of will be a place of struggle. Just this morning, I read three emails from women asking for help with their fitness.

The first one said, “Why do I keep quitting?!” The next one said, “Why can’t I be consistent? I do really well for a couple of weeks, but then I give up!” The third said, “Why do I always start strong and then quit my fitness goals? How do I see it through?”

I am asked these questions daily, but today felt different. God spoke to my heart, and He told me, “You need to tell people why they quit. It’s because they have no roots. Where there is no root, there is no fruit.”

“…they have no root in themselves.” (Mark 4:17 NKJV)

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” (John 15:16 ESV)

When we are rooted in Christ, His Word, and His ways, He can bless our efforts (fruit)—but when we depend on ourselves and trust our own ways, we’re frustrated and unsatisfied (no root).

The Stages of Worldly Fitness: Why We Need the Godly Habit of Pressing On

Just a reminder, this is right out of my new book Fit God’s Way, and I’m only sharing it with you to show you how much we need Godly truth in our fitness. Make sure to get yourself and a friend a copy.

Can you identify with this process?

1. You’re excited you tell everyone you’re starting a new workout plan, diet, or challenge. You feel like this is the time you’re going to do it. 
2. A week or two goes by, and you see some results. People are asking you what you’re doing. You feel more confident and love the attention, but you feel the adjustment. Your body is sore, you’re not used to eating so clean, and your energy is low.
3. Then something throws you off: You weigh yourself, you miss a workout, you blow it one weekend, your kids get sick, or someone makes a negative comment, and you feel discouragement creep in. You start to feel like a failure like this is impossible. You’re determined to keep going, but you begin to question if what you’re doing is even working or if it’s worth it.
4. You start rationalizing. Well, I don’t look that bad. I’ll do the next challenge—this really wasn’t a good time. These decisions are often made over a plate of nachos, in front of the TV after a long day of work, or on a morning when you’d rather clean out your closet than haul yourself to a 5:00 a.m. weigh-in and workout.
5. You start skipping your workouts and healthy meals, and days turn into weeks. You convince yourself that you’ll do it next time … you know, the next challenge, or New Year’s, or for your next family summer vacation.
   When I share this with women I coach, they say, “It’s like you’re in my head. How do you know this?” I know it because I did it. I lived this way, and this cycle of quitting on myself and promising to do better next time eroded my self-confidence and my self-worth.
   There’s the problem: I was trying to do fitness my way by pressing on with my willpower, which was exhausting. My fitness goals were not rooted in God, so I had no fruit. If our goals are without God, they are unsupported. He is our root. He is our firm foundation.
   The tallest tree in the world is as good as dead without water. In the same way, the strongest Christian is nothing more than a spiritual midget without the Word of God. —Jim Scudder Jr.

Break the Fitness-Failure Cycle

The truth is this fitness journey is going to have bad days. You’re going to blow it, you’re going to eat things you didn’t want to, you’re going to skip workouts, and the scale may infuriate you—but these are just moments, and you can’t allow fleshly moments to make you quit on reaching your goals.

The reason these moments shake us so badly is that we haven’t connected our fitness to Christ.

To get out of the cycle, we can no longer trust in our abilities, live by our feelings, or place our confidence in ourselves. We have to recognize a bad moment is just a moment—and although we have them, they cannot have us. It’s in these moments that we need to turn to God and live for Him—not the way we look.

But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7–8 NIV)

How to Make Pressing on a Habit

When you make God your source, you live by the Spirit, and you have power. The Holy Spirit will speak to you, so the next time you get to a place where you’re about to quit, refer to these five gut checks and press on in Him.

1. Put God First. Have you made your body, the numbers, the approval of others, or even food an idol? Confess it and put God first. “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3 NKJV)
2. Say no to the unhealthy things God has highlighted in your life. Is there a food or drink that makes you lose control, or are you prideful or insecure about your appearance? “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.” (Titus 2:11–12 NIV)
3. Ask God to help you create healthy goals and a healthy body image. God made you. He designed you. You are one of a kind. Your identity and worth are not in fitness; they are in Christ, so ask Him what drains you of His power and steals away your progress. For example: Thinking you’re a failure because of what you eat or don’t eat or how you do or don’t exercise is not of God. This is worldly teaching that worth is found in performance, and it causes the fitness-failure cycle. “Let us examine our ways and test them and let us return to the LORD.” (Lamentations 3:40 NIV)
4. Don’t be double-minded. When you ask God, believe He hears you and that you have received what you asked for. We can’t be double-minded. It’s like straddling the fence of the spirit and the flesh; belief and unbelief. “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:6–7 NIV)
5. Choose to Honor God with your free will. God will not make us make the right choices, but if we walk in the Spirit, He will help us overcome our flesh. “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16–17 NIV)

I want to encourage you through a prayer I wrote for my new book, Fit God’s Way.

Dear God,

The struggle to find the motivation to be consistent with my fitness goals has been a battle all my life. But in You, I am not a quitter. I am an Overcomer (1 John 5:5). Your Word says, “forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what is ahead, I can press on toward the goal to win the prize for which you have called me in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14). Fill me with Your presence, Father. I want to forget my past failures and recognize that I have this treasure in a jar of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from You and not from me (2 Corinthians 4:7). Today, I’m lying down every time I’ve quit in the past. I declare that I am done with being a poor steward of my body. No matter what comes, I’m pressing on and promising to rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer (Romans 12:12). When the trials come. The enemy tests me, I will hold onto Your Word that says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3). By the power of the Holy Spirit working in me, I will cross the finish line of my fitness goals and give You all the glory by saying, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Father God, it brings me to my knees to know that I did not choose You. Still, You chose me and appointed me to go and bear fruit, and that my fruit should remain, that whatever I ask You in the name of Jesus, You will give to me (John 15:16). I’m asking and believing and trusting in You alone to empower me to press on and have victory over my fitness, my wholeness, my calling, my everything.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

Faith Fuel

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal of winning the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13–14 NIV

Sister, I want you to remember that you can do all things in Christ - and that includes reaching your fitness goals!

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