“O LORD, you have search me and you know me … For you created my inmost being;… I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (taken from Psalm 139 [bold added]).
When God created our bodies, He also provided all the food we needed to fuel those bodies. In the beginning, Adam and Eve ate the abundance of food available in the garden that God had provided – nuts, seeds, legumes, fruits, roots, and vegetables – mostly complex carbohydrates, moderate protein and fat. After the fall, He gave humanity permission through Noah to also eat meat (Genesis 9:3). By that time, man was working hard (by the sweat of his brow!) to wrestle his food from a fallen world. With the cultivation of crops and domestication of animals, life was hard.
From this time on, until the industrial revolution and modern age, humans worked as their bodies were designed to – in constant daily physical activity. They ate seasonally, since there was no other choice. Frequently there was nothing to eat at all. To get through hard winters and famines, the human body has a natural mechanism of storing energy in fat cells. Our fat-storage mechanism worked beautifully until about 100 years ago. Then as technology began to take the place of physical activity, our beautifully and wonderfully made bodies began to work against us!
The body’s preferred energy source has always been and will forever be the sugar glucose, which is found in carbohydrates. The carbohydrates are the main nutrients that fuel exercise of a moderate to high intensity, while fat can fuel low-intensity exercise for long periods. Proteins are generally spared to maintain and repair body tissues; they are not normally used to fuel muscle activity.
The Body Needs Activity
The US Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American College of Sports Medicine all recommend adults get a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity most days of the week, if not daily, to maintain health. Adults need 60 minutes of moderate physical activity to maintain weight and 60 to 90 minutes a day to lose weight or maintain weight loss. Children and teenagers need a minimum of 60 minutes of activity a day. The more activity and the more intense it is, the more physical benefit your body gets, especially if you need to lose weight for health reasons. Physical activity may be done all at once or broken up into 10- to 15-minute periods. Moderate-intensity physical activity or exercise causes a slight but noticeable increase in breathing and heart rate. One way to gauge moderate activity is with the “talk test” – exercising hard enough to break a sweat but not so hard you can’t comfortably carry on a conversation. The USDA gives examples of different levels of exercise:
Moderate Physical Activity
- Walking briskly (about 3 ½ miles per hour) as if you were late to meeting
- Hiking
- Gardening/yard work
- Dancing
- Golf (walking and carrying clubs)
- Bicycling (less than 10 miles per hour)
- Weight training (general light workout)
Moderate-intensity activities are those that get you moving fast enough or strenuously enough to burn three to six times as much energy per minute as sitting quietly. Exercising longer, harder, or both can bring even greater health benefits.
Vigorous Physical Activity
- Running/jogging (5 miles per hour)
- Bicycling (more than 10 miles per hour)
- Swimming (freestyle laps)
- Aerobics
- Walking very fast (4 ½ miles per hour)
- Heavy yard work (such as chopping wood)
- Weight lifting (vigorous effort)
- Basketball (competitive)
Moderate or strenuous activity should be in addition to everyday activities, although routine activities like vacuuming, mopping, raking leaves, washing the car, or walking up steps add to overall activity. When most people were still physically active just living their everyday lives, metabolism worked quite well, thank you. The calories that were eaten were burned up – even those evil simple sugars and saturated fats!
As a helpful resource, I have lots of articles on healthy ingredients and recipes that you can implement into your daily life.
If you’d like to dig deeper into my journey of discovering God’s plan for health and wellness, check out my book, Made For Paradise: God’s Original Plan for Healthy Eating, Physical Activity, and Rest.
