New Year, New You!

New Year? New you. Yeah. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and President of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

This is Michael Brown. Welcome to 2017. My great joy to start the year together with you. By God's grace, may this be the best year of your life, the most blessed, the most fruitful, the most gratifying, the most impacting. May it be.

Hey, why not? With God, his mercies are new every morning. And no matter what happened in the last year, even if it was the worst of your life, that could just be the preparation for great blessing in 2017. Today on God TV, we launched a brand new broadcast, Ask Me Anything. If you have God TV, you can watch it on your cable network in America and around the world, or you can watch it on demand on the website or various other ways.

Go to God.tv to check that out. But we're thrilled to be on five days a week, five minutes a day, answering questions from the God TV audience. And in a couple of months, we've Got another show launching as well that I think will edify and bless many, many others. But we rejoice in that. And tomorrow, a day Nancy and I have been looking forward to for many a month: the release of our new book, Breaking.

the stronghold of food. And all this week, I want to encourage you that change is possible, even in areas where you have struggled for decades. I am living proof. Hey, let me be as candid as I can with you, as honest as I can be with you in my own human weakness. If you had a thousand friends, if you knew a thousand authors, if you looked at a thousand Christian leaders, if you said which one is the least likely to write a book on transformation through dietary change, changing your relationship with food, I'd be the last one on the list.

Not because I was a glutton. Yeah, I was way overweight, but many people just thought I was a big guy or big boned or worked out or whatever.

So I was not morbidly obese, but I have been an unhealthy eater all. Of my life, I have never ever ever overcome bad eating habits for any length of time or substituted the bad ones with good ones. It has been lifelong until the day came, August 23rd of 2014. I said to Nancy, My plan is not working. I'll tell you the significance of those words in a moment.

My plan is not working. When I said those words to her, she said, All right, then you got to eat whatever I give you and nothing else. And starting that next day, August 24th, 2014, that was the first day of radical change. And by God's grace, this is how I live today.

Now, what, two and a half plus years later? I'm talking about in less than eight months, I went from 275 pounds to 180 pounds. I'm talking about several headaches a week and now not a headache for two and a half years. I'm talking about constantly getting run down with colds and other things and now hardly ever getting sick. I'm talking about for years having severe sleep apnea and having to travel everywhere around the world with a breathing machine and of course use it at home.

I don't need that anymore. Steady lower back pain for years, that has disappeared. Energy level off the charts. Blood pressure 149 over 103 at the highest. Last time I took it, it was around 100 over 65.

Cholesterol as high as 230 with the good being low and the bad being high.

Now it's been between 123 and 134 or so, and everything is right where it's supposed to be. This is someone, listen to me, who used to eat Oreos for breakfast. This is someone. who found it harder to give up chocolate than to give up heroin. God is my witness.

This is from someone that could go a year without hardly having any fruit at all. If I could change, if I could break the stronghold of food, so can you. Can't do it. It's fire we want, oh fire we need. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-342. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back to the line of fire and again a happy blessed new year to you.

Michael Brown, thrilled to start the year together with you. And all this week, I want to encourage you that you can make radical changes in some of the most difficult, stubborn areas of life. I know people make New Year's resolutions. How many have you made? How many have I made?

Only to break them or even forget about them, sometimes in a matter of days, sometimes in a matter of hours. But lasting change can come. Not just when we get saved. You know, maybe we were alcoholics or we were drug addicts or we were promiscuous or we were gamblers or we were violent. And now we get born again.

And 2 Corinthians 5, 17, old things pass away. Everything becomes new. We're new creations. Isn't that wonderful? Yes, that's wonderful.

We pass from death to life and the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God. Yes, amazing. Awesome. Wonderful. But that's not all.

That's not all. There can be lasting change that comes to us as believers. There are areas of our lives that need to change, and sometimes we just get used to them, and that's the way we are. I mentioned this on the air last week, but let me mention it again. A gentleman posted on Facebook that he's now morbidly obese, that he was just in the hospital for high blood pressure, that the doctors are trying to come up with a combination of drugs for him that will address the problem for the moment, but he knows he has to change his lifestyle.

And he said this. He came out of homosexuality six years ago, and he said that was so much easier than losing weight changing his diet. I'll say it again. I found it easier to give up heroin than to give up chocolate. In fact, when I gave up shooting drugs and doing drugs on December 17th, 1971, I said to the Lord, I'll never put a needle in my arm again.

And by his grace, that's what happened. I didn't go through withdrawal. I didn't go through physical withdrawal. I was addicted to the needle. I was addicted to drugs in general.

But I got so wonderfully set free. I was so deeply changed. I didn't even go through a withdrawal. There was a lifestyle withdrawal of changing my thinking and patterns and who I hung out with and things like that. But I did not go through an intense physical withdrawal.

I did. I did when it came to breaking the stronghold of food. I did when it came to giving up sweets and other things that my body was so used to because for the better part of decades, I'd eaten those every single day of my life. And often two or three times a day. Oh, I had seasons where I went without sweets for like 30, 40 days.

But of course, there's sugar in a lot of the foods that we eat. We don't even realize it. I had a season many, many years ago where I would only have something sweet, you know, candy bar or chocolate once a month. And I did that for the better part of a year. And then that ended.

But even then, I was having pizza and pasta every day and burgers and fries and those kinds of things, which were unhealthy. And you feel like you're getting away with it a lot more when you're younger. You really do. You feel like you're getting away with it. It doesn't affect you as much.

But the older you get, you eat the same way. You start putting more weight on. You start to get run down more. You start having health-related issues. Here, listen.

If you take sickness, disease, fatality, health issues related to drinking, and relating to smoking, They pale. pale before health-related disease, causes of death connected to obesity. And yet we're often so concerned about alcoholism and cigarette smoking, and yet in the words of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, we're digging our own graves with our forks and knives.

So many people I talk to say I struggle here. In fact, almost always when I get picked up by the airport or sit down for a meal, wherever I'm speaking, especially anyone who knew me in the past or who saw my pictures in the past and see the complete transformation, this is the first thing they want to talk to me about. And they want to know how. And almost always they'll ask me the question, do you cheat? Do you have cheat days?

Let's say I'm driving with the pastor from the airport. He said, Do you have cheat days? He said, How often do you cheat? I said, How often do you cheat on your wife? In other words, if it's wrong, you don't do it.

Now, I'm not saying it's a sin to have a nice steak or a sin to have a bowl of ice cream. No, please don't get me wrong. It's always a sin to commit adultery. I'm not saying it's a sin to have some enjoyable meal, even if it's unhealthy. But unhealthy eating itself is.

Is sinful. I'll explain why in a minute. Please hear me. All through our book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, there is not a word of condemnation. Nancy and I understand that many people who are overweight feel terrible about it.

They're embarrassed. They have to buy certain clothes. They don't want to leave the house. They're always conscious about it. Trying to hold their stomachs in.

They're feeling like something's wrong. They may not talk about it in our society. It's on a certain level accept it. Our goal is not to beat you up. Our goal is to lift you up.

Our goal is to encourage, not to discourage, and to say, hey, there's hope. And that's why through the book, we're as honest as we are. And in fact, let me just tell you the way we wrote it. I wrote the book. The goal was for us to write it together.

Breaking the Stronghold of Food comes out tomorrow. And in a moment, I'll tell you how you can get a free e-book along with the paperback. Basically, two books for the price of barely over half of one. I'll tell you how you can do that in a moment. But we're trying to figure out, we've never co-written a book.

Nancy will often go through my books very carefully and critique them. And she's got an incredible eye, not just for grammatical editing and sentence flow, but for content. And this is missing.

Something's lacking here. Or you've got to sharpen this here. Or this doesn't flow well. And as much as I don't like the criticism in the flesh, I love it and welcome it. And so she's sharpened so much of what I've written over the years.

But this book we're going to write together, but how do you do it? How do you write it together? You go back and forth. You speak as one and say, okay, this is Mike speaking.

Okay, this is Nancy speaking.

So I wrote it. And then the publisher said, Hey, we need more stuff from you that fleshes a few things out.

So I wrote a couple more chapters because at first, I was telling my story in a funny way, an inspirational way, then weaving scripture in and taking you on a journey and encouraging you along the way.

So I added some content to it. I said, okay, now we got to hear from your wife. And Nancy and I worked on it. And I said, all right, here are all the chapters. Just go through them and add in stuff where you want.

It just wasn't working.

So what we did, we sat down together. I mean, we spent hours and hours and hours doing this. And we are so thrilled for the folks who got advanced copies, the way they're talking about how this is impacting them. We are absolutely thrilled.

So I may speak for several paragraphs or for a page. And this is the way we did it. I sat at the computer, and Nancy read through the chapters. And then as she's reading, she'd say, okay, and she'd contribute something. She would write it.

She would speak it. I would write it. Then I would send it to her to edit. And then sent it to the publisher, all weaved in together. And she's got a special font, you know, where it's from Nancy.

And so I'll be saying something. Maybe I'll be telling some story, you know, some crazy gimmick, some you know, anti-fat cream or magic energy pill or something like that. That I try, trust me, I try to always want to get more energy. That was another thing because I pushed so hard and I run so hard for decades looking for more energy.

Now I try to figure out how to fall asleep at night because I've got so much energy through healthy eating. Yeah, it's amazing.

So she's reading some of it, and then she might just say, Oh, I got to say something here. I can't believe what I'm reading. This is crazy. And then she'll weigh in with something else.

So it's honest, it's encouraging, it's down to earth, it's full of scripture, it's got practical steps to take. But friends, Nancy would characterize herself before as a glutton. She ate food 'cause she loved food and she would stuff herself. And and and she tells her whole story in the book. And and for me, I was addicted to certain foods.

You say, I'm not addicted to any. Ah, later in the week we're going to give you a little test. Maybe I'll even do it today. We'll see if we get to it. We'll give you a little test from doctor Joel Fuhrman to see if you are a food addict.

Ooh, yeah. Maybe I'll even start there uh when we come back. But Mm-hmm. If I could change, if Nancy could change, you could change. I was talking to a friend of the family the other day, and I asked this person if you could change any one thing in your life, what would it be?

They said immediately, my weight. My wait. We had a friend years back who had diabetes. He was a pastor. He had diabetes.

And Nancy said to him was type 2 diabetes, which is completely reversible through healthy eating. And she said to him, do you know that if you ate a completely vegan diet, that it would reverse the diabetes? He goes, I know, but I hate vegetables. Oh What if your whole life could be radically changed if you changed your diet? You'd say, I'd love to, but it's a stronghold.

That's why we wrote the book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food: How We Overcame Food Addictions and Discovered a Whole New Way of Living. A radio friend of mine said to me, Yeah, I don't know how big a topic food addictions are. I said, only relevant to about 99% of the American public. All right, so tell you what, the book comes out tomorrow, but there's still time. Only a few more days to do this.

Go right now to strongholdoffood.com. Take a second if you can. Strongholdoffood.com. Click there. There's a link where you can order on Amazon so you get the reduced pre-order price.

When you put the order through, then it'll take you back to the website and you'll get the e-book free when it comes out. That means tomorrow, Tuesday, you'll immediately get the e-books. You can read it on your computer or on your Kindle e-reader, on your cell phone with the Kindle app, and the paperback will be sent out immediately. You'll have that in a couple days. You can even give the book away, keep the e-book.

if you like.

So order today, strongholdoffood.com. We're going to talk about setting your sights on the goal and ask the question, are you a food addict when we come back? Game tour. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Here is how Nancy and I start our brand new book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food. Let me encourage you to take your eyes off food for a moment and dream together with me, asking the simple question. What if?

What if you could be the healthiest you've been in years, or maybe in your whole life, reversing some life-threatening diseases and finding yourself more vibrant in 60 than you were at 40, all without drugs? What if you could be fit and trim, having tons more energy for your family, your friends, your job, your ministry, your hobbies, and your life, not to mention for your Lord? What if you would never feel bloated or stuffed and never feel bad about what you ate? What if you weren't ashamed of the way you look? What if your stomach didn't sit on your lap?

You could tie your shoes, you could see your toes, you could wear normal clothes rather than clothes that look like tents, you didn't have to stealthily unbutton your pants at the restaurant, remember to re-button them when you get up to leave, you didn't have to wear stretchy pants, you didn't have to avoid mirrors or plate glass windows, you didn't have to worry about buttons bursting off your shirt, you didn't have to buy all kinds of loose-fitting clothing to cover your fat, you didn't have to buy even bigger clothes the next year after the holidays and your latest weight gain. What if... You fill in the blank. Only you know, friends, what bothers you most about your weight. I don't write this to shame you.

But to encourage you, because I too was once Fat. That's how we start our book. And Nancy. jumps right in and says some people might be offended by Mike's use of the word fat. But both of us like to tell it like it is.

Many prefer to call it overweight. That certainly sounds more pleasant. But there was nothing pleasant or pretty about the fat on my body, Nancy says.

So we will be using the words overweight and fat interchangeably throughout the book, but this is not meant to insult or criticize others. Nancy says, my fat was a hindrance to me and a burden that was choking and destroying my life. And the bottom line is, there was nothing nice or redeemable about the fat that encumbered my body.

So many of you say, yeah, I want to change. I know, I know this is a real issue. I know it's hurting my whole life. I know this is negative in every way. I I just don't know that I can change.

Hey, In the natural, it's really tough. In the natural, these things really are life-controlling. See, when I got free from drugs, I was free. I never looked at myself as a recovering drug addict. To this day, I don't.

Please hear me. I'm about to say something else where I do look at myself as a recovering addict.

So I'm not saying I'm better than someone else. I'm just saying the change was so profound. I was out of that lifestyle. I can't relate to it. I'm not a recovering drug addict or a recovering alcoholic.

I was an alcoholic. I used to drink heavily at times, but I certainly was addicted to the needle and to drugs in general. But I never looked at myself as a recovering drug addict. I didn't criticize others who did. I just couldn't relate to it myself.

And look, I came out of that lifestyle. I'm not around heroin. I'm not around cocaine. I'm not around LSD. I'm not around mescaline.

I'm not around pot or hash. I'm not around any of those things. All right. But when it comes to food, you're around food every day. And you need food to live.

And there's no more basic appetite than hunger.

So, in point of fact, we're surrounded by this, and our standard American diet is deadly. There's so much junk in the portions at our restaurants, and the fast food lifestyle, and on and on, and the way everything is processed.

So, look, this is around you all the time.

So, I live my life as if I was a recovering food addict. That's how I live. as if I was a recovering food addict. Meaning if if I mess up once, I could easily fall off the wagon, therefore I I don't deviate. You say, but Mike, you travel a lot.

I mean, you're overseas sometimes, 30-40 hours of travel, and then hotels and restaurants and people taking you out all the time. Yeah, you can make choices. We plan ahead, make certain small sacrifices. It is absolutely worth it for the massive rewards that you get. Dr.

Joel Fuhrman, whose work we quote a lot in our book, he gives a checklist of 15 questions to determine whether we're food addicts. You ready? I'm going to. I'm going to read this to you to have time. Yeah, I can get this in.

Dr. Fuhrman gives this list. If I don't eat regularly, I feel fatigued or irritable. Yes or no? I think about eating certain foods almost all the time, yes or no?

I feel sluggish or uncomfortable after eating. Eating poorly is interfering with my health. I'm overweight. But I continue to overeat. When I start eating sweets, I don't want to stop.

I have tried to diet to lose weight, but failed and given up. I prefer restaurants with all you can eat cafes. I have physical withdrawal symptoms. I sneak food when others around aren't looking or aren't around or looking. I store food or hide food from my family.

I eat more even though I'm no longer hungry. My eating habits cause me distress. My eating habits are causing me social and family difficulties. I eat almost continuously all day long. 15 different items.

Each one he says yes or no. You might say, hey, I came out pretty good. I only had like five or six. Ah. According to Dr.

Fuhrman, One yes answer. makes you a suspected food addict. Two or more yes answers confirms your addiction to food. You say, two or more? Who who has less than two?

Who has less than one? Me? Oh, trust me. I was way up on that list before. I was like, oh, that's me.

Yeah, that's me. Oh, that's me. Ouch. That's me. Yeah, that's me.

Now, none of it. Because I'm a recovering food addict in terms of my attitude, but I'm free. And listen, friends, it is so utterly remarkable. Look, if you subscribe to Charisma magazine, you know I'm on the front cover of Charisma. And by the way, it's a great issue.

It's a really practical, change-your-life issue with a lot of suggestions about food and diet and lifestyle.

So it's a really practical issue. If you don't normally get it, get it. I think you'll be really blessed by it. And I'm on the front cover because of our book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, and with a picture of me: here's a current picture, here's a before picture. And you have to understand, it is utterly immaterial to me in the natural to be on the front of a magazine.

And most of the time, where I'm on the front of something on a website or something like that, it's because I'm being attacked.

Okay, so this is not a thing. Look, I'm on the front cover. To me, it's a matter of saying, Hey, if Mike Brown could change his diet, anybody can. And I'm telling you, the benefits are absolutely worth it. I could not imagine how it would feel to live in my old skin.

It never stopped me from ministering. I pushed through the tiredness and kept going. I pushed through the headaches and kept going. You know, I was just going to persevere. And I was never embarrassed to minister thinking, oh, you know, your suit is tight.

And I wasn't embarrassed when I got to minister. But behind the scenes, I was embarrassed because I said, I live a disciplined, godly lifestyle. I'm not a glutton, but I'm overweight.

Now my high blood pressure, I'm obese according to the charts, and that ought not to be for me as a servant of the Lord.

So for me, it was that personal matter where change needed to come, and by his grace, it came. Remember, go to strongholdoffood.com. You only have a few more days to do this. Strongholdoffood.com. Order from Amazon there.

All right, if that's where you get your e-books or just principal place when you order, order there. The paperback is at reduced price. When you do, you'll automatically get the e-book free. And the book is out tomorrow. New year.

New you. You too can have a story to tell. You can be restored to health and fitness and a joyful, free life as you change your relationship to food. If we can do it, you can. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr.

Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRU. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Welcome, welcome to the line of fire, a blessed, happy 2017. To you, the theme this week, New Year. New you. And let's talk about where we all live. As Nancy and I are so excited.

Tomorrow, our book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, comes out. It's already, over the weekend, become the number one new release in Christian personal growth on Amazon, which is a great category because there's so much written in that area. There seems to be real interest in this. We're hearing from advanced readers of the book. They're loving the practicality.

They're loving our candor. They're loving the inspiration in it. And we're really praying that this will be the difference between life and death for many, many thousands and perhaps millions of readers. Dr. Joel Furman, whose work we quote a lot in the book, has a list to help you identify whether or not you are a food addict.

I want to go through it and comment where... Where I I uh Would have been identified as a food addict.

Now, according to Dr. Furman, brace yourself. I'm going to give you 15 items here, okay? I've run through them real, real quick before. I want to go through them now a little bit slower.

But remember, he said if any one of the 15 applies to you, you're a probable food addict or a suspected food addict. Two or more, and you definitely are.

Okay, number one: if I don't eat regularly, I feel fatigued or irritable. I didn't get irritable, but fatigued I probably needed the energy boost of of the chocolates and the sweets and and stuff like that. I felt fatigued a lot just 'cause of my lifestyle. Two, I think about eating certain foods almost all the time.

Well, I would I would really look forward to certain things and think about them a lot. That's true. How about you? I feel sluggish or uncomfortable after eating. Yeah.

Uh-huh. See now I'll have a massive salad. It'll take me it's so big. I'm talking about three and a half pounds of salad and greens and other stuff in there and that without the dressing three and a half pounds worth of yeah, I mean a massive salad take me maybe half hour 45 minutes to eat it. I'm not sluggish or uncomfortable at all after eating.

Eating poorly is interfering with my health. Yeah, that applied to me as well. How about you? I'm overweight, but I continue to overeat. Count me in on that one.

In the past, when I start eating sweets, I don't want to stop. You bet. I've tried to diet to lose weight but failed and given up. Mm-hmm. I'm I'm almost everyone so far in the past.

I prefer restaurants with all-you-can-eat buffets. I like those, but necessarily prefer them to others. But yeah, there's a little plus there. I have physical withdrawal symptoms. You bet.

If I would fast, you know, the headaches and everything were miserable because of withdrawal from the bad foods. I sneak food uh when others aren't around or looking. Yep. I store food or hide food for my family. Yep.

I eat more even though I'm no longer hungry. Well, I'd say I was hungry, but obviously I wasn't genuinely hungry. Let's see. My eating habits cause me distress somewhat. My eating habits are causing me social and family difficulties.

No. I eat almost continuously all day long. No, but I did eat a lot, especially at night. You know, it's a snack. I was, well, like.

10, 12, 13 out of 15 today. I'm zero out of 15. By God's grace, I have been changed, and you can be changed too. Don't be discouraged if you're like, I got five on that list, or I got 10 on that list. Don't be discouraged when you go to the doctor and he says, All right, does this hurt when you move like this?

or the dentist when they hit on the oh, that's the one.

Okay, that's to help.

Now we identified the problem.

Now we can help. But we've got to take food addictions as seriously as any other addictions. In fact, Food addictions are far more deadly than most other addictions. Not just because we're addicted to food, but because of the nature of the food we're addicted to. We're shortening our lives.

We're cutting short the fruitfulness of our lives. We are cutting down on the quality of our lives. And all can be changed if we change our relationship with food. Angel World. Oh God of burning, cleansing flame, send the fire.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on the line of fire, the first broadcast of the new year.

Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. As we talk about lifestyle transformation, as we talk about new year, new you, on the one hand, yeah, it's easy to make new resolutions. I'll be this, I'll do that. Everything will change in the new year, and it never changes. On the other hand, if you want to make a change, you've got to make it sometime.

It's not just going to happen on its own. Change will not just happen because time goes on. The only thing that happens as time goes on is we get older and habits become more entrenched.

So I want to encourage you, now is the time for change. And I'll say it, I'll shout it from the rooftops, I'll say it again and again. If I could change when it comes to my relationship with food, if I, who was the poster boy for unhealthy eating. Habits my entire life. If Nancy, who would say she was a glutton, if we could change.

Anyone could change. God is no respecter of persons. And the same principles we live by will work for anyone. We tell the story in our new book coming out tomorrow: Breaking the Stronghold of Food.

Now, let me present something to you scripturally to talk about. All right. I recognize that there is a difference between, say, practicing adultery and having a bowl of ice cream every day. I recognize that there's a difference. I recognize that the person practicing adultery and refusing to repent will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Whereas you might have some unhealthy eating habits and still be saved. You're just hurting your effectiveness and perhaps cutting your life short and maybe in certain ways hurting your witness. It's another subject we can come to.

So I am recognizing the difference. Professor Robert Gagnon on my radio show some months back made this statement. He's the foremost authority on the Bible and homosexual practice. And he said, you know, your man, you come home from work one day, you have a business dinner, and your wife said, hey, honey, how'd everything go today? You say, Well, you know, it it was great, but oh, I kind of pigged out at that business dinner.

I I ordered this massive steak and I don't know why and I had this chocolate sundae afterwards and I just I was kind of a glutton. She said, Oh, honey, it's all right. You'll you'll do better tomorrow.

So he goes, Oh, okay, that that wasn't so bad.

So he comes home the next day and she says, So, honey, how'd your day go? He says, Well, I mean, pretty good. I mean, I slept with three different ladies I work with. Is she going to say, Oh, that's not so bad. You'll do better tomorrow.

Obviously not.

So we recognize that there are differences in sins that we commit, or in terms of the ugliness of sins that we commit, or the consequences of sins that we commit. But let me ask you this. Would you agree that drunkenness is sin. that getting drunk is a sin. Certainly, I mean the Bible is very clear about drunkenness and drinking to excess.

Why is it a sin?

Well, on the one hand, it impairs our judgment. It can be dangerous. I mean, you get behind a car and drive. You could kill other people yourself. And it's going to impair your judgment in many, many other ways and open the door for all kinds of other foolish and fleshly behavior.

And it's physically destructive. Right, you can get cirrhosis of the liver and have other problems because of it. All right, let's take cigarette smoking. Do we believe that cigarette smoking is sinful? I think the vast majority of followers of Jesus do believe that.

Why?

Well, two reasons. It's a binding habit. We become a slave to it. And it's a destructive habit. Not only does it cost extra money that can be used for other things, but more importantly, if done enough over a long enough period of time, it will destroy our health.

It has the real potential of destroying our health, lung cancer, the other things like that.

So even though it doesn't impair our judgment like drinking does, right? The fact of the matter is, we would agree that it's sinful because it is a destructive habit. Compare the health risks associated with obesity to the health risks associated with. Drinking, the health risks associated with smoking, even the health risks that. are associated with poverty because people can't take care of themselves properly in different ways, overwhelmingly.

the health risks associated with obesity are much, much, much, much, much higher than the other three. Much, much, much higher. Why then, if cigarette smoking is sinful, because it's a destructive, unhealthy habit, why then isn't overeating and unhealthy eating sinful if it's a much more destructive habit? And again, I lay out the scripture. Nancy and I lay out the scripture in breaking the stronghold of food.

We do it with truth spoken in love, not to condemn, but to encourage and to help.

So I want you to consider some scripture with me. All right. Paul said this right into the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6: Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You're not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. body.

You say, yeah, but the context there is sexual immorality, of course. That's the major context there. I just want to ask a larger question. Can you glorify God with your body if Um we're abusing our bodies. If our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and our bodies are not our own, Can we glorify God with our bodies if we're gradually destroying our bodies?

If we're displaying a serious lack of discipline in what we put into our bodies, how about this from Paul, 1 Corinthians 9? Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?

So run. that you may obtain it. He says every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we... and imperishable.

Can I repeat that? Every Athlete Exercises self-control in all things. They do it. to receive a perishable crown. But we and imperishable.

We are also Discipline in all things. We exercise self-control in all things. Isn't one of the fruits of the Spirit? Self- Control? Can I say I exercise self-control if I eat foods that are destructive to my health?

Can I say that I exercise self-control if I eat in excessive ways that are destructive to my health? You might say, hey, I'm doing great. I keep up a busy schedule. You're not going to throw condemnation on me. Hey, I'm trying to help you.

What if you could run your race far more successfully with greater joy? I mean, I'm telling you, when my weight came off, when I lost 95 pounds in a little under eight months, not through dieting, but through changing my relationship to food and no gimmicks, no shortcuts, just eating totally healthily all the time. And there are plenty of delicious things you can eat. And by the way, your palate will change. The more you get rid of the bad foods and the more you eat healthy foods, the more your palate changes and your palate begins to crave in a healthy way the good foods.

I'll look through a store and say, these apples look good. Yeah, it used to be, don't want to get the. chocolate donut, a glazed chocolate donut store.

Okay, maybe all right, how about chocol M's chocolate M and M's. It's always a staple. Ooh, I think I'm gonna splurge and get Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge chunk.

Now I think, ooh, that apple looks really good. Yeah. Whoa, those tomatoes look delicious. And look, if you could enjoy eating healthily the way you enjoyed eating unhealthily, but get rid of the excess fat and get rid of all the health-related problems that being overweight and obese will cause over the years, wouldn't it be worth it? I mean, if we just snap our fingers and boom, suddenly you want it broccoli the way you used to want to eat steak.

You want a fruit salad, a healthy fruit salad, the way you used to want fettuccine alfredo. That wasn't one of mine. That was one of Nancy's that she liked. If you would want, oh, a super healthy soup, a mega-healthy soup the way you used to want a burger and fries, why not? Why not?

Everything changes so dramatically. And when my weight got lower, remember I I'm 61 years old, I'm going to 62 in March. I want to run everywhere. In fact, I'll tell you a funny story about coming back from overseas in a minute when we get back on the other side of the break. But remember, you only got a few more days to do this because the book comes out tomorrow and this offer expires in a few days.

Go to strongholdoffood.com. And if you've got a friend that you love, family member that you love that's struggling, get this for them. Go to strongholdoffood.com. There's a link to order. You click on it.

It'll take you to go to the Amazon link if that's where you order your books. When you order, you get the reduced pre-order price, and then you'll get the e-book free.

So you get two books for the price of a little over half the price of one. And this way you got one book to keep. You can keep the e-book, give away the paperback to a friend or loved one. And it's going to be the difference between life and death for many, many people.

So we come back. I want to talk to you about coming back from overseas, my experience at the LAX airport, after coming back from Australia. Talk about a long trip. You talk about what, a 13, 14 hour time differential and maybe 30 hours of travel. Let me tell you what happened when I got back thanks to this brand new lifestyle.

Uh It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

You know, one of the things that we cover in our new book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, Nancy and I address the issue of excuses. Because we all have excuses, and I want to address that a little today. Maybe we'll get into it later in the week, but all this week, I want to encourage you: change is possible. New year, new you, why not? God's not a respecter of persons.

If he does it for me, he'll do it for me. for you.

Alright. I come back from overseas. I believe it was an Australia trip that I was coming back from.

So here's what that means. It means, let's say I flew from Charlotte. If I had a straight flight to LA, that would be amazing. But let's say I did, say, a five-hour flight there.

Alright, then a layout of a few hours, and then maybe a 15-hour flight to Sydney.

So direct flights, and you know, it's pretty quick travel for all that. Then you get there. If it feels like 12 noon to your body, it's actually like Midnight or two in the morning there. I mean, everything is radically changed and different. All right.

And you lose day going over there.

So I come back from the trip. It's a pretty intense trip, a long trip over in Australia, a couple of different cities. And this particular day I had to get up real early in the morning and then travel to the airport in Melbourne, then fly from Melbourne to Sydney, then lay over a few hours there, then from Sydney to LA. And then I think I had one or two other flights to get back to Charlotte, North Carolina from whence I had initially departed. And I remember I got off the flights.

So, I mean, again, the time zone change and not sleeping enough on the plane and the whole bit. And I land at the airport and I'm in L.A. and I'm waiting to get my luggage.

So I got a luggage cart. I get my luggage. I put it on there.

Now I have to go through, got to go through, oh, oh, no, no, hang on. Before that, go through passport control. And now to get down to where the luggage is, you go down on an escalator.

So I was just so full of energy and just, you know, work out.

So I just grabbed onto the railings, lifted my feet off the ground and just held myself up, you know, good tricep exercise the entire way till I got down there. Then jogged over, got my luggage, put it on the luggage cart, and then went through customs. And then you got to go to drop your luggage off now to be sent to the rest of your destination. And I remember jogging. Here I just got off these long.

Flights and I'm holding myself up on the escalator and running through the airport. Not wanting to run too fast to make it look strange, but just there was a big opening in a long hallway, just running down there. I think this is amazing. This is amazing. But brand new lifestyle by God's grace.

No tricks, no gimmicks, no magic pills, no special supplements. I basically take a daily multivitamin and one other you know, a vitamin kind of thing. That's it. Everything comes through healthy.

Now I exercise too. And the exercising is rigorous and intense, but I was exercising in an intense way when I weighed 50 or 75 pounds more.

Okay?

So the exercising didn't do it. The exercise helps, but it's the diet change that comes first. All right. So excuses. I remember when we were working out with our trainer, this was years back.

He went away for a few years, came back.

So this was in the earlier days, maybe five years ago. We're working out. And he was talking to me about my diet and stuff like that. And I said, yeah, you know, it's hard. And I went through all the reasons why it's so hard.

And I got, trust me, I got him. I'm on the road all the time. I got a crazy busy schedule. I've got to eat at airports. I've got to eat on planes.

I'm taking to restaurants all the time. I'm staying at hotels.

So I gave all the reasons. And he just listened, nodded, didn't say much. The next day, we were working out with another young man who had graduated years earlier from our school. And the subject of diet and lifestyle came up. And he began to explain why it's hard for him to eat more healthily.

He and his wife, both doing full-time work and ministry, and then getting home and barely enough time to make a meal, and then got to run back out. And he went through it, and I listened, and I thought, those are the most pathetic excuses I've ever heard. Every one of those excuses is just shouting out, I'm not willing to make the change. I know I should make changes, but I'm not willing to. And I got some wimpy excuses.

And immediately I said to myself, Buddy, that's how your own excuses sound. Oh, they sounded so big and great. Oh, yeah, we give our excuses. Yeah, I really can't do it for this reason, that reason. Yeah, I got kids and the budget, you know, all the travel, and all that.

Right, right. They sound so good, does. And somebody else comes up with the same excuses. We think, what kind of excuses are those? Ultimately, excuses are for wimps.

And I've got a whole chapter. Nancy said, I have a whole chapter in Breaking the Stronghold of Food, where we interact with the excuses that we give. Here, better. To be honest. Better just say okay.

I I need to change. I'm having health problems because of my weight. Or I'm just embarrassed by being overweight. Or I just don't think that being overweight is conducive to my witness. Or I'm starting to slow down.

I'm starting to get worn out because of being overweight. Or God's convicting me that I'm a glutton. Or God's convicted me that my stomach is my God, that I'm a slave to certain foods.

Okay, whatever it is. And you say, I know I should do differently. I know I should live differently. But I'm not willing. Ah Good start.

Be honest. Confess that to God. Or I know I should make changes. But I don't know how. Good.

Store it there. Or I really want to make changes. But I'm too weak. I've done this a thousand times before. I've never succeeded.

I was uh out with one pastor having lunch with him in in one state, and he talked about a a stomach bypass surgery that he had and the and the reasons for it. And I said, you know, uh there's so many other ways. He said, Look, I probably lost 40 or 50 pounds 50 different times and gained it all back. It was this, or I was going to die. And he said, even with this, he still had to watch his diet.

He said, because even with this stomach bypass, apparently most of the people that have it end up. blowing it and going back to their old ways, which makes things even worse. I understand, of course, no condemnation for that man, what he did. He's trying to guard his health and be there for his wife and kids and church in the future. But better to be honest, right?

And he was honest with me. Better to be honest and just tell the Lord the truth. We want to help you this week. We want to help you this week. This can be a week of real transformation.

This is Michael Brown, our new book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food. It comes out tomorrow.

So let me give you the announcement once more. I know many of you only get to listen for a few minutes and you've got to go out and run on with your business.

So remember, go to strongholdofruit.com. right strongholdoffood.com only a couple more days you can do this just a few more days Order, order on Amazon, wherever you normally order. And then when you order, you'll get the reduced pre-order price. And the e-book you'll get free.

So you get the paperback mailed to you in just a few days from Amazon, and you'll get the e-book free. But to take advantage of this offer, go to strongholdoffood.com and make sure you visit our website, thelineofire.org. Check out my latest articles, videos, all there to bless you and be life-giving, life-changing resources for you. My bottom line today: God is no respecter of persons. What He did for Nancy and me, He will do for you.

New Year. New you. It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and President of Fire School of Ministry.

Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. This is Michael Brown.

Welcome to 2017. My great joy to start the year together with you. By God's grace, may this be the best year of your life, the most blessed, the most fruitful, the most gratifying, the most impacting. May it be. Hey, why not?

With God, His mercies are new every morning. And no matter what happened in the last year, even if it was the worst of your life, that could just be the preparation for great blessing in 2017. Today on God TV, we launched a brand new broadcast, Ask Me Anything. If you have God TV, you can watch it on your cable network in America and around the world, or you can watch it on demand on the website or various other ways. Go to God.tv to check that out.

But we're thrilled to be on five days a week, five minutes a day, answering questions from the God TV audience. And in a couple of months, we've got Got another show launching as well that I think will edify and bless many, many others. But we rejoice in that. And tomorrow, a day Nancy and I have been looking forward to for many a month: the release of our new book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food. And all this week, I want to encourage you that change is possible, even in areas where you have struggled for decades.

decades. I am living proof. Hey, let me be as candid as I can with you, as honest as I can be with you in my own human weakness. If you had a thousand friends, if you knew a thousand authors, if you looked at a thousand Christian leaders, if you said which one is the least likely to write a book on transformation through dietary change, changing your relationship with food, I'd be the last one on the list. Not because I was a glutton.

Yeah, I was way overweight, but many people just thought I was a big guy or big boned or worked out or whatever.

So I was not morbidly obese. But I have been an unhealthy eater all of my life. I have never, ever, ever overcome bad eating habits for any length of time or substituted the bad ones with good ones. It has been. Lifelong until the day came, August 23rd of 2014.

I said to Nancy, My plan is not working. I'll tell you the significance of those words in a moment. My plan is not working. When I said those words to her, she said, All right, then you got to eat whatever I give you and nothing else. And starting that next day, August 24th, 2014, that was the first day of radical change.

And by God's grace, this is how I live today.

Now, what, two and a half plus years later? I'm talking about in less than eight months, I went from 275 pounds to 180 pounds. I'm talking about several headaches a week and now not a headache for two and a half years. I'm talking about constantly getting run down with colds and other things and now hardly ever getting sick. I'm talking about for years having severe sleep apnea and having to travel everywhere around the world with a breathing machine and of course use it at home.

I don't need that anymore. Steady lower back pain for years, that has disappeared. Energy level off the charts. Blood pressure 149 over 103 at the highest. Last time I took it, it was around 100 over 65.

Cholesterol as high as 230 with the good being low and the bad being high.

Now it's been between 123 and 134 or so, and everything is right where it's supposed to be. This is someone, listen to me, who used to eat Oreos for breakfast. This is someone. who found it harder to give up chocolate than to give up heroin. God is my witness.

This is from someone that could go a year without hardly having any fruit at all. If I could change, if I could break the stronghold of food, so can you. Change the world Inspire we want. For fire we please. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back to the line of fire and again a happy blessed new year to you.

Michael Brown, thrilled to start the year together with you. And all this week, I want to encourage you that you can make radical changes in some of the most difficult, stubborn areas of life. I know people make New Year's resolutions. How many have you made? How many have I made?

Only to break them or even forget about them, sometimes in a matter of days, sometimes in a matter of hours. But lasting change can come. Not just when we get saved. You know, maybe we're alcoholics or we were drug addicts or we were promiscuous or we were gamblers or we were violent. And now we get born again.

And 2 Corinthians 5, 17, old things pass away. Everything becomes new. We're new creations. Isn't that wonderful? Yes, that's wonderful.

We pass from death to life and the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God. Yes, amazing, awesome, wonderful. But that's not all. That's not all. There can be lasting change that comes to us as believers.

There are areas of our lives that need to change, and sometimes we just get used to them, and that's the way we are. I mentioned this on the air last week, but let me mention it again. A gentleman posted on Facebook that he's now morbidly obese, that he was just in the hospital for high blood pressure, that the doctors are trying to come up with a combination of drugs for him that will address the problem for the moment, but he knows he has to change his lifestyle. And he said this: He came out of homosexuality six years ago, and he said that was so much easier. Easier than losing weight, changing his diet.

I'll say it again. I found it easier to give up heroin than to give up chocolate. In fact, when I gave up shooting drugs and doing drugs on December 17th, 1971, I said to the Lord, I'll never put a needle in my arm again. And by his grace, that's what happened. I didn't go through withdrawal.

I didn't go through physical withdrawal. I was addicted to the needle. I was addicted to drugs in general. But I got so wonderfully set free. I was so deeply changed.

I didn't even go through a withdrawal. There was a lifestyle withdrawal of changing my thinking and patterns and who I hung out with and things like that. But I did not go through an intense physical withdrawal. I did. I did when it came to breaking the stronghold of food.

I did when it came to giving up sweets and other things that my body was so used to because for the better part of decades, I'd eaten those every single day of my life. And often two or three times a day. Oh, I had seasons where I went without sweets for like 30, 40 days. But of course, there's sugar in a lot of the foods that we eat. We don't even realize it.

I had a season many, many years ago where I would only have something sweet, you know, candy bar or chocolate once a month. And I did that for the better part of a year. And then that ended. But even then, I was having pizza and pasta every day and burgers and fries and those kinds of things, which were unhealthy. And you feel like you're getting away with it a lot more when you're younger.

You really do. You feel like you're getting away with it. It doesn't affect you as much. But the older you get, you eat the same way. You start putting more weight on.

You start to get run down more. You start having health-related issues. Here, listen. If you take sickness, disease, fatality, health issues related to drinking, and relating to smoking, They pale. pale before health-related disease, causes of death, connected to obesity.

And yet we're often so concerned about alcoholism and cigarette smoking, and yet in the words of Dr. Joel Furman, we're digging our own graves with our forks and knives.

So many people I talk to say I struggle here. In fact, almost always when I get picked up by the airport or sit down for a meal, wherever I'm speaking, especially anyone who knew me in the past or who saw my pictures in the past and see the complete transformation, this is the first thing they want to talk to me about. And they want to know how. And almost always they'll ask me the question, do you cheat? Do you have cheat days?

Let's say I'm driving with the pastor from the airport. He said, do you have cheat days? He said, how often do you cheat? I said to him, how often do you cheat on your wife? In other words, if it's wrong, you don't do it.

Now, I'm not saying it's a sin to have a nice steak or a sin to have a bowl of ice cream. No, please don't get me wrong. It's always a sin to commit adultery. I'm not saying it's a sin to have some enjoyable meal, even if it's unhealthy. But unhealthy eating itself is.

is sinful. I'll explain why in a minute. Please hear me. All through our book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, there is not a word of condemnation. Nancy and I understand that many people who are overweight feel terrible about it.

They're embarrassed. They have to buy certain clothes. They don't want to leave the house. They're always conscious about it. Try to hold their stomachs in.

They're feeling like something's wrong. They may not talk about it in our society. It's on a certain level accept it. Our goal is not to beat you up. Our goal is to lift you up.

Our goal is to encourage, not to discourage, and to say, hey, there's hope. And that's why through the book, we're as honest as we are. And in fact, let me just tell you the way we wrote it. I wrote the book. The goal was for us to write it together.

Breaking the Stronghold of Food comes out tomorrow. And in a moment, I'll tell you how you can get a free e-book along with the paperback. Basically, two books for the price of barely over half of one. I'll tell you how you can do that in a moment. But we're trying to figure out, we've never co-written a book.

Nancy will often go through my books very carefully and critique them. And she's got an incredible eye, not just for grammatical editing and sentence flow, but for content. And this is missing.

Something's lacking here. Or you've got to sharpen this here. Or this doesn't flow well. And as much as I don't like the criticism in the flesh, I love it and welcome it. And so she's sharpened so much of what I've written over the years.

But this book we're going to write together, but how do you do it? How do you write it together? You go back and forth. Do you speak as one and say, okay, this is Mike speaking?

Okay, this is Nancy speaking.

So I wrote it. And then the publisher said, Hey, we need more stuff from you that fleshes a few things out.

So I wrote a couple more chapters. Because at first, I was telling my story in a funny way, an inspirational way, then weaving scripture in and taking you on a journey and encouraging you along the way.

So I added some content to it. I said, Okay, now we got to hear from your wife. And Nancy and I worked on it. And I said, All right, here are all the chapters. Just go through them and add in stuff where you want.

It just wasn't working.

So what we did, we sat down together. I mean, we spent hours and hours and hours doing this. And we are so thrilled for the folks who got advanced copies, the way they're talking about how this is impacting them. We are absolutely thrilled.

So I may speak for several paragraphs or for a page. And this is the way we did it. I sat at the computer, and Nancy read through the chapters. And then as she's reading, she'd say, okay, and she'd contribute something. She would write it.

She would speak it. I would write it. Then I would send it to her to edit. And then sent it to the publisher, all weaved in together. And she's got a special font, you know, where it's from Nancy.

And so I'll be saying something. Maybe I'll be telling some story, you know, some crazy gimmick, some you know, anti-fat cream or magic energy pill or something like that. That I try, trust me, I try to always want to get more energy. That was another thing because I pushed so hard and I run so hard for decades looking for more energy.

Now I try to figure out how to fall asleep at night because I've got so much energy through healthy eating. Yeah, it's amazing.

So she's reading some of it, and then she might just say, Oh, I got to say something here. I can't believe what I'm reading. This is crazy. And then she'll weigh in with something else.

So it's honest, it's encouraging, it's down to earth, it's full of scripture, it's got practical steps to take. But, friends, Nancy would characterize herself before as a glutton. She ate food 'cause she loved food and she would stuff herself. And and and she tells her whole story in the book. And and for me, I was addicted to certain foods.

You say, I'm not addicted to any. Ah, later in the week, we're going to give you a little test. Maybe I'll even do it today. We'll see if we get to it. We'll give you a little test from doctor Joel Fuhrman to see if you are a food addict.

Ooh, yeah. Maybe I'll even start there uh when we come back. But If I could change, if Nancy could change, you could change. I was talking to a friend of the family the other day, and I asked this person, if you could change any one thing in your life, what would it be? They said immediately, my weight.

My wait. We had a friend years back who had diabetes. He was a pastor, he had diabetes. And Nancy said to him it was type 2 diabetes, which is completely reversible through healthy eating. And she said to him, Do you know that if you ate a completely vegan diet, that it would reverse the diabetes goes i know but i hate vegetables Oh What if your whole life could be radically changed if you changed your diet and say, I'd love to, but it's a stronghold.

That's why we wrote the book. Breaking the stronghold of food, how we overcame food addictions and discovered a whole new way of living. A radio friend of mine said to me, Yeah, I don't know how big a topic food addictions are. I said, only relevant to about 99% of the American public. All right, so tell you what, the book comes out tomorrow, but there's still time.

Only a few more days to do this. Go right now to strongholdoffood.com. Take a second if you can. Strongholdoffood.com. Click there.

There's a link where you can order on Amazon so you get the reduced pre-order price. When you put the order through, then it'll take you back to the website and you'll get the e-book free when it comes out. That means tomorrow, Tuesday, you'll immediately get the e-books. You can read it on your computer or on your Kindle e-reader, on your cell phone with the Kindle app, and the paperback will be sent out immediately. You'll have that in a couple days.

You can even give the book away. Keep the e-book if you like.

So order today, strongholdoffood.com. We're going to talk about setting your sights on the goal and ask the question, are you a food addict when we come back? Yes. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Here is how Nancy and I start our brand new book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food. Let me encourage you to take your eyes off food for a moment and dream together with me, asking the simple question. What if?

What if you could be the healthiest you've been in years, or maybe in your whole life, reversing some life-threatening diseases and finding yourself more vibrant in 60 than you were at 40, all about drugs? What if you could be fit and trim, having tons more energy for your family, your friends, your job, your ministry, your hobbies, and your life? Not to mention for your Lord. What if you would never feel bloated or stuffed and never feel bad about what you ate? What if you weren't ashamed of the way you look?

What if your stomach didn't sit on your lap? You could tie your shoes. You could see your toes. You could wear normal clothes rather than clothes that looked like tents. You didn't have to stealthily unbutton your pants at the restaurant.

Remember to rebutton them when you get up to leave. You didn't have to wear stretchy pants. You didn't have to avoid mirrors or plate glass windows. You didn't have to worry about buttons bursting off your shirt. You didn't have to buy all kinds of loose-fitting clothing to cover your fat.

You didn't have to buy even bigger clothes the next year after the holidays and your latest weight gain. What if You fill in the blank. Only you know, friends, what bothers you most about your weight. I don't write this to shame you. But to encourage you, because I too was once Fat.

That's how we start our book. And Nancy jumps right in and says Some people might be offended by Mike's use of the word fat. But both of us like to tell it like it is. Many prefer to call it overweight. That certainly sounds more pleasant.

But there was nothing pleasant or pretty about the fat on my body, Nancy says.

So we will be using the words overweight and fat interchangeably throughout the book, but this is not meant to insult or criticize others. Nancy says, my fat was a hindrance to me and a burden that was choking and destroying my life. And the bottom line is, there was nothing nice or redeemable about the fat that encumbered my body.

So many of you say, yeah, I want to change. I know, I know this is a real issue. I know it's hurting my whole life. I know this is negative in every way. I just don't know that I can change.

Hey, in the natural, it's really tough. In the natural, these things really are life-controlling. See, when I got free from drugs, I was free. I never looked at myself as a recovering drug addict. To this day, I don't, please hear me.

I'm about to say something else where I do look at myself as a recovering addict.

So I'm not saying I'm better than someone else. I'm just saying the change was so profound. I was out of that lifestyle. I can't relate to it. I'm not a recovering drug addict or recovering alcoholic.

I wasn't an alcoholic. I used to drink heavily at times, but I certainly was addicted to the needle and to drugs in general. But I never looked at myself as a recovering drug addict. I didn't criticize others who did. I just couldn't relate to it myself.

And look, I came out of that lifestyle. I'm not around heroin. I'm not around cocaine. I'm not around LSD. I'm not around mescaline.

I'm not around pot or hash. I'm not around any of those things. All right. But when it comes to food, you're around food every day. And you need food to live.

And there's no more basic appetite than hunger.

So, in point of fact, we're surrounded by this. And our standard American diet is deadly. There's so much junk in the portions at our restaurants and the fast food lifestyle and on and on. And the way everything is processed.

So look, this is around you all the time.

So I live my life as if I was a recovering food addict. That's how I live. Okay. as if I was a recovering food addict. Meaning if if I mess up once, I could easily fall off the wagon, therefore I I don't deviate.

You say, but Mike, you travel a lot. I mean, you're overseas, sometimes 30-40 hours of travel, and then hotels and restaurants and people taking you out all the time. Yeah, you can make choices. We plan ahead, make certain small sacrifices. It is absolutely worth it for the massive rewards that you get.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, whose work we quote a lot in our book. Uh he he gives a checklist of 15 questions to determine whether we're food addicts. You ready? Uh I'm I'm going to I'm going to read this to you.

To have time, yeah, I can get this in. Dr. Fuhrman gives this list. If I don't eat regularly, I feel fatigued or irritable. Yes or no?

I think about eating certain foods almost all the time, yes or no. I feel sluggish or uncomfortable after eating. Eating poorly is interfering with my health. I'm overweight. But I continue to overeat.

When I start eating sweets, I don't want to stop. I have tried to diet to lose weight, but failed, and given up. I prefer restaurants with all you can eat buffets. I have physical withdrawal symptoms. I sneak food when others around aren't looking.

or aren't around or looking. I store food or hide food from my family. I eat more even though I'm no longer hungry. My eating habits cause me distress. My eating habits are causing me social and family difficulties.

I eat almost continuously all day long, 15 different items. Each one he says, yes or no. You might say, hey, I came out pretty good. I only had like five or six. Ah.

According to Dr. Furman, One yes answer makes you a suspected food addict. Two or more yes answers confirms your addiction to food. You say, two or more? Who has less than two?

Who has less than one? Me? Oh, trust me. I was way up on that list before. I was like, that's me.

Yeah, that's me. Oh, that's me. Ouch. That's me. Yeah, that's me.

Now, none of it. Because I'm a recovering food addict in terms of my attitude, but I'm free. And listen, friends, it is so utterly remarkable. Look, if you subscribe to Charisma magazine, you know I'm on the front cover of Charisma. And by the way, it's a great issue.

It's a really practical, change-your-life issue with a lot of suggestions about food and diet and lifestyle.

So it's a really practical issue. If you don't normally get it, get it, and I think you'll be really blessed by it. And I'm on the front cover because of our book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, and with a picture of me: here's a current picture, here's a before picture. And you have to understand, it is utterly immaterial to me in the natural to be on the front of a magazine. And most of the time, where I'm on the front of something on a website or something like that, it's because I'm being attacked.

Okay, so this is not a thing. Look, I'm on the front cover. To me, it's a matter of saying, hey, if Mike Brown could change his diet, anybody can. And I'm telling you, the benefits are absolutely worth it. I could not imagine how it would feel to live in my old skin.

It never stopped me from ministering. I pushed through the tiredness and kept going. I pushed through the headaches and kept going. You know, I was just going to persevere. And I was never embarrassed to minister thinking, oh, you know, your suit is tight.

And I wasn't embarrassed when I got to minister. But behind the scenes, I was embarrassed because I said, Said, I live a disciplined, godly lifestyle. I'm not a glutton, but I'm overweight.

Now, my high blood pressure, I'm obese according to the charts, and that ought not to be for me as a servant of the Lord.

So, for me, it was that personal matter where change needed to come, and by his grace, it came. Remember, go to strongholdoffood.com. You only have a few more days to do this. Strongholdoffood.com. Order from Amazon there.

All right, if that's where you get your e-books or just principal place when you order, order there. The paperback's at reduced price. When you do, you'll automatically get the e-book free. And the book is out tomorrow. New year.

New you. You too can have a story to tell. You can be restored to health and fitness and a joyful, free life as you change your relationship to food. If we can do it, you can. Yes.

It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to the line of fire, a blessed, happy 2017. To you, the theme this week, New Year. New York. You and let's talk about where we all live.

As Nancy and I are so excited tomorrow, our book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, comes out. It's already over the weekend become the number one new release in Christian personal growth on Amazon, which is a great category because there's so much written in that area. There seems to be real interest in this. We're hearing from advanced readers of the book. They're loving the practicality.

They're loving our candor. They're loving the inspiration in it. And we're really praying that this will be the difference between life and death for many, many thousands and perhaps millions of readers. Dr. Joel Fuhrman, whose work we quote a lot in the book, has a list to help you identify whether or not you are a food addict.

I want to go through it and comment where I I uh Would have been identified as a food addict.

Now, according to Dr. Furman, brace yourself. I'm going to give you 15 items here, okay? I've run through them real, real quick before. I want to go through them now a little bit slower.

But remember, he said if any one of the 15 applies to you, you're a probable food addict or a suspected food addict. Two or more, and you definitely are.

Okay, number one: if I don't eat regularly, I feel fatigued or irritable. I didn't get irritable. But fatigued, I probably needed the energy boost of the chocolates and the sweets and stuff like that. I felt fatigued a lot just because of my lifestyle. Two.

I think about eating certain foods almost all the time.

Well, I would I would really look forward to certain things and think about them a lot. That's true. How about you? I feel sluggish or uncomfortable after eating. Yeah.

Uh-huh. See now I'll have a massive salad. It'll take me it's so big. I'm talking about three and a half pounds of salad and greens and other stuff in there without the dressing three and a half pounds worth of yeah, I mean a massive salad take me maybe half hour 45 minutes to eat it. I'm not sluggish or uncomfortable at all after eating.

Eating poorly is interfering with my health. Yeah, that applied to me as well. How about you? I'm overweight, but I continue to overeat. Count me in on that one.

In the past, when I start eating sweets, I don't want to stop. You bet. I've tried to diet to lose weight but failed and given up. Mm-hmm. I'm I'm almost everyone so far in the past.

I prefer restaurants with all-you-can-eat buffets. I like those, but necessarily prefer them to others. But yeah, there's a little plus there. I have physical withdrawal symptoms. You bet.

If I would fast, you know, the headaches and everything were miserable because of withdrawal from the bad foods. I sneak food uh when others aren't around or looking. Yep. I store food or hide food from my family. Yep.

I eat more even though I'm no longer hungry. Well, I'd say I was hungry, but obviously I wasn't genuinely hungry. Let's see. My eating habits cause me distress somewhat. My eating habits are causing me social and family difficulties.

No. I eat almost continuously all day long, no, but I did eat a lot, especially at night. You know, it's a snack. I was, well, like. 10, 12, 13 out of 15 today.

I'm 0 out of 15. By God's grace, I have been changed, and you can be changed too. Don't be discouraged if you're like, I got five on that list, or I got 10 on that list. Don't be discouraged when you go to the doctor and he says, All right, does this hurt when you move like this? Or the dentist when they hit on the oh, that's the one.

Okay, that's to help.

Now we identified the problem.

Now we can help. But we've got to take food addictions as seriously as any other addictions. In fact, Food addictions are far more deadly than most other addictions. Not just because we're addicted to food, but because of the nature of the food we're addicted to. We're shortening our lives.

We're cutting short the fruitfulness of our lives. We are cutting down on the quality of our lives. And all can be changed if we change our relationship with food. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us on the line of fire, the first broadcast of the new year. Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. As we talk about lifestyle transformation, as we talk about new year, new you, on the one hand, yeah, it's easy to make new resolutions.

I'll be this, I'll do that, everything will change in the new year, and it never changes. On the other hand, if you want to make a change, you've got to make it sometime. It's not just going to happen on its own. Change will not just happen because time goes on. The only thing that happens as time goes on is we get older and habits become more entrenched.

So I want to encourage you, now is the time for change. And I'll say it, I'll shout it from the rooftops, I'll say it again and again. If I could change when it comes to my relationship with food, if I, who was the poster boy for unhealthy eating. Habits my entire life. If Nancy, who would say she was a glutton, if we could change.

Anyone could change God as no respecter of persons, and the same principles we live by will work for anyone. We tell the story in our new book coming out tomorrow: Breaking the Stronghold of Food.

Now, let me present something to you scripturally to talk about. All right, I recognize. That there is a difference between, say, practicing adultery and having a bowl of ice cream every day. I recognize that there's a difference. I recognize that the person practicing adultery and refusing to repent will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Whereas you might have some unhealthy eating habits and still be saved, you're just hurting your effectiveness and perhaps cutting your life short and maybe in certain ways hurting your witness. It's another subject we can come to.

So I am recognizing the difference. Professor Robert Gagnon on my radio show some months back made this statement. He's the foremost authority on the Bible and homosexual practice. And he said, you know, your man, you come home from work one day, you have a business dinner, and your wife said, hey, honey, how'd everything go today? And you say, well, you know, it was great, but I kind of pigged out at that business dinner.

I ordered this massive steak, and I don't know why that I had. This chocolate Sunday afterwards, and I just was kind of a glutton. She said, Oh, honey, it's all right, you'll do better tomorrow.

So he goes, Oh, okay, that wasn't so bad.

So he comes home the next day and she says, So, um, honey, how'd your day go? He says, Well, I mean, pretty good. I mean, I I slept with three different ladies I worked with. Is she going to say, Oh, that's not so bad, you'll do better tomorrow? Obviously not.

So, we recognize that there are differences in sins that we commit, or in terms of the ugliness of sins that we commit, or the consequences of sins that we commit. But let me ask you this. Would you agree that drunkenness is sin? that getting drunk is a sin. Certainly, I mean the Bible is very clear about drunkenness and drinking to excess.

Why is it a sin?

Well, on the one hand, it impairs our judgment. It can be dangerous. I mean, you get behind a car and drive. You could kill other people yourself. And it's going to impair your judgment in many, many other ways and open the door for all kinds of other foolish and fleshly behavior.

And it's physically destructive. Right, you can get cirrhosis of the liver and have other problems because of it. All right, let's take cigarette smoking. Do we believe that cigarette smoking is sinful? I think the vast majority of followers of Jesus do believe that.

Why?

Well, two reasons. It's a binding habit. We become a slave to it. And it's a destructive habit. Not only does it cost extra money that can be used for other things, but more importantly, if done enough over a long enough period of time, it will destroy our health.

It has the real potential of destroying our health, lung cancer, the other things like that.

So, even though it doesn't impair our judgment like drinking does, right? The fact of the matter is, we would agree that it's sinful because it is a destructive habit. Compare the health risks associated with obesity to the health risks associated with. Drinking, the health risks associated with smoking, even the health risks that. are associated with poverty because people can't take care of themselves properly in different ways.

Overwhelmingly, the health risks associated with obesity are much, much, much, much, much higher than the other three. Much, much, much higher. Why then, if cigarette smoking is sinful, because it's a destructive, unhealthy habit, why then isn't overeating and unhealthy eating sinful if it's a much more destructive habit? And again, I lay out the scripture, Nancy and I lay out the scripture in breaking the stronghold of food. We do it with truth spoken in love, not to condemn, but to encourage and to help.

So I want you to consider some scripture with me. All right? Paul said this writing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6. Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You're not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.

body. You say, yeah, but the context there is sexual immorality. Of course. That's the major context there. I just want to ask a larger question.

Can you glorify God with your body if Um we're abusing our bodies. If our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and our bodies are not our own, Can we glorify God with our bodies if we're gradually destroying our bodies? If we're displaying a serious lack of discipline in what we put into our bodies, how about this from Paul, 1 Corinthians 9? Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?

So run that you may obtain it. He says every athlete exercises self control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we and imperishable. Can I repeat that? Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

They do it. to receive a perishable crown. But we and imperishable. We are also Discipline in all things. We exercise self-control in all things.

Isn't one of the fruits of the Spirit? Self- Control? Can I say I exercise self-control if I eat foods that are destructive to my health? Can I say that I exercise self control if I eat in excessive ways that are destructive to my health? You might say, Hey, I'm doing great.

I keep up a busy schedule. You're not going to throw condemnation on me. Hey, I'm trying to help you. What if you could run your race far more successfully with greater joy? I mean, I'm telling you, when my weight came off, when I lost 95 pounds in a little under eight months, not through dieting, but through changing my relationship to food and no gimmicks, no shortcuts, just eating totally healthily all the time.

And there are plenty of delicious things you can eat. And by the way, your palate will change. The more you get rid of the bad foods and the more you eat healthy foods, the more your palate changes, and your palate begins to crave in a healthy way the good foods. I'll look through a store and say, mmm, these apples look good. Yeah, it used to be don't want to get the chocolate donut, glazed chocolate donuts or okay, maybe all right, how about choc M and M's, chocolate, M and M's, that's always a staple.

Ooh, I think I'm gonna splurge and get Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge chunk.

Now I think, ooh, that apple looks really good. Yeah. Whoa, those tomatoes look delicious. And look, if you could enjoy eating healthily the way you enjoyed eating unhealthily, but get rid of the excess fat and get rid of all the health-related problems that being overweight and obese will cause over the years, wouldn't it be worth it? I mean, if we just snap our fingers and boom, suddenly you want it broccoli the way you used to want to eat steak.

You want a fruit salad, a healthy fruit salad, the way you used to want fettuccine alfredo. That wasn't one of mine. That was one of Nancy's that she liked. If you would want, oh, a super healthy soup, a mega-healthy soup the way you used to want a burger and fries, why not? Why not?

Everything changes so dramatically. And when my weight got low, remember I'm 61 years old, I'm going on 62 in March. I want to run everywhere. In fact, I'll tell you a funny story about coming back from overseas in a minute when we get back on the other side of the break. But remember, you only got a few more days to do this because the book comes out tomorrow and this offer expires in a few days.

Go to strongholdoffood.com. And if you've got a friend that you love, family member that you love that's struggling, get this for them. Go to strongholdoffood.com. There's a link to order. You click on it.

It'll take you to go to the Amazon link if that's where you order your books. When you order, you get the reduced pre-order price and then you'll get the e-book free.

So you get two books for the price of a little over half the price of one. And this way you got one book to keep. You keep the e-book, give away the paperback to a friend or loved one. And it's going to be the difference between life and death for many, many people.

So we come back. I want to talk to you about coming back from overseas, my experience at the LAX airport after coming back from Australia. We talk about a long trip. You talk about what, a 13, 14 hour time differential and maybe 30 hours of travel. Let me tell you what happened when I got back thanks to this brand new lifestyle.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

You know, one of the things that we cover in our new book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, Nancy and I address the issue of excuses. Because we all have excuses. And I want to address that a little today. Maybe we'll get into it later in the week, but all this week, I want to encourage you. Change is possible.

New year, new you. Why not? God's not a respecter of persons. If He does it for me, He'll do it for me. for you.

All right. All right. I come back from overseas. I believe it was an Australia trip that I was coming back from.

So here's what that means. It means, let's say I flew from Charlotte. If I had a straight flight to LA, that would be amazing. But let's say I did, say, a five-hour flight there, then a layout of a few hours, and then maybe a 15-hour flight to Sydney.

So direct flights, and you know, it's pretty quick travel for all that. Then you get there. If it feels like 12 noon to your body, it's actually like Midnight or two in the morning there. I mean, everything is radically changed and different. All right.

And you lose day going over there.

So I come back from the trip. It's a pretty intense trip, long trip over in Australia, a couple of different cities. And this particular day I had to get up really early in the morning and then travel to the airport in Melbourne, then fly from Melbourne to Sydney, then lay over a few hours there, then from Sydney to LA. And then I think I had one or two other flights to get back to Charlotte, North Carolina from whence I had initially departed. And I remember I got off the flight.

So, I mean, again, the time zone change and not sleeping enough on the plane and the whole bit. And I land at the airport and I'm in L.A. and I'm waiting to get my luggage.

So I got a luggage cart. I get my luggage. I put it on there.

Now I have to go through, got to go through, oh, oh, no, no, hang on. Before that, go through passport control. And now to get down to where the luggage is, you go down on an escalator.

So I was just so full of energy and just, you know, work out.

So I just grabbed onto the railings, lifted my feet off the ground, and just held myself up, you know, good tricep exercise the entire way till I got down there. Then jogged over, got my luggage, put it on the luggage cart, and then went through customs. And then you got to go to drop your luggage off now to be sent to the rest of your destination. And I remember jogging. Here, I just got off these long.

Flights, and I'm holding myself up on the escalator and running through the airport. Not wanting to run too fast to make it look strange, but just there was a big opening in a long hallway, just running down there. I think this is amazing. This is amazing. But brand new lifestyle by God's grace, no tricks, no gimmicks, no magic pills, no special supplements.

I basically take a daily multivitamin and one other, one other you know, a vitamin kind of thing. That's it. Everything comes through healthy.

Now I exercise too. And the exercising is rigorous and intense, but I was exercising in an intense way when I weighed 50 or 75 pounds more.

Okay?

So the exercising didn't do it. The exercise helps, but it's the diet change that comes first. All right. So excuses. I remember when we were working out with our trainer, this was years back.

He went away for a few years, came back.

So this was in the earlier days, maybe five years ago. We're working out. And he was talking to me about my diet and stuff like that. And I said, yeah, you know, it's hard. And I went through all the reasons why it's so hard.

And I got, trust me, I got him. I'm on the road all the time. I got a crazy busy schedule. I've got to eat at airports. I've got to eat on planes.

I'm taking to restaurants all the time. I'm staying at hotels.

So I gave all the reasons. And he just listened, nodded, didn't say much. The next day, we were working out with another young man who had graduated years earlier from our school. And the subject of diet and lifestyle came up. And he began to explain why it's hard for him to eat more healthily.

He and his wife, both doing full-time work in ministry, and then getting home and barely enough time to make a meal, and then got to run back out. And he went through it, and I listened, and I thought, those are the most pathetic excuses I've ever heard. Every one of those excuses is just shouting out, I'm not willing to make the change. I know I should make changes, but I'm not willing to. And I got some wimpy excuses, and immediately I said to myself, buddy, that's how your own excuses sound.

Oh, they sounded so big and great. Oh, yeah, we give our excuses. Yeah, I really can't do it for this reason, that reason. Yeah, I got kids and the budget, you know, all the travel and all that. Right, right.

They sound so good, does. And somebody else comes up with the same excuses. We think, what kind of excuses are those? Ultimately, excuses are for wimps. And I've got a whole chapter.

Nancy and I have a whole chapter in Breaking the Stronghold of Food, where we interact with the excuses that we give. Here, better. to be honest. Better just say okay. I need to change.

I'm having health problems because of my weight. Or I'm just embarrassed by being overweight. Or I just don't think that being overweight is conducive to my witness. Or I'm starting to slow down. I'm starting to get worn out because of being overweight.

Or God's convicting me that I'm a glutton. Or God's convicted me that my stomach is my God, that I'm a slave to certain foods.

Okay, whatever it is. And you say, I know I should do differently. I know I should live differently. But I'm not willing. Ah Good start.

Be honest. Confess that to God. Or I know I should make changes, but I don't know how. Good. Start there.

Or I really want to make changes. But I'm too weak. I've done this a thousand times before. I've never succeeded. I was uh out with one pastor having lunch with him in in one state, and he talked about uh a stomach bypass surgery that he had and the and the reasons for it.

And I said, you know, uh there's so many other ways. He said, Look, I probably lost 40 or 50 pounds 50 different times and gained it all back. It was this, or I was going to die. And he said, even with this, he still had to watch his diet. He said, because even with this stomach bypass, apparently most of the people that have it end up.

going back to their old ways, which makes things even worse. I understand, of course, no condemnation for that man, what he did. He's trying to guard his health and be there for his wife and kids and church in the future. But better to be honest, right? And he was honest with me.

Better to be honest and just tell the Lord the truth. We want to help you this week. We want to help you this week. This can be a week of real transformation. This is Michael Brown, our new book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food.

It comes out tomorrow.

So let me give the announcement once more. I know many of you only get to listen for a few minutes and you've got to go out and run on with your business.

So remember, go to strongholdoffood.com, right? Strongholdoffood.com. Only a couple more days you can do this. Just a few more days. Order, order on Amazon, wherever you normally order.

And then when you order, you'll get the reduced pre-order price. And the e-book you'll get free.

So you get the paperbacks mailed to you in just a few days from Amazon. And you'll get the e-book free. But to take advantage of this offer, go to strongholdoffood.com. And make sure you visit our website, thelineoffire.org. Check out my latest articles, videos, all there to bless you and be life-giving, life-changing resources for you.

My bottom line today: God is no respecter of persons. What He did for Nancy and me, He will do for you.