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PRCUALife, protecting life through all its stages. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.
If Not For God with Mike Zwick today. Boy, do we have an exciting guest. We have Dr. Michael Brown from On the Lawn of Fire, and he comes on the Truth Network every day during the week at 3 o'clock.
He has an hour-long show, and it is awesome. One of the things that I was thinking about was Stu Epperson actually gave me this book about a year ago. It's called Breaking the Stronghold of Food, and it was by Dr. Michael Brown with his wife, Nancy Brown. And it shows how Dr. Brown and his wife not only lost a bunch of weight, but how they really got in shape. Now, Dr. Brown, I've got to tell you something that happened to me. I read your book, I did what it said to do in the book, and I lost 25 pounds. What happened after that was I saw something on the internet, and it said that if you just put an ice pack on your neck, that you could lose the weight and you'll be fine because there's something called brown adipose tissue. So what I did was I started doing that, and I went back to eating Ben & Jerry's, and Mike, you'll never believe what happened. I gained the weight back. So recently, in the past, probably about the past two or three weeks, the past month, I've listened to what the book says, I've done what it says, I got rid of the ice pack, and things are going well again. But I think he said, Dr. Brown, this weight loss journey started in, was it 2014, is that right?
Yes, sir. August 23rd of 2014, after many months of prayer on my end, and found out Nancy, my wife, was praying fervently at her end, I said to her, at 59 years old, I said to her, my plan is not working. What I meant was, and she understood the code language between us, that all the things I've done over the years, well I'll cut back on sweets, well I'll cut back on this, well I'll get rid of fried food, well I won't have this, that really wasn't working because the older I got, the heavier I was, and I travel around the world, I have a very intense schedule, worked out heavily as well, and I was almost 6'3", but 275 pounds, high blood pressure, I was getting tired with my schedule, and for the first time in my life I was wondering how long could I keep up this pace in ministry, and I knew I had to make a change, but problem was, everything that I liked to eat, I couldn't eat, and all the stuff I didn't want to eat, I'd have to eat, and how could I keep up a healthy lifestyle while traveling and all of that, but I knew something had to change, and Nancy had been really concerned, just knowing the way I pushed myself was unhealthy with the way I was eating and living, so I said to her, my plan is not working, and she said alright, nothing passes through your lips without my permission, you only eat what I give you, and I said fine, I knew I had to make a change, and the next day was the beginning, so cold turkey, off sweets, got rid of all the stuff I had eaten all these many years, I was a long time chocoholic, you know, just had pizza every day and chocolate and other things like that, and went through three miserable days of withdrawal, and it was much harder for me to give up chocolate and certain foods than it was to stop shooting heroin when I was sixteen, when I got saved in 1971, and then after three miserable days of withdrawal, the bad stuff left, and then it was a matter of renewing my mind, changing my attitude towards food, because food was my reward, I was able to realize that, that with ministry and travel and the way I pushed that that was my built in reward, after ministry and any time in life, travel, etc, so renew my mind and get used to the new lifestyle, but I went from 275 pounds to 180 in less than eight months, so despite totally healthy eating and living, my blood pressure went from a high of 149 over 115 to about 105 over 65, I used to have two or three headaches a week, sometimes decently bad, you know, take ibuprofen all the time, basically haven't had a headache in almost seven years now, had constant lower back pain, that disappeared, had to travel around the world with a CPAP machine for sleep apnea, all the weight loss reduced that dramatically enough that I didn't need the machine anymore, so it's just been extraordinary, my immune system is probably ten times stronger than it used to be, if I get a cold, which is super rare now, it's really mild and it goes really fast, so everything has been changed, energy level, everything has been dramatically changed, I literally feel like I'm getting younger every year, I'm 66 now, but literally feel like I'm getting younger every year, and once I realized God had intervened and done something supernatural in my life, because I was the poster boy for unhealthy eating all those years, not a glutton, but just an unhealthy eater, that when I realized God had intervened, I knew, no playing games with this, don't mess with this, so that's been it, no exceptions, no splurge days, no cheat days, and God's been with me and it's been an amazing journey. That's awesome, and you know it's funny, when I started to, I really wanted to talk about this book and this show, one of the things that kind of came to my mind, Dr. Brown, is there are some people out there who would say, well hold on, we've got everything that's going on in Israel right now, we've got the pre-Trib, post-Trib argument, people need to be saved, and there's all these other things, I mean, why are we talking about diet, food, and losing weight, and you have an answer to that as well, right? Well I'd like to be alive to help people, I'd like to be alive to teach what the Bible says, I'd like to be alive to mentor the younger generation of students, and look, Dr. John Fuhrman, not a believer, a Jewish, probably agnostic, who wrote the book, Eat to Live and the End of Dieting, and we follow his food guidelines, and I often quote him in the book, he says, you know, you'll never fulfill your life goals if you're chronically ill or dead, so certain things are out of our power, you know, you get in a car accident, you know, you barely survive, have to go through rehab, or you have some illness that's unrelated to diet, but the vast majority of the physical problems that we experience in America are diet related, heart disease is the number one killer, and almost all heart disease could be eradicated with totally healthy eating and living, the vast majority of it, so many other things we suffer from tie in directly with diet, so to me it's simply a matter of being a good steward, here, look at it like this, let's say you're called to support missionaries around the world, and God gives you ten million dollars, well if you squander all that money, if you waste it all on gambling, well you're not going to help any of those missionaries that you're supposed to help with that entrustment, well we've been given health and life, and if we are not good stewards over that, then where are you going to be, you know, let's say you're a 45 year old male, you're obese, you eat whatever you want to eat, all kinds of fried foods and unhealthy foods and addictive foods and things like that, you may never get to walk your younger daughter down the aisle when she's getting married, you may never be there as a grandfather for her kids, I say that that matters, especially when it's in our power to do something about it, when basically what we're saying is, yeah I know that these foods are unhealthy, and I know I'd be a better steward of my body and able to help more people and reach more people with the gospel if I ate differently, but I like my food, that's idolatry, that's addiction, and we wouldn't do that with anything else, yeah I know that this adultery will destroy my marriage and destroy my ministry, but I really like this gal, no that's sin, but we need to look at this the same way, and when people will ask me, you know when they picked me up at the airport and saw how much weight I'd lost and the change, almost always the first question that I'd be asked by the pastor picking me up at the airport when I'm traveling and speaking, first question, how often do you cheat?
My answer would always be how often do you cheat on your wife? That's the way I look at it, I fully understand that having a dish of ice cream here and there is not the same as committing adultery, or having some french fries and a burger one time in a year is not the same as downloading porn, but for me, that's how I look at it, for me it's wrong, it's sinful, it's something I don't touch because I've seen all too many people in Nancy's own story, splurge days, cheat days, play around with things, she initially after she made the transformation first in her own lifestyle, and her parts of the book are far and away the best parts, her insights and observations are what I'm saying, but she set it up that every so often she'd have a splurge day, very measured, very planned, but then the one day became two and the two became three and she fell back for a while and found it much harder to break out and be consistent the second time around than the first time around, so when God's grace comes in your life you don't mess with it, and I just ask the question, if you could minister more effectively, if you could serve others more effectively, serve God more effectively, be a greater blessing to your family by transforming your diet, isn't it worth it? I think so, and when I was going to do the show, one of the things that I thought of is there is a verse in the Bible where Jesus actually says that man looks at the outward appearance, but God searches the heart, and what I was reminded of is that yes, when we look at other people we're not supposed to look at their outward appearance, we're supposed to see their heart, we're supposed to see them like Jesus does, I agree with that, but I think there's a part in there that people miss, and the part that people miss is that man looks at the outward appearance, so how bad would it be if we're out there trying to share the gospel with people, or we're trying to go about our business and trying to help people out and trying to win people for Christ, but they're not going to want to listen to us because they say, look, you believe this gospel but you can't even take the time to take care of yourself and be healthy, why would I want to listen to you? Right, look, there is something to it, it is in 1 Samuel 16 where God says to Samuel that man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart, but here's the thing, I have great compassion on people who are obese, especially morbidly obese, it feels so hard to ever make it back, you think, well I've destroyed my body, it'll never look normal, you know, it's going to take years, food is such a massive stronghold in people's lives, so the last thing I'm here to do is judge anyone, or criticise anyone, or make anyone feel any worse than they do right now, I want to encourage them that if God can help me, he can help anybody, but consider this angle in keeping with what you're saying, one of the fruits of the spirit is self-control, and yeah, there are people, a very, very small minority of people who have some type of thyroid-related issue, metabolic issue, and they don't eat much but they're really heavy, but the vast majority of us, if we're obese, if we're overweight, it's because of poor dietary habits, and by the way, exercise is important, but that's maybe 10% of the equation, 90% of it is what you're putting into yourself, so think of this, if I am demonstrating a lack of self-control, then what am I telling you about my own witness?
Or I just felt, even though no one criticised me for being big, you know, because I'm a big guy, kind of, you get away with the overweight more, you know, people didn't realise I was as fat as I was, but it struck me as this is a testimony of lack of discipline, that I live a very disciplined life, a very serious life before God, and yet in this area, I don't look disciplined, and again, it was because of unhealthy eating choices and late night foods and all those kinds of things, and yes, the Ben & Jerry's, of course, for me, it had to be the hardcore, you know, New York's Super Fudge Chunk, and then I'd get one of those pint containers, you know, small containers and eat it in two sessions over one night, you know, you're just destroying yourself and doing it, and I said to myself, what if I'm having a debate on a college campus, and I'm debating some slick, young, gay activist about can you be gay and Christian, et cetera, and I don't want to turn off half of those young people by coming in there looking like a slob, I want to, I'm fine, I'm an old guy that I'm not trying to look slick, et cetera, but I just want to demonstrate that I live a disciplined life, so yeah, these are issues, I mean, here, look at it like this, if you're going to the fitness centre, and you say, hey, I understand, I get a personal trainer once a month, that's right, and the personal trainer comes in, and the guy's belly is flopping out of his speedo, and he's huffing and puffing as he walks across the room, it's like, I don't think I want you to train me, now, I understand that preachers and pastors are not fitness trainers, I fully understand that, but there is this aspect of discipline, and why is this allowed, you know, if I was wearing some other sin, there'd be consequences for why is the sin of gluttony allowed in the church, and why do we even cultivate it with our constant feasting, there was a brother from Ghana who was visiting a friend of mine in the States years back with a powerful prayer ministry, and every meeting they'd go out, have a meal afterwards, and then potluck dinner, and this and that, and the guy from Ghana said to him, now I see why God is not moving in America, he said, you spend all your time feasting, we spend all our time fasting. And at one point, I think you were in a prayer meeting one time, and you said something about it was too fat to fly? Yeah, yeah, it was late 1982, early 1983, I was part of a church where we had a real powerful outpouring of the Spirit, and the highlight every week was our Sunday night prayer, where so many people were praying, we opened the building at different times, and now Sunday night, we come and meet with God, it was a good three hours of just powerful prayer and the Holy Spirit ministering, and we really look forward to those special times, along with our prayer times during the week.
And this one particular prayer meeting, everything was just dull and flat, and our prayers were kind of weak, and the Holy Spirit wasn't speaking and moving. And one of the brothers, Desmond praying, he said, brethren, he had this deep voice, he said, we're too fat to fly, right before prayer meeting, we had a big Sunday meal, and we come straight from that to prayer, and it was true. And I started to realize, even with preaching, as a young man, and I once preached a message called Too Fat to Fly at a luncheon, it was a Women's Aglow luncheon on Long Island, some years after that, we were meeting in a nice restaurant, and I was asked to speak, and the message God gave me was Too Fat to Fly, and it was about spiritual discipline. And I couldn't believe it, when right before we were going to eat, and after we ate I was going to preach, they have a local minister, a local pastor, get up and give thanks, and this guy was massive.
I mean, he was giant. And he got up and said, Lord, you know I love to eat, I love food! I thought, oh no, I've got to preach, I'm too fat to fly after this. But I realized, early on when I started preaching, that I could not have a big meal, and then an hour later get up and preach, I felt the food weighing me down, and I realized, okay, I just finished feeding my body, rather than feeding my spirit, so I just made it a life habit for decades to not eat for a good number of hours before preaching, but then I didn't make the deeper connection, that it was the types of foods that I was eating, that if you indulge the flesh, it's harder to walk in the spirit.
Yeah, now you read in the book that this isn't the first thing that you've tried, right? Oh yeah, okay, so I did the discipline thing, you know, in terms of, I would fast, you know, spiritually, but sometimes just for physical discipline, and you know, I had a streak many years ago where I only had sweets one day a month, and did that for the better course of a year, but then I lost it, fell back with that. Or I wouldn't have any fried foods, or you know, things like that, cutting back, I did that many a time, only to, it wasn't enough, in other words, it was just a small step in the right direction, and then ultimately I lost it and went back to the old ways, because what I was doing was constantly depriving myself of foods I was addicted to, rather than getting rid of the foods I was addicted to, and eating only healthy foods, so that's why I'm thriving. In other words, I don't feel like I'm surviving, I'm barely making, I'm thriving.
I don't think, I can go to any restaurant with you, you can eat whatever decadent meal you eat, I'm not going to judge you, but trust me, I'm not envying you, I'm not wishing I could have it, I'm thriving, because I love the healthy foods now. But I tried every gimmick that was out there, I have a whole chapter in the book where you mention the ice pack thing, yeah, maybe it's because I was a heavy drug user two years before I was saved, just popping a pill, had an appeal, but I try these energy pills, take these pills and they boost your metabolism. Or take these pills and when you go to sleep at night, they burn fat while you sleep.
Every kind of different thing, probably the most embarrassing one that I never told Nancy about until years later. I was flying one time, and I was reading on the airplane magazine, and it was this special anti-fat cream. You would put it on, stomach's fat, legs are fat, whatever, that you would spread the cream on, and leave it on for hours, and it worked against the fat, and you'd lose fat like that. So I actually bought the stuff to try it, and not only was it miserable to put on, I mean it was oily and smelly, and it's like okay, if you put it on at night, and then put your pajamas on over that, you got to wash the pajamas the next day, they're totally cookie with this stuff, if you put it on during the day, you put your clothes on. So I did it a few times, it was just hopeless, and then I threw this stuff away many years later, told Nancy about it, but I tried the gimmicks, and here's the bottom line.
If you just get rid of the bad foods, eat the good foods, and exercise, you'll lose weight and you'll get healthier. It's really simple. It's not a mystery. Yeah, you know, it's the old expression that there's no easy way out, but you also said that just like anything else, that first it was a little tough, and you actually told a story about where you were about to teach a class, and you started crying. Okay, so here's the story.
Nancy wanted to make sure I put that in the book. So I got over the withdrawal stuff, that was like three days of misery, and then really cried out to God the third night, and grace came, so I was good with that, and then started to try to renew my mind and change my attitude. Food is not my reward in life. Food is the fuel that empowers me to live my whole camp. Changing that, but still struggling, you know, feeling deprived a little bit here and there because I can't have this and I can't have that, but I'm doing better, I'm doing better.
And I'm into this about, oh, about three weeks into this, and I came home from doing radio one day, took a late afternoon nap, as I often do, and then got up to teach my night class at our ministry school, the Forest School of Ministry. And I woke up, and I was craving something sweet. And I remembered, you know, Nancy had explained to me, and I'd read in some affirming stuff, that we have a natural sweet tooth, but that's for fruits, that's for things like that, you know, dates, you know, healthy stuff. And I thought, okay, fine, I'm craving something sweet, I'll just have some mom, because, you know, the food addictions were broken at that point, I'll just have some fruit. But somehow there wasn't any fruit in the house.
Oh, no, I got to teach, I'm feeling weak, I got to get something in my body. So I thought, okay, I'm just, I don't have time to go into a grocery store and find something and cut something up, but maybe by this gas station, I have to pass on the way to my class. Maybe they've got some cut up fruit, I saw it the other day, like cut up watermelon, so I go in there, and there's no cut up fruit, I go into another one as I'm driving, I pass it.
No cut up fruit. I think, what am I, I got to have something. It's like, all right, Nancy told me not to have fruit juices, because they have all kinds of sugar in them, you know, not natural sugar, but sweeteners, and I find, you know, naked juices, that's what they're called, and maybe they're better, and I thought, I get one of those, and I drink half of that before the class, and I thought, this is crazy, this is crazy. This is, I can't live like, I can't live like this. I can never have another slice of pizza for the rest of my life, never have a brownie or M&Ms or chocolate, for the rest of my life, and I'm sitting in the car literally two minutes before class time, literally, in the parking lot, with the students in the building, and I break down crying in the car, I can't, I can't.
Two things were happening simultaneously. One, I was coming to the end of myself, and two, I was watching myself, it was like I was outside my body, watching this whimpering baby, and I was laughing at myself crying. So the crying was totally real, but another part of my mind was looking at me and laughing at me, and I realized this is just what you need, strength out of weakness. You acknowledge your weakness, God's strength will be made perfect in you.
I wiped my eyes, God spoke to me right then, changed subjects, what to teach on it, ended up being divinely ordained, but I literally wiped the tears off my eyes, went in to teach, had a great night, and that was it, never had a crisis after that. Well, you know, a couple times, if I was traveling, I didn't calculate things rightly, it was like seven hours sitting in an airport, and there was no food that I could find there to eat, you know, I felt slightly bothered, but basically it, that was my one and only crisis, came to that breaking point, and what I encourage everyone is, listen, maybe you're as wimpy as I was, maybe as weak as I was, you know, yes, I'm a disciplined person, but I was a food wimp almost my entire life, God helped me, God gave me grace, and I encourage everyone at the beginning of breaking the stronghold of food is just, go to God and be honest, I'm really weak, I'm terrified at the idea of eating broccoli, I can't imagine not having cheeseburger and fries a guy, tried and failed, just be totally honest, don't make excuses, just be totally honest, excuses are for wimps, tell God the truth and say I need help, and then take a step, and if he gives you help, take another step, and before you know it, you'll be a changed person. Dr. Michael Brown, if somebody wants to get this book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, by Dr. Michael Brown, what's the easiest way to do it? They can order it on our website, askdrbrown.org and connect with us for tons of other resources, askdrbrown.org, or if they want to get the ebook or an audio version, they can go to Amazon or Christian Book or Barnes & Noble, any of the online book dealers, and get the book in any form, paperback, audio, or ebook. And by the way, we've got an amazing testament, one of the most moving ones was from a woman whose mother had died when she was young, and then she had type 2 diabetes and all these health-related problems, and she said, I knew I was going to die and my kids weren't going to get to have their mother, and she said, I read the book, I've made the determination to change, and we hear from her months later, she's off insulin, no more type 2 diabetes, because it is treatable, it is reversible, and all the other bad health things had turned around and reversed, and she said, look, I can be here for my daughters, my kids, that's what we want to hear from people. You can pick up the book at askdrbrown.org, right?
Yeah, that's it. And you pick it up, and you use it, and after that, you don't really have to spend any money, I mean, you just do what it says to do in the book, and I'm not saying it's easy, but it is relatively simple, is that right, Dr. Brown? It's relatively simple, and if it seems impossible for you, God wants to help you, God wants to bless you, he wants to give you the self-control you need, and if I could do it, here it is now, seven years without an exception, and I'm thriving, I'm 66, my workout partner is a WWE wrestling superstar, we work out together, I'm 66, if God could transform me and help me, he can do it for anybody. Dr. Brown, thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing the book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, guys, please pick it up today, thank you very much.
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