Best of Broadcast: From 275 lbs. to 180 lbs. in Less than Eight Months

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We'll tell you the story today on how I went from 275 pounds to 180 pounds in less than eight months, all by God's grace. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on The Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Well, let me wish you a super blessed, wonderful, happy new year as we start off this year together here on The Line of Fire.

So thrilled to be back live in the studio with you. And you know, you're always here at the beginning of the new year, new year, new you. Well, why not? Why not this time something clicks?

Why not this time something happens? Why not this time you receive grace from God and a fresh determination to make some healthy long-term lifestyle changes? Yeah, the theme for this month is let's get healthy. Oh, we're going to talk spiritually and emotionally and mentally and physically.

Let's get healthy. We're going to do our best to stand by your side to encourage you to move forward in the Lord. I'll share some things that God has spoken to me over the months that I believe are very important. We will continue to function every day as your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity as we look at what's happening in the crazy world around us and bring us back to the truth of God's Word so you can take a deep breath and realize, okay, not everyone has lost their mind.

Sanity remains in God's house. We'll talk about all kinds of things that are happening in the world around us, but a thrust through the month, let's get healthy. Now, if you have a question you want to ask me about my own journey, I'm not a nutritional expert, understand that, I'm not a medical doctor, but if you want insights on my own journey, the things that have happened in my own life and what's happened to help me get healthy and the transformation that came or just, you know, things about spiritual discipline or any kind of motivation or anything like that, by all means, give me a call, 866-348-7884 is the number to call. And if you want to ask me about anything else, we will take time for random phone calls because we haven't been live the last two weeks. We'll take random phone calls on anything you want to ask me about like you normally would on a Friday. Phone lines are wide open, 866-348-7884. We also want to make available to you all this month the book that Nancy and I wrote, the only book that we've co-written, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, How We Conquered Food Addictions and Discovered a New Way of Living.

I'll give you a link to order online. When you do, you also get with this a free video where I preach, I inspire, I encourage. Alright, so my own journey, yeah, I was not so much a glutton but a lifetime unhealthy eater.

I mean, in the extreme. When I was a boy, for breakfast, I would have four Oreo cookies. That was my breakfast growing up. And I would have, one I would just eat whole, then the next I would separate and eat the cream and then the top and the bottom, then the next one eat whole.

So I rumored, this is one, two, three, four. That was my breakfast. I would then come home for lunch during the day in elementary school and I'd have a peanut butter sandwich, no jelly, just peanut butter with the crust peeled off because I didn't like crust and grape juice was normally a drink. After school, I'd come home and have grape juice and you're not talking something healthy here, right? Full of sugar and pretzels. And then for dinner, something not particularly healthy. I would have no fruit, very little vegetables, maybe a cucumber, part of a cucumber, part of a green pepper. And of course, always sweets, always sweets, brownies, chocolates of different kinds, ice cream, candy.

That was always. When I got to junior high, junior high, I would have every day at lunch, just walk a couple blocks from where the school was. And every day I would get hamburger and fries for lunch every single day. And sometimes I'd have hamburger and fries for dinner as well. Once I was now out of the house and now in college and now doing different things, working on the road, et cetera, and I'm married, I had pizza every day. I'm talking New York pizza.

I'm not talking about one of these little slices you heat up from some, no, I'm talking about thick, juicy, when I say juicy, I mean overflowing with cheese slices of pizza. I would have that every single day, sometimes twice a day, for years. It would be rare that a day would go by where I didn't have pizza. And then always the sweets added in.

And again, virtually no fruit during this time, virtually no salads during this time. Yeah, this was lifestyle. And so peanut M&M's or other treats or whatever, always sweets. And I was addicted to chocolate.

I realized that. I remember when I started fasting more at a certain point in life and and I realized, wow, when I break the fast, I don't just want food, I want sweets. So I was addicted to sweets. I realized that every so often I have a breakthrough and I would have sweets one day a month, literally, of course, all day that day, I just eat whatever chocolate I wanted. But I did that maybe one year and then, you know, fall off the wagon because it just was not a healthy lifestyle overall. Now, please understand, I never ate whatever in the world I wanted to eat all day, every day.

I was always disciplined and I was fasting at different times and things like that. So, for example, if I was going to have a chocolate extreme blizzard because my sweet taste and chocolate taste got more and more extreme, it wasn't just ice cream, it was Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk. It wasn't just, you know, a shake. It was now a chocolate extreme blizzard large. That alone was 1,500 calories.

Not only that, everything in it was junk. Everything in it was bad for me, all right? So if I was going to have that, I would skip one meal, okay, because I had to be disciplined, right? Or if I was going to Five Guys and getting one of their burgers and fries with, they'd fill the bag with fries, I don't know how many calories of unhealthy stuff that was, so I'd skip another meal, you know, to kind of balance that out. But always sweets, normally several times a day, chocolate several times a day, that was lifestyle.

And as much as I tried to get down in my lifestyle, you know, because I was disciplined in other areas of life, right? As much as I would try to make change, I was addicted. Face the fact, many of us are food addicts. I don't just mean that we need food to live. I mean we are addicted to unhealthy foods. You say, well, I'm not.

Easy way to prove it. Whatever food it is that you always want to have but you say you're not addicted to it, just don't have it at all and don't substitute anything similar to it for the next month and see what happens. If you just walk away from it without any problem, you don't go through withdrawal emotionally, physically, maybe you're not addicted. Then the question is, is it healthy overall? Anyway, I always had a plan. Oh, I always had a plan. Yeah, I'm going to cut back on peanut M&Ms. I'm going to cut out fried food.

I'm going to cut back from this, from that. But all I was doing was addressing one tiny part of the problem instead of recognizing my whole lifestyle was problematic. I exercised, I pushed, right? I could exercise aggressively during all this. I remember my trainer, he was working out, several of us that worked together in our organization, he said, abs are made in the kitchen. I didn't want to hear that because what I ate in the kitchen was not that healthy but I was going to work out, you know, as much as I could. There is no substitute for healthy eating. In the weeks to come, we're going to introduce you to some really neat supplements that can really help the quality of your life in many ways, but they are supplements, not substitutes.

There's no substitute for healthy eating. Let me read to you from the beginning of Breaking the Stronghold of Food. By the way, I want to alert you when you get the book, I wrote a good portion of it, but then there are places throughout the book where Nancy chimes in.

Those are the best places, without question. Steve Strang, the publisher said, I got to admit, Mike, I found myself looking ahead for her comments because those are the best parts of the book. So chapter one opens with these words, set your sights on the goal. 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 at 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 and remember to rebutton them when you got 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 only you know what bothers you most about your weight? And I write this not to shame you, but to encourage you since I too once was fat. Yeah, that's the word.

That's what I was. Nancy chimes in here. 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 is nothing pleasant or pretty about the fat on my body. So we will be using the words overweight and fat interchangeably throughout the book.

But this is not meant to insult or criticize others. My fat, Nancy says, 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. We're here to help this month.

The thrust is to help you get healthy spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. And look, let's face it. When we're physically healthy, everything else feels better.

Please hear me. There are some of you who are sick. It's unrelated to your diet. You're struggling with a disease and you're it's very difficult to even get through the day.

The pain is great. We're standing with you. This is not to say, well, if you're not healthy, there's nothing wrong with you. No, no, no, quite the contrary. This is to say that God designed us for health and therefore we want to cooperate with the Lord and do whatever we can with his help and grace to be healthy because everything else falls into place. And I'm going to tell you about the change in my life. But friends, I'm 67 years old, vibrant, full of health, vitality, strength, energy. My mind is sharp. My body is thriving.

And above all, to me, this is a spiritual thing because I want to glorify God with my body. So here's how you can get our book. Go to store.askdrbrown.org store.askdrbrown.org.

That's store.askdrbrown.org and right there, click on specials and you'll see this is the first special offer. Our book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, together with my video message that will further encourage you and inspire you. Friends, if God could help me, the poster boy for unhealthy eating for 59 years, if he could help me, he can help you.

The same grace is available. All right, you can call me with questions about my own journey or ways to help you get disciplined. Or if you've got any question of any kind you want to talk to me about, unrelated to today's subject matter, we'll take some other calls later on. 866-348-7884.

We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-344-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, on The Line of Fire.

This is Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. Encouraging you this whole month. Let's get healthy. I've got some important spiritual insights about that as well.

Others have to do with our mental and emotional state. But today, we're starting off the new year talking about my own journey from 275 pounds to 180 pounds. That began in August of 2014. By God's grace, I weigh 183 pounds today, so right around the same as after this radical weight reduction. I'll tell you about my daily food intake a little bit later in the show. But for those who say to me, Mike, you're a very disciplined person.

We see the way you live. You know, Dr. Brown, we see that you do this every day and this every day and this every day and you push hard. It's true in many ways I am a disciplined person. Yes, by God's grace, but yes, in many ways I'm a very disciplined person. At the same time, if I was so disciplined, why couldn't I fix my food habits for 59 years? Why was I still addicted to chocolate?

Why was I still addicted to breads and different things like that? If I was so disciplined, why did it take me 59 years to get it right? No, let's look at this differently. If God helped me, he can help you.

Yes, that's the way you need to look at it. And please hear me. You may be morbidly obese. You may be sitting there feeling terrible about your physical condition right now. Not in a vanity way, but you just feel miserable about it. You feel miserable physically. You're weighed down. Your mind is foggy.

You're achy and there's no energy and you feel miserable. The last thing I want to do is criticize you. The last thing I want to do is point a finger because that's me, if not for God's gracious intervention.

All right, so I want to encourage you to say that the same grace that was available to me is available to you. So here's what happened. As the years went on, it was getting heavier. Your metabolism slows down and years go on, I'm starting to get heavier. It was 230 pounds, 240, 250, then I go back down just a few, but then I got as high as 275 pounds. And I remember thinking, okay, I've got these suits, the biggest suits I have, the biggest pants I have. I'm not getting anything bigger than this, you know, stretchy jeans. And so I'm not, I can't get, and I thought, where does it end?

Where does it end? How heavy am I going to get? And I started having high blood pressure.

It was as high as 149 over 103 at one point when I, it could have been higher than that, just one day when I took it at home. And Nancy said, you can't live like this. You know, high blood pressure called the silent killer. It's like, you can't live like this. This is going to bite you. And I thought, okay, God does not suspend natural laws for his people. In other words, if you jump out of a building foolishly, you know, I've just had it, I can't take it, you jump out of a building. Even if you're a minister of the gospel, God's not going to suspend the laws of gravity.

So the same way, you know, we reap what we sow in that regard. And I was starting to get worn out. I remember telling Nancy one night, and it really disturbed her because she never heard me talk like this. I said, you know, I don't think I can keep going at the pace I'm going. You know, traveling around the world and pushing hard, I'm getting worn out. Not only so was I getting worn out, despite exercising vigorously and stuff like that, but I had headaches, probably three headaches a week, sometimes more, but that was on average. I was constantly taking Tylenol or Advil, whatever, you know, sometimes multiple times in a day.

I had constant lower back pain, high blood pressure, I mentioned, severe sleep apnea, so always had to travel with a breathing machine. And, you know, I just thought, well, whatever, it's what you deal with. So Nancy was praying earnestly. She really got a burden and cried out to God. Now, I was crying out a lot over the years, but it was sporadic. It was sporadic prayer for help, sporadic prayer for change.

She really pressed into God. But she also knew the problem was I was a food wimp. I didn't like trying new foods. In fact, I just said I don't like them.

I wouldn't even try. I ate very few healthy foods. So how do you make the change now? I had to basically get rid of all the stuff I was eating. Now, I would have a little salad most days. I enjoyed that, a little salad before my pizza, you know, before these giant slices of pizza oozing with cheese.

I would do that, but I ate very few veggies and virtually no fruits. So she was really crying out to God. And I sat down, this is in August of 2014, and I said to her, my plan is not working. That was code for me saying, my little child, I'm gonna get rid of this, cut back, cut some donuts. It's not working.

It's not working. Something more radical has to happen. So she said, all right, no food passes your lips without my permission. I'm gonna take control of your diet. Those are about the scariest words anyone could have said to me, but I knew I had to make the change. So it was, go cold turkey starting the next day.

Yep. Some say, well, cut back a little. All I knew was this is wrong. Cold turkey starting the next day. So I went through three miserable days of withdrawal.

Now, here's the crazy thing. When God set me free from shooting heroin and other drugs, I had no withdrawal. I was instantly free in December of 1971, instantly. Here I had three miserable days of withdrawal from chocolate and breads and whatever stuff I was addicted to. And I remember thinking, okay, this is absolutely miserable.

I'm trying to do radio. I'm feeling lousy. It's cold at the same time thinking, what in the world? But I thought, okay, this, I read enough to know that this meant that toxins were leaving my body. This meant that bad things were leaving my body. And that's positive. That's positive. And I also thought, okay, you're gonna have to go through this at some point, right?

So at least you're a day and a half, two days, you might as well press through. Finally on the third night, I cried out to God. I said, Lord, when you set me free from drugs, Jesus, you were so real to me that nothing else mattered. You were so real to me that all I wanted was you. And I didn't care about drugs or anything else. I said, be that real to me now. And I said, Lord, surely the power of your spirit is greater than the power of chocolate glazed Dunkin' Donut.

Third night I had a breakthrough and then the withdrawals were gone. But now I had to renew my mind to eating healthy foods. I had to get a different attitude towards food than I had before. And every day Nancy would encourage me.

She'd send me pictures and testimonies of people who had radical weight loss change following the guidelines of Dr. Joel Fuhrman in his book, Eat to Live, or The End of Dieting, and quotes from Dr. Fuhrman, who's not a believer. Like, you know, you'll never fulfill your life goals if you're chronically sick or dead. And some of that is up to us. Again, some of that, much of that is up to us. The great majority of our health, again, I know there are others with chronic illnesses and other conditions, car accidents, and now your body's messed up. I understand that. May God help you in the midst of that. But the great bulk of our sicknesses and problems are related to what we eat.

They really are. So, it made the radical lifestyle change. And I'll tell you what my diet looks like in a moment, because I've stayed with it steadily all these years now. But here's what it looks like.

Here's what it looks like in terms of the change that took place. In less than eight months, less than eight months, I went from 275 pounds to 180 pounds. Not dieting, but just getting rid of all the bad and eating only the good. All right? Less than eight months, 95 pounds. In fact, I went down to about 176, which was even a little low.

All right? So, this was almost 100 pounds in less than eight months. The headaches disappeared.

You say, what do you mean disappeared? I mean, I went virtually eight years without a headache. Now, if I used to have on average three a week, conservatively, that's 150 a year. That's 1,200 headaches. I didn't have 1,200 headaches. Lower back pain disappeared. Blood pressure, oh, when I took it this morning, I think it was 109 over 69 or something like that.

105 over 69. So, blood pressure is ideal. The sleep apnea went from severe to mild. So, I still use a breathing machine that helps, but when I traveled overseas, I didn't use it fine, anything like that.

Felt just fine because it's gotten from severe to mild because it's just a structural thing. But the weight loss, open up breathing passages. Yeah, I mean, it's all utterly remarkable. My mind is sharper than it was eight years ago. My energy levels higher.

Before radio, today it did pull-ups and then did a 2,000-meter row, you know, pushing hard, breathing hard, laughing. And it's for the glory of God. It's for the glory of God. I'm able to glorify God with my body. I'm able to have more energy and more sharpness and more focus and more ability to write with focus and to pray with focus and to be there for Nancy and the kids and grandkids and have fun together and enjoy life together and travel extensively, travel around the world and preach and minister.

It's for the Lord. Yeah, I'm enjoying the benefits of it. And I'm not bulletproof. You know, I was around a lot of people with colds and coughs right before Christmas and I traveled to India and to Texas and I got run down for a few days right before Christmas. But it's so mild compared to the way it used to be. And yeah, I got COVID and when I got COVID, when I got hit with it a little over a year ago, the problem was it uncovered some issues with my heart, but that was the result of 59 years of unhealthy eating.

The problems in my heart were the results that we were able to do some things to correct that and now I am heart-healthier than I've been in years and years and years and years and literally at 67 feel like I'm getting younger. I'm not pulling your leg. I'm not joking.

I'm not making this up. And the vast majority of this is due to lifestyle change. I take some supplements. I'll tell you about those later in the week, but, or especially later in the month, but I want to encourage you today.

Everything starts with diet. All right, so go to store.askdrbrown.org. Store.askdrbrown.org. Click on special and get hold of the special offer, the book that Nancy and I wrote, Breaking the Stronghold of Food. I'm going to tell you about my lowest moment in this journey when we come back, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, along with a video message where I further encourage you, share my story so you can watch it, be blessed, be encouraged. Get this for yourself.

Get this for someone you love. Why not now? New year, new you. Let's get healthy. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I am going to go to the phone lines shortly and take some different calls off subject. But first, let me just tell you about the contents of Breaking the Stronghold of Food. I have to admit, because I haven't looked at the table of contents in a while, it's a little embarrassing because we're honest.

We're really honest. And Nancy's favorite chapter in the book is the one that's titled, I can't, I can't. Yeah, maybe I'll tell you this.

I said I would, my lowest point. I'll tell you about that later in the show. But here's the contents for the book. Chapter one, set your sights on the goal. Chapter two, confessions of a recovering food addict. Chapter three, what if unhealthy eating is sinful? Ooh. Chapter four, changing your mind about food.

Oh, that's so big. For me, I had to get the insight that food was my reward. Hard work, ministry, sacrifice, service. Food was my built-in reward.

I had to change that, that fool. The food is the fuel for a healthy life, and the healthy life is the reward. Too fat to fly. That's chapter five. Chapter six, anti-fat cream and the magic energy pill. I tried it all.

Anti-fat cream, yeah, I tried it all. Chapter seven, my plan was not working. Chapter eight, how my radical transformation began. Chapter nine, breaking the food addictions and reprogramming my mind. Chapter 10, that's Nancy's favorite.

I can't, I can't. Chapter 11, blessed with the gift of being all in. Chapter 12, the Esau mentality is deadly.

Chapter 13, excuses are for wimps. There you have it. Chapter 14, holiness principles for wholesome eating. Chapter 15, 10 recommendations for a healthy lifestyle. And then Nancy's story is appendix A. Appendix B, Nancy's keys for breaking food strongholds. Appendix C, determining your ideal weight. And appendix D, recommended resources where we tell you here links for healthy eating and free recipes or books to get with more resources and things like that. So again, you'd go to store.askdrbrown.org, store.askdrbrown.org.

Just click on special offer and you'll see the book and the video. All right, so more of my story, but first we'll take a couple of calls here. We'll start in South Dakota with Joseph. Welcome to the line of fire. Thanks for calling. Thank you so much, Dr. Brown. It's been good to hear your testimony on weight loss. I'm actually looking at, I've had to make some recent life changes myself. Well, may God help you to stay with it. Yes, sir.

Thank you so much. And so, my question is regarding Exodus 6, chapter 3. And so, with chapter 6, verse 3, God says to Moses that Abraham did not know him by his sacred name, and he gives this sacred name to Moses at that time. My question is that I've learned from one scholar that throughout the whole book of Genesis, including Abraham mentioning it, his name is mentioned throughout Genesis. So my question is, why is it that God says that he was not known by his sacred name except for El Shaddai, that he was known by El Shaddai, and then later he discloses it to Moses, yet it's mentioned throughout Genesis and even Abraham in one passage I saw called upon the name of the Lord?

Yeah, you're asking the exact right question. You have Yahweh, YHVH, the tetragrammat in the sacred name, on the lips of the patriarchs. You even have Jacob saying that Yahweh is in this place, the place he names Bethel in Genesis the 28th chapter.

So, how do we deal with this? Critical scholars, those who didn't believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, they said, well, that just shows there were different sources. And one source used the name Yahweh and the other source didn't, and these two sources didn't know what the other one said, which, you know, is quite a stretch to think that you've got these ancient sources that are that out of touch with each other and then someone weaves them together in what's called the documentary hypothesis.

I completely reject that for academic reasons as well as spiritual reasons. So, dealing with the text as we have it, some would say no, no, that's just Moses later putting the name Yahweh on the lips of the patriarchs and even though they didn't actually use it, that's him putting it there. But again, that makes no sense that then in Exodus 6, it would say they didn't know that name. So, the best explanation to it, we know that Yahweh is introduced as God's sacred name in Exodus 3, right, where God says, tell the people I am who I am and then gives them the name Yahweh which relates to I am or I will be or I will bring things into being. The best way to understand it is that knowing a name doesn't simply mean knowing the pronunciation, knowing the sound, but knowing the full significance of that name. When Yeshua says in the New Testament to his disciples, I've made the Father's name known, he doesn't mean that he's whispering like this is how you pronounce it. No, it means he revealed who he is. That's why text will talk about Israel forgetting his name, doesn't mean they forgot how to pronounce it but they forgot who he was. So, the best way to understand this is God was saying that they knew me as El Shaddai, they knew me as the God of provision and the God of power but they did not know me in my covenantal name as Yahweh because I had not yet worked covenantally for the nation. I had not yet kept my promises to the Fathers by delivering my people out of Egypt and bringing them into the Promised Land. So, it's basically saying that they didn't really know the revelation of who Yahweh was as Israel's covenant God rather they knew me in the manifestation of my power and multiplication as El Shaddai and the one that helped them to conceive and things like that but they didn't know me in the covenantal elements of my name, they didn't fully understand who I was, I'm now revealing that to Israel. That's the best way to understand it, sir.

Thank you so much because I actually have been looking recently at the Young's literal translation because I want to understand the Hebrew and the Greek better so that really helps. Right, very good. Thank you, sir.

And again, it's the right question to ask and many have asked it and as I've looked at it for many years I believe that's the clearest answer. 866-34-TRUTH, we go to Matt in Florida. Thanks for calling the line of fire.

Hello, Matt, are you there? Well, I guess not. Matt had a question about messianic Jews and without knowing more about the question I can't answer more. I've got a very interesting update on the black Hebrew Israelite debate. One of their major leaders who had accepted my invitation to debate but he's refused to debate me on a whole bunch of topics. We finally agreed on one but it's quite fascinating the ones he has declined. No, sir. For good reason, by the way. It's good reason to decline debating those because there's no debate to be had on those subjects but in any case, in any case, we'll give you that update probably on Thursday.

866-348-7884. So, back to my own journey. So, again, by God's grace, I've gone totally cold turkey, right?

Got rid of all the bad stuff, eating only healthy stuff and basically Nancy said, eat this, eat this. Now, the problem was I had a lot of travel. I had a lot of travel throughout the states but then I was going to Hungary. I was going to Singapore, India, so I had a whole lot of travel. So, how in the world do you do this while traveling because that was always my excuse.

Well, I can't do this on the road, you know. And look, I had all the excuses. When I heard your excuses as to why you didn't change your lifestyle and why you didn't eat differently, those were the weakest, wimpiest excuses. Not like my excuses. My excuses were really good. What struck me one day is we were working out with some friends and I was explaining to the trainer why I couldn't eat healthier and, you know, all that. Did I have a good case with my travel schedule and with the pressure and this and that and everything and I had a very good argument for why I couldn't eat more healthily. And then one of our grads was working out and he began to explain why he was not eating more healthily and I thought, oh, the weakest excuses ever heard. I thought, this sounds just like yours, don't they, buddy? Yeah, for me, they were very valid.

But for him, they were weak. So, that's why we have a whole chapter that excuses are for wimps. Okay, so, I'm about three weeks into this, right? I'm eating only healthily. And I'll tell you my diet, my daily diet in a moment, but I'm eating only healthily. And everything's good. I'm not craving bad foods now. I'm enjoying eating healthily.

It's good. But, you know, my mindset's been changed now and all of this, right? And I came home from radio one day, took a short nap, and then had to go teach a night class at our ministry school. And I somehow woke up craving something sweet. What happened? I woke up craving something sweet.

And I thought, okay, that's all right. Sweet tooth is healthy for fruits. You just need some fruits.

No problem. Well, for some reason, we had no fruit in the house. It was still newer getting, you know, lifestyle and schedule and food stuff in order. No fruits. And I'm looking at the clock.

It's like, yikes. I don't have time to stop at the grocery store and get something. Well, you know what? There's a convenience store I'll pass on the way to class. And I'll say, maybe they've got some chopped up fruit. Now, I had never gone into a convenience store in my life ever looking for fruit. Who goes into a convenience store looking for fruit? And I would stop at the one there's nothing like, oh, no. So I thought, wait, wait, there's a bigger one right still on the way to school.

I can run in there really quick next to the gas station. And I go in there and there's nothing. It's like, okay, but they do have fruit juices. But Nancy's told me avoid fruit juices because they're filled with sugar.

It's like, oh, boy, what am I going to do? And it's like, wait, naked, naked fruit juice. Maybe that's a healthier one.

Maybe that's a better one. So I buy that and I'm drinking about half of it on the way to class because class is like three, four minutes away. And I'm sitting there literally right outside of our building.

I'm about to go in teach 15, 20 students in one of our classes on Jesus revolution. I'm about to go in the building. I'm literally two feet in my car, literally two feet from the building. And I break down crying. I said, I can't, I can't, I can't live like this anymore. I went, the rest of your life, you'll never have a slice of pizza. The rest of your life, that's how you're going to, the rest of your life, you're never going to have a dish of ice cream. The rest of your life, you're going to have to look for some hell in front of, on fruit or something.

And I said, I can't, I can't, literally crying in my car. Yeah, Nancy's favorite part of the book. There's a whole chapter on that. And as it's happening, I literally see myself as if I'm watching from outside my body. I'm laughing at myself. There's me laughing at myself, saying, this is just what you need. Come to the end of yourself.

This is just what you need. While I'm literally there, I can't, I can't. Wet the tears from my eyes. God laid a theme on my heart. I went in and taught. It turned out to be exactly tied in with the theme that a guest was going to take from there. God graciously still spoke and worked. That was it. That was it. I never hit bottom like that again. More than eight and a half years later. I'm rejoicing as I tell you the story. Here's how you get the book. Go to store.askdrbrown.org, store.askdrbrown.org.

Click on special. You get the book Nancy and I wrote, Breaking the Stronghold of Food, along with a video message I preach that will further encourage and inspire you. So here's one of the great things I learned. It was something I knew before, something God had taught me and helped me to take hold of previously, years earlier.

And now I was able to live it out with regard to food, addictions, and lifestyle change. When I'm weak, then I'm strong. I put no confidence in Michael Brown. I put no confidence in my ability or my discipline.

I put all my confidence in God. And that's why I don't mess with this. That's why I don't experiment. Well, what if I just try this? No, no, because it's like if you're flying over the ocean and you realize, what, I'm flapping my arms and I'm flying, you don't just say, well, what'll happen if I stop flapping? No, you don't want to go crashing down in the ocean. And everyone that I know that was doing well for a while that then said, well, I'll just cheat a little here, cheat a little there, they fell back.

So to me, it's like, no games, no games. I'm trusting God. So you say, what do I eat daily? Again, I'm not a nutritional expert.

I followed carefully the guidelines of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, end of dieting, eat to live, and then Nancy's really mastered the nutritional literature and then coached me from there. But basically, I start off the day because I'm a late night person. I start off the day, you know, late morning. I'll have some fruit, so maybe an apple and some berries. I will have some very healthy crackers, Mary's crackers, just a few of those, or just a few raw organic nuts. And then a protein shake, something like that.

I've also added a couple of health supplements I'll tell you about next week. That's basically what I'll eat, pea protein. Then for dinner, which is an early dinner, like around five o'clock, I have a massive salad.

You say, what do I mean by massive? Well, I'll take about five to six ounces of mixed greens, right? So spring mix. Then I'll put in a large quantity of onions, a large quantity of tomatoes, a whole cucumber, a whole green or red pepper. I will put in, oh, it's about a handful of sunflower and pumpkin seeds, raw, organic, unsalted. Then I'll also put in a cup and a half of organic beans, unsalted.

So you strain them, put that in, and then a dressing that's going to be low fat and low sodium, low sugar. And that's what I eat. It takes me maybe half hour, four to five minutes to eat it.

It fills a four quart bowl. And then maybe I'll have a little more fruit after that. And then mid evening, because again, I go to sleep late, mid evening I'll have, say, a veggie burger on a whole grain bun, like an Ezekiel bread bun, or I'll make a pseudo pizza using, it's like diet cheese. So it's not actually cheese because I have no dairy, no flour, no sugar in my diet with a healthy red sauce with almost no sodium in it. And then I'll have that on one of those Ezekiel Peters, Ezekiel Peters, something like that, or make a healthy soup that Nancy's made. And on average, about once a week, sometimes it's every two weeks, I'll have a little grilled meat, normally grilled chicken.

And then I have a bar, a Joel Fuhrman bar. It tastes like chocolate to me, to you it probably tastes like beans, maybe about 140 calories. And that's like the substitute for what would have been chocolate.

And that's it. And I'll vary the dressing on the salad or vary one of the meals, but I'm good with the same thing every day. Those that like variety, you can make all kinds of variety, there's endless varieties. And then here's the deal, once you change your palate, once you change what you eat, your palate wants healthy foods. I love, I love eating these massive salads.

I thoroughly enjoy it. I'll have one of these veggie burgers like, mmm, this is delicious. And again, the health, the vitality, the strength, the energy.

I was at Christ for the Nations a couple months ago, where I teach monthly during the school year. And I said to some of the students, hey, let's hit a workout for today. I'll be down in the gym.

They got a really nice gym there. And look, I'm not working out every day. I'm not one of these gym rats, okay? I do push, but I'm not one of these in the gym five days a week, hour a day.

I'm not doing that. So we come up with this workout, and there are 10 or 11 of them. One guy in his 40s, everybody else in their 20s, most early 20s, and a bunch of them gym rats that are in there all the time. And we did this competition with 10 or 11 different stages.

I was the overall winner at 67. So it's all, it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. So I want to encourage you, why not now?

Why not now? You'll feel so much better in every way. Your immune system will be stronger. Your mind will be sharper. Everything will change. And it's also to the glory of God.

It's also honoring to Him. So I really want to encourage you. I really want to urge you.

If you've got family, don't you want to be here longer for your family? You know, obesity related to heart disease, that's like the number one killer in America. So if God could help me, the lifelong poster boy for unhealthy eating, the chocolate addict, the pizza addict, if God could help me, He could help you. And I believe our book can be an inspirational help as well.

All right, so go to store.askdrbrown.org, click on special to get your book along with the audio, the video message that will inspire you. All right, let's try to reconnect with Max in Florida. Are you there this time, sir?

Hello, Max. Okay, somehow we're seeing your call, but not hearing you. So I'm going to do my best to answer your question about messianic Jews. If you need more info, you can always write to us, right to askdrbrown.org. You'll see on the website, there's a place to click where you can write in to us. We'll be happy to help you. I've got a team member who exclusively answers Jewish related questions. Well, among other things, he covers all of those brilliant scholars. So we're here to help you.

But let me say this. When I came to faith, all I knew was I'm Jewish, but the Christian faith is true. And Jesus is the Messiah, and therefore I should follow him. I'm still Jewish, but I should follow him. I am Jewish, follow him. There's no concept of being a messianic Jew. It would have been very odd to me to meet a Jewish believer at that point that observed the Sabbath or a Jewish believer at that point that kept the dietary laws.

And even though I read the word studiously, it never dawned on me reading the book of Acts about Paul and seeing that he continued to live as a Torah-observant Jew. I never noticed that. It didn't dawn on me.

And Jews for Jesus, I know these were Jewish believers who did outreach to Jews and talked about Yeshua and things like that, but when I first encountered messianic Jews, I thought it was weird. I thought it was odd. I thought something was wrong. I thought they were going backwards. And there were some unwise things in the way things were presented and even having Jesus with a yarmulke, that was anachronistic. In other words, that was not the dress of the day, okay? So, it threw me when I first saw it, but then when I met with some friends in the early 80s, we had to talk about it more.

I realized, okay, wait a second. Paul did continue to live as a Jew. Peter, by Acts 10, this is years after the resurrection of Jesus, hasn't eaten anything unclean.

So, if a Jewish person is observing the Sabbath, and now they come to faith in Jesus the Messiah, now the Sabbath can have even more beautiful meaning to them, right? And even though they understand the dietary laws, you're not defiled by what you eat, right? In other words, if whatever food goes through your lips does not spiritually defile you, you might still say, well, you know, in solidarity with my people or just for separation purposes, I'm still not going to eat unclean food, et cetera.

There's no reason a person wouldn't do that. You know, we're not bound by the law, we're not under the law in a condemning way, but the new covenant God does write his law on our hearts. And so, I began to realize, yeah, many Jewish believers feel called to continue to identify as Jews, not for their salvation, but as part of the covenant with Israel. And it's a powerful witness to the Jewish community to say, hey, we're still Jews. We're still Jews.

Yes, we are immersed in water, but we're not immersed to join a new religion called Christianity. Rather, we are immersed because of our faith in Jesus the Messiah of Israel who is also the Savior of the world because he's the Messiah of Israel. So, I've watched the Messianic movement rise and now there are hundreds of Messianic congregations around the world, most of them small, but there are others with hundreds of people. And in some cases, if you're in Israel, the vast majority of the people attending are Jews themselves.

Probably the largest Messianic Jewish congregation in the world is in Ukraine and has been, you know, for many years and some larger ones in the States as well and many, but mainly smaller in Israel. And these are Jews saying, hey, salvation comes only by grace through faith. Salvation is through the blood of Jesus, Yeshua.

We can't earn it, we can't make it happen on our own. All of our righteousness in God's sight is like filthy rags, like a menstrual cloth, and all the rabbinic traditions added on cannot save. So, salvation is God's gift through the Messiah.

He died for us that we could live for him. However, where does it say that you're not free to observe a seventh-day Sabbath, especially as a Jewish believer? Or you're not free to follow the biblical calendar? So, Messianic Jews have said, hey, yeah, we appreciate church traditions, but we have our own biblical traditions, let's follow them. And it's been a healthy witness to much of the rest of the body as well as a challenge to the Jewish community. That being said, I've watched many people, especially Gentiles, go this way of thinking, if I can live Jewishly, it will add to my spirituality. If I can just recover this or recover that or keep the biblical calendar or the dietary laws, it's going to make me more spiritual. And I've actually watched people backslide. I've actually watched them little by little put their trust in Torah than in Jewish tradition and even abandon the Lord, abandon Jesus entirely. So, we keep him central, we keep Jesus Yeshua central always, but especially for Jewish believers, if God calls you as part of your life to continue to live in covenantal identity with the Jewish people and observe the Torah, not for salvation, but for lifestyle, why not? All right, friends, let's get healthy. We're going to encourage you all this month. This is another program powered by the Truth Network.