Theology in the Raw - A Theology of Nutrition, Exercise, and Caring for Our Bodies: Dr. Lainey Greer

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Dr. Lainey Greer is the founder of Your Body Matters and creator of Understand Healthy and The Bible and Your Body. She is passionate about Christian theology and body stewardship and strives to give believers the tools they need to glorify God in their bodies. Dr. Greer holds a BS in Exercise Science from University of Tennessee, a master’s from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She’s also written several books including Embodied Holiness and Struggling with Body Image. Join the Theology in the Raw community for as little as $5/month to get access to premium content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and around my guest today is Dr. Lainey Greer, who is the founder of Your Body Matters and creator of Understand Healthy and the Bible in your body. She is passionate about Christian theology and body stewardship and strives to give believers the tools they need to glorify God in their bodies. Dr. Greer holds a BS in exercise science from the University of Tennessee, a master's degree from Dallas Seedological Seminary, and a PhD in systematic theology from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She's also written several books, including embodied holiness and struggling with body image. I really, really enjoyed this conversation and learned a ton from Lainey. So please welcome to the show for the first time,

the one and only, Dr. Lany Graham. Lainey, thanks for being a guest on Theology and Raw. I'm curious, what got you interested in the intersection between theology and health, nutrition, exercise, and all that? Yeah, so that started several years ago. The Lord just really developed a couple passions in me. So one was for exercise. I was a personal trainer. I trained a lot of Christians. Then I also love doctrine. I loved learning theology, explaining basics of theology to other believers. And those two are kind of always separate. And then just over the years, the Lord has led me down the path where he combined the two with a lot of the work I do now, which is on a

theology of the body. Theology of the body. So for you, were those two topics theology and a body, did you naturally think of those as interacting with each other? Or was there a time when you, you know, love to think about the body and love thinking about theology? And then, oh my gosh, these things actually belonged together. Yeah, I remember the exact time and place where I was when I, you know, recognize those connections. Well, and I will say, I was always aware of the importance of, you know, our orthodoxy carrying forward into orthopraxy, right? So living out what we believe, but when it came to the body, I was looking at Southern seminaries, PhDs, and I saw the systematic theology, and I thought, okay, this is, you know, where my interests are. And,

They had a couple of courses, and the syllabi were listed there. And so I saw Greg Allison's Theological Anthropology. And I was like, whoa, what, you know, this sounds very interesting, clicked on it. And I saw where he brought in for two lectures, an exercise physiologist and a nutritionist to speak in his class. And that was my undergrad was exercise science from UT. And when I saw that, I was like, oh, my goodness, this is a combination of my two passions, you know, that I've had for so many years. So you did a Ph.D. in systematic theology. What was it theological anthropology in particular then? Like it was? Yes. So I wrote on a theology of the body and then I connected it to body image. So my minor was biblical counseling.

Okay. Body image. I want to come back to that. Can you give us a 101 level theology of the body? Yes. So I kind of do everything in layers. that's the way it works out of my mind. So first of all, you know, when we look at scripture from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible addresses the body in a variety of ways. Pretty much every major doctrine, the body is involved in some way or another. And then where I focused on, my theology, the body really focuses on 1st Corinthians 6, 12 through 20, and how Paul is addressing a very Gnostic group of believers who were, they were licentious, they were fairly antibody, they didn't think their body had a future, so they were doing whatever they wanted

to with it in the presence. And so he ties the body to the Trinity, so how father, son, and spirit are each involved with the body in those eight verses. And so that's where I really hone in on what does the Bible say about the body? because he's, obviously, the Corinthians had a lot of issues, right? Paul wrote more to them than any other group of believers. But what he says to them about their bodies in that section, he didn't just go at the physical sins they were committing.

He went deeper to correct the way they were thinking about their bodies. He wanted to reframe that and showing them that their body has value. God has authority over it in very specific ways so that then that would drive their actions. that's where Paul makes a distinction of is it where he talks about like sins outside the body and sins in the body or to the body or something like that he does some people some people think that was a Corinthian slogan there's a couple of Corinthian slogans and so scholars debate that one in particular but he gets two commands in those verses the one is flee sexual immorality but then the other one and and the one obviously that's overall arching over every part of our lives is verse 20, where he says glorify God in your body. So, but the way he leads up to that, the different ways he connects trinitarian involvement with the body, I think are significant for the way that then we live out, um, our faith. What does that mean glorify God in your body? Like how else could you glorify God without a body?

Like, or what's he like we, what's he, what's he getting out there? Well, so I think he gets his clues in other areas. And so when I mentioned those layers, this gets into the third and fourth layer of kind of my theology of the body. So when we think about, okay, this is an overarching command to glorify God in my body, chapter six, a few chapters later in chapter 10, he specifies a little bit more. So he says, kind of repeats the command to honor the Lord and everything. And then he says, even in your eating and drinking. So he didn't have to say glorify God in your body. He didn't have to say honor God, even in eating and drinking. He's specifying and going to that detail because of his audience. And so I think the two ways that

plays out in a Christian life, you know, glorifying God and our body is how we think about our bodies, which is our body image. And then how we treat our bodies, which is body stewardship. So I kind of go from there with some very practical applications. So let's talk about body stewardship. What is that, what does that, what does that look like? Is it not eating too many, you know, not going to McDonald's? Is it, is it exercising? Is it, um, not smoking or drinking or, you know, like what does that look like? Because I mean, a lot of things are like, you know, not healthy for us or whatever. Um, is it just a matter of moderation or like, I guess when, when is the, when is the line between not

sin, not sinning and sitting and how we take care of our bodies? Like, when, When did we cross that line? Or is that the back? Maybe that's not the right question to ask. I don't know. Well, there is, so there is a context for body stewardship within the church, which we can, we can get to that in a minute. But to answer that specific question about body stewardship.

So I kind of say, you know, believers, we don't want to live on the extremes. We don't want to idolize our bodies, but we don't want to be completely apathetic and ignore our bodies and our health. So where you're at on that spectrum in between those two things, that's between you and the Lord. You know, we're all in different places in life, different demands on our time. So for me to steward my body compared to, you know, someone who has eight kids and they're all under 12 years old, you know, that's going to look different. So how does it work out between you and the Lord? I think there are some guardrail. So I give four areas. I say, you know,

stewarding your body. I use the word appropriately too, because we haven't gotten to this yet, but I have a background with an eating disorder. I was anorexic for time, over-exercised. So I was engaging in some of these behaviors, but they were in an inappropriate way, and I was willfully choosing to harm my body. So the four areas I nail it down to are rest, stress management, exercise, and nutrition. And just paying attention to those basic four areas, I think is really helpful for believers. And so what I do, given my background,

with exercise, science, personal training, you know, I try to make those things really practical. So God designed our bodies with limitations. He is infinite. We're finite. We're not meant to be able to do everything. So we need to get adequate rest. And then we need to manage our stress. He designed our bodies to need certain nutrients. So we need to get macros and micros. We need carbs, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and water. And then the last one is he designed our bodies to improve with exercise. So, you know, that looks like some cardio. That looks like a little bit of weightlifting. Looks like working on flexibility. But none of those things should we be obsessive about. And then on the flip side, we also, to glorify on our body,

shouldn't completely ignore those things too. Can you open up those four categories a bit? Like, what does it look like to get the adequate amounts of rest and already forgot. So nutrition, rest, nutrition, exercise. What was the fourth one? Stress management. Okay. So let's start with rest. Like what does that, what does that look like?

So rest. I mean, we see it from the creation event, right? The Lord doesn't need to rest, but he does on the seventh day to set an example for his finite beings who he knows will need to rest. We're to rest in him. We're to rest from our work. And so, you know, you see, you see a theme of rest throughout scripture. He tries to give his people rest in the promised land.

They mess it up. Christ comes. He's telling us, you know, to come to him, he will give us rest. The author of Hebrews picks up rest and he says we're, there's coming an eschatological rest for us. So we see this principle. When you're in ministry, sometimes it can be hard to rest for a variety of reasons. I was in ministry for 10 years. and we can talk about that in a minute.

But yeah, so I say kind of four, three areas where it's good to engage in rest. And quite frankly, of the four areas of body stewardship, this is the one that's most difficult for me. But weekly, ideally, you know, we have a day of rest or a portion of a day that we put away everything that's going to distract us. Get with the Lord. Get in his creation. You know, enjoy his creation. monthly, it's great if you can go away for a weekend or have a weekend where you're devoting it to just really the Lord spending time with him, setting away distractions, and then yearly,

you know, a week vacation, ideally. So when you say rest, you're not talking about, you haven't even mentioned sleep yet. So you're talking about it's in there. Okay. Yeah, sleep is separate from rest. So we need seven to nine hours of sleep, ideally. I do everything I can to get that. but most nights, sadly, I do not.

So some people struggle with sleep, even when we try to put away devices and have regular rhythms that help us. But yeah, sleep is separate from rest. I struggle with sleep. I actually went to a sleep doctor just the other day just to get tested because I wake up most mornings feeling like I didn't sleep at all.

And I typically, I might, I probably get on average seven hours, sometimes, sometimes a little more, sometimes less. but I, I'm physically asleep long enough, but I just wait. I've never been a morning person, but some, I mean, most mornings I wake up and I'm like, I don't feel like I slept at all. And it just takes me a while to get going. Now, I'm not, I never nap.

I'm never really that tired during the day. Like, you know, I start to get tired at night. But, um, so I have energy during the day, but the first hour or two is pretty brutal. Is that, are some people, is there such thing as some people are, morning people and some people are like my wife my wife she naturally without an alarm will just get it's almost like she can't sleep more than like five hours you know and she'll she'll spring out of bed at like 4.30 in the morning where me you know I set an alarm 6.30 sometimes 7 and it takes me a couple hours it kind of wake up where she's the exact opposite and we will live similar lives is

that just different body types is there such thing I mean yeah I mean that that's that's normal. I think for most people figuring out what helps you, what type of person you are when you feel more energized and then being consistent. Just like in your eating, being consistent in your sleep habits is ideal because the body loves consistency as much as possible. So being consistent when you go to bed, when you get up, that's ideal. Certainly life is going to happen. Yeah. Travel doesn't help with that. Traveling is really hard on your body, right? And your health in general. Yes. Yeah. Traveling and then for me, football season. So when when it's football season, I'm definitely staying up later on the weekends. That's baseball season for me, which lasts

six months. Or if you're a Dodger fan, it lasts seven months. You all know what I'm talking about. And yeah, there's times and, you know, the game will go into extra needs. And I'm like, I know I should be in bed right now, but I can't. Let's talk nutrition then. I feel like every 10 years or so there's like a new trend, a new fad, you know, before, you know, carbs are good. And then all of a sudden carbs are bad. And then, hey, you need to have all seed oils in your diet. And then now we're like, no, those are toxic, you know. And, you know, it used to be cut out fat. And now it's like, no, good fats are really good. Eat natural butter and olive oil and all these things. Like, how do we know what's healthy and what's not when it seems to change every 10 years? It's kind of hard for

those of us who aren't professional nutritionists. Yeah, I mean, I, again, the work I do revolves around just how God made our bodies. So we burn calories all around the clock, even when we're sleeping. So, you know, and intermittent fasting is really popular right now. There can be some uses for that, but I don't necessarily push certain things like that or keto because it's a little extreme. You're cutting out almost a whole macronutrient class because right now, like you see, said carbs are the enemy but it will it'll swing back over to fats will be the enemy in another

I don't know five 10 years because what we do is like in the 90s we took fat out of everything because fats were bad we pumped it full of sugar like snack well's cookies they used to eat those all the time they had so much sugar in them so we we ate way too much sugar now diabetes type 2 diabetes is growing sadly the number of people that have that the number of people that have that the number of people with pre-diabetes that don't even know that they're headed towards full-blown diabetes because we ate too much sugar for too long. So now carbs are bad, bats are good, which depending on your lifestyle, if you're not really that active, maybe you don't quite need as many carbs, but your brain still runs mostly off carbs first.

Your gut needs good carbohydrates that have good nutrients, good fiber for a healthy gut. So when we go towards, you know, a keto diet, which is pretty much a repackaged Atkins diet, we're not just, we're not only not getting certain nutrients like fiber, but then we're also potentially getting too much saturated fat, which can clog our arteries and that can lead to some other health issues, heart disease, stroke, things like that. So again, you know, some of these things can have application, but instead of living kind of in these extreme areas, just kind of down the road, get some of. carbs, fats, proteins. Each one has a function in our body. Get your fruits and vegetables, the micronutrients, and then water too is really important. Sleep is vital for your health, which is why the quality of your mattress is so important. And yet, for me personally, I've had such a hard time finding a mattress that I like. That is, until I slept on a mattress by Brooklyn Bedding. I kid you not. I recently swapped out my other

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I'm curious. Now, we don't need to go here if you don't want, but health has become a bit politicized recently with RFK, make America healthy again. I guess the exposure of some of the, what do I want to say here? RFK once said, and I know he's such a controversial figure, so I'm not endorsing or critiquing. I'm just stating, you know, he said there's nothing more profitable than an unhealthy kid that. our industry has kind of been formed around kind of medicalizing unhealthiness rather than getting at the root of the issue. Do you have any thoughts on that? Have you thought through the kind of broader cultural political status of our health industry? Yeah. So actually, I'll take, I'll set

the political element aside. It is a reality like you're talking about. But honestly, this was the first thing the Lord made me passionate about 20 years ago. I recognized and this is difficult to talk about it's harsh realities but it's where the church is and we have to be able to talk about them to be able to deal with them so 20 years ago I saw a massive overlap between the most obese states and the most religious states so when you look at the top 10 on each list eight of the top 10 most religious states are in the Bible belt or sorry most obese states are in the Bible belt and so then you combine that with a study that Purdue did, gosh, 30 years ago now, they found that of all religious groups in America,

Southern Baptists led the way in obesity. And so certainly, you know, these are uncomfortable realities. I've gotten a lot of pushback talking through them over the years. And there are some cultural elements. I'm from Tennessee. I understand, you know, the food we eat, how we eat. But my whole thesis, which ties into my theology of the body, is that if our bodies matter, then it should impact the way that we treat them, what we do with them, what we put in them. So then if you kind of go down that path with just looking at basic statistics, the obesity epidemic has gotten exponentially worse over the years. So in less than five years, by 2030, half of all Americans will be not just over

overweight, but obese. We've had to add new categories of obesity because we just keep getting bigger. So morbid obesity is growing. It's called morbid obesity or severe obesity because it's overlap with chronic diseases. If you look at childhood obesity, so like kids, ages 6 to 11, childhood obesity is 40% higher now than it was a handful of years ago. So these are realities that are just getting worse and worse. And yes, while RFK is talking about them, you know, in a country as a whole and has the

Maha movement, Christians in a lot of ways are kind of at the forefront of that. And so this was the drum I've been banging for 20 years. And so as the Lord is allowed, you know, now I have this theological backing to help believers understand these are the realities, but this is why we should care for. our bodies. Yeah, sorry. That was a lot. No. So is there a correlation between religion and unhealthiness? Or is it just, I mean, you kind of mentioned it in passing that like there is a cultural element of just the foods that are popular in some southern states are sometimes, oftentimes not very healthy. Is it just because these states also happen to have high

percentages of Christians? Or is there some correlation between religion? I mean, is there too many potlucks or after church? It's multifaceted. There are some studies that would definitely show a correlation. And so what I say is, you know, Christians today, we, we don't necessarily have a biblical view of the body. And it's for a variety of reasons. And one of the things is, you know, I get a new body so I can do whatever I want with my body now. Or, it's and you know that's not necessarily correct way to think about it or it's you know taking Paul well Paul says exercise is only of some value so I don't need to worry about that so it can be over spiritualizing our Christian lives to degree where the soul is up here spiritual things are here

and the body and physical things are down here so just like you know that's that's what the Corinthians were doing it may have looked slightly different but that's why I tie everything back to you know, your body matters. God has authority over it. You can't just treat it as you want. So it should affect every area of our life. You know, something I thought of recently is like during biblical times, or I would say in the pre-industrial age and even in the post-industrial age in many other countries,

like people didn't need to go out of the way to exercise, right? They just, they weren't sitting in front of a desk. you know, walking less than 2,000 steps a day. They, they were out active. Like, their lifestyle just necessitated moving around all day long. And exercising was just, it wasn't exercising. It was just living, right? But now we live in a world, especially in the post-industrial West, where if we don't go out of our way to exercise, we're not going to be healthy at all. In fact, our bodies are, you know, going to atrophy. So is that, I mean, is that like, you don't need to have a lot of verses commanding exercise in the Bible because it was just how

you lived, right? Is that? Right. Is that true? No, it's true. Yeah. I mean, I get into this in my book embodied holiness because our lifestyles, for all the reasons you just mentioned, they're just different. And I think in some ways, whether or not it's conscious, we take that as a license to not engage in things that can benefit our physical health. which at the end of the day, our physical health is what is going to support our ability to do ministry. So if we're not caring for ourselves and we have levels of stress that weren't there, right, in biblical times, that's also not going to go well. So I think Paul, you know, Paul has a lot to say about the body and he also has a lot to say about self-control. self-control is a way that I think Christians live out these areas of body stewardship.

We don't pull up our boot straps and think, oh, I got to grip my teeth and make myself get out and walk or eat better. We have the fruit of self-control, but oftentimes I think our daily lives are kind of disconnected from what does it look like for me to live with control in these areas? Paul talks a lot about it in the New Testament. And the same might go for diet, too. up until a few years ago, our food was much more natural and nutritious and we didn't have all the chemicals that we have now and we didn't have all the processed foods. And so just our

normal day-to-day life involved typically eating more natural food that's good for you and you're getting just natural exercise just by living. But now both of those things are being challenged, right? Because is it true that our food today is a at least in America, is just a lot less nutritious. I've heard people say that. Like, if you consume, you know, but even fruits and vegetables today or meat or whatever, like it doesn't have the same natural, like, nutritiousness that it did like 50, 100 years ago. Yeah, I mean, you're going to lose some nutrients just because things coming out of the ground.

If it's a week or two later that you're eating them, you know, some of the vitamins and minerals aren't going to be as powerful. then you're talking about what sprayed on the foods we're eating to kill bugs, to kill weeds. Then you look at the FDA's list of everything that can be allowed in our food and European countries. I mean, it is nothing compared to, you know, what they allow. We're just so more, so much more open to what can be, you know, included in our food. and I think this is a really more recent area of people kind of waking up and understanding that we can eat a lot of food, but it doesn't necessarily actually have real nutrition.

It's not a real food that our body knows how to break down and use. My family and I, we go to Europe at least, I would say once a year, sometimes more than that. And like just last summer, I was probably in Europe, France, Italy, in the UK, four maybe like three three to four weeks actually and i eat pizza pasta you know a glass of wine with every dinner usually and i i come back like 10 pounds lighter yeah it's great i mean i'm moving around more i'm walking around more but the food it just i can eat you know pizza or bread when we go to france we're eating bread and cheese like twice a day and it's i don't feel it's just I feel like it's not nearly as heavy.

Is that because of the ingredients are just more natural? There's a lot fewer ingredients that are allowed. I did read somewhere that like in America or like in Europe, I think they allow like 700 ingredients whereas America allows like 10,000 or something like that. I don't quote me on those exact numbers, but it's exactly what you're saying. Yeah, the artificial stuff that's in our food because then again,

our body knows what to do with real foods. But when it has to break down things that aren't, aren't real, that are artificial, that can impact our gut. It can impact our, you know, just levels of acid in our stomachs that help us break down. So if we end up with, you know, poor gut health because of the food we're eating over time, that's going to lead to internal inflammation, which long-term inflammation, and if you combine it with our lifestyles today, that tend to be more stressed, that can also create health issues. So, yeah, the more natural you eat, the more active you are, that's how God created our bodies.

So it doesn't have to, you know, body stewardship doesn't have to look just one way. We should just be aware of how our lifestyles are today and what we have a tendency to do and just maybe hold that up to. Am I paying attention to these areas where I can be glorifying God in my body? So do you see diet and exercise, especially if it's not coming in your natural routine of life as like a spiritual, a spiritual discipline? So I think because, well, one, I would say, I stay away from the word diet just because it's got a lot of different meanings to people. Really, what does it mean to be healthy? I think is a spiritual discipline because we're embodied. So spiritual and physical disciplines, I think, can go together.

I mean, when Paul tells us to present our body to the Lord, which is our spiritual act of worship, Paul uses language of embodiment a lot. So separating the two can lead us again to elevate spiritual things, which should take precedence, right? Godliness has value in all things. But if it takes precedence to the point where we're devaluing the body and physical things, that's where it can get problematic. So if we see it as this is how God designed me, I'm a soul and a body embodied being.

I don't need to do this. I need to pay attention to both So give us some basic 101 nutrition Dues and don'ts Like what are for people that I know a lot of people are kind of paying attention

to help these days But maybe for those who don't really know Like where should people start What are some things they should Absolutely be doing And things they should absolutely not be doing Food like diet So real foods

Real foods like we've said And we need fiber That's why eating good Quality carbohydrates are good we need fiber for gut health. So that's important. Not eating a ton of sugar. I was looking the other day, so we really don't need any added sugar.

But experts recommend no more than 25 grams of added sugar a day, which is about six teaspoons, which is still a lot. Again, we don't need any, but they did, you know, throw that number out there. The average American eats 88 teaspoons a day of sugar. 88. 88. What do you say sugar? That's like the bun of a hamburger. This isn't like candy bars or like dumping white scoops of white sugar on your cereal.

This is just cereal, really, right? Yeah, absolutely. So sugar adds up in a lot of ways. But yeah, so over time, your body can process that to a degree. The more muscle mass you have, it may be able to process excess sugar. But at some point, it's usually about 10 years. your body's not going to be able to process that much, much sugar. And you're going to develop type two diabetes.

So the less sugar we eat, the better. Getting in steps. So ideally, 8,000 steps a day, 10,000 steps would be great. Lifting weights, I think, is huge. So for men and women, but especially for women, because we're shifting hormones later in life, our bones can get really weak. And that's when osteopenia, osteoporosis sets in.

So if we lift weights, and even if we're lifting earlier, we're making our bones strong. And so lifting weights is huge. And that's what really changes your body composition more than just doing cardio. I think a lot of women are scared. I hear this. I don't want to lift weights because I don't want to be, you know, look like a bodybuilder. And I want to say, first of all, the women that look like that are probably on something. And second of all, you would have to lift a ton of.

of weights and consume a ton of protein to start to get really like super muscular where it's like, oh, man, I don't want to look like that, right? I mean, absolutely, yeah. Just in my years of training, women, they don't want to do weight training and guys, they don't want to do cardio. Yeah. So both, again, the extremes, we don't want to live there. Our hearts and muscle, we need cardiovascular activity.

But for women, yes, unless they're taking testosterone, steroids, spending hours and hours in the day. And eating a ton of calories, because to gain muscle, you've got to eat. They're just physiologically, it's not possible for them to walk around like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, yeah. What would be a minimum and maximum exercise routine you'd recommend for somebody? Let's just take somebody like me that I have a desk job. I'm not like a, you know, a construction worker where I'm, you know, active all day.

I'm pretty much if I don't make a conscious decision, I'm going to walk about 2,500 steps. So somebody that's like me, you know, I'm 49 and I need to actually have an exercise plan. What would be the kind of minimum and maximum that that would look like for you? That's a great question. I think it's going to look different for everybody. So do what works for you where you are right now. The American Heart Association, I'll give you their recommendation. So they say, on average, we need 150 minutes a week of cardiovascular activity.

So 150, you can break it up. however you want five days a week 30 minutes whatever or you can cut it in half if you do a little bit more vigorous intensity so some kind of cardio to where you're not able to carry on like a sustained conversation so it could be interval training going back and forth between you know a little bit easier to a little bit more working you're getting your heart rate up your sweating so that's cardio then with weight training they recommend two to three days a week of lifting weights and again that can break down in a variety of ways total body you can do upper lower splits um just depending on your goals the time you have real quick that that's in addition to right

so 150 minutes of some kind of cardiovascular which is that like a like a fast walk would count for that where you're walking like three to five miles an hour like where you're yeah i wouldn't even necessarily say fast walk just um it could be combined with the the recommendation of you know the eight to 10,000 steps a day that's out there. Ideally, more is great, especially you have a sedentary job or something like that. But if you're just hitting, I think I mentioned before, you know, I try to take it in 10 minutes spurts because I'm at my desk a lot at my computer working. So I know that if I walk for 10 minutes, I'm hitting about a thousand steps. And if I break that down throughout my day, you know, I'm getting around the activity that I should.

okay or that is best you know what would what would too much look like um that's a great question i i um again that's going to be for the individual for me i know that um when i start thinking too much when i am um more concerned about getting in my exercise than i am other things and i am spending time with the lord um because as i said i did have an eating disorder i did over exercise. So I know it can become obsessive for me, maybe a little bit easier than somebody else who doesn't struggle in that way. You know, if it's taking away from you just enjoying life, enjoying time with your family,

your job, if you care way too much about posting your workouts and things on Instagram, you know, that kind of stuff is where a believer may need to be kept in check. And then asking other people, asking loved ones, because sometimes they're able to see when something is an issue a little bit more quickly than we are. Beyond just idolizing the exercise or where it's interrupting your normal life, is it physically unhealthy to, I mean, I know it's physically unhealthy to probably overexercise, but what does what does that look like? Like if somebody's going to the gym, say two hours a day, six days a week, would you say

that's actually probably not healthy for you unless you're like a 21-year-old college athlete or something like that? Yeah, I mean, at some point, one, your muscles need time to recover, they need time to rebuild. So that comes with what you eat, but it also comes with rest. And so if you're not allowing your muscles to recover from your previous workout, then you're not going to see the gains that you may be expecting. A lot of people are now talking about how higher intensity cardio, because we do have an issue with stress and high levels of cortisol,

that that can exacerbate those issues. So, you know, if that's something going on, then I would say maybe not engaging in as vigorous intensity cardio. That's hard to say, you know, to specify what's too much. Yeah. If it's consuming too much of your mind, if your life is revolving around it, then for the believer, it may be worth stepping back a little. So wait.

So high intensity exercise, if you have high cortisol levels, high stress, high intensity exercise isn't necessarily good. I'm asking personally because I check off those boxes. I just got tested. My cortisol was high. I think it was high or low or just off. I forget. I went to a kind of a health specialist and they gave me something to address it.

I forget what it was. But anyway, but I do enjoy like high intensity exercise. Could that be working against each other? It could. I mean, I'm the same way. But so our body's released cortisol in fight or flight. So when our sympathetic nervous system is taking over. So you're in a dark alley and here comes a bear towards you, you've got to run away.

That part of your nervous system is going to click on to get you out of there. And it's fueled by, you know, an adrenaline rush of cortisol. But when our body can't differentiate between our day-to-day lives, if we're chronically stressed, we get that ongoing release of cortisol. And then we're engaging in high-intensity cardiovascular work, which is also going to ramp that up. it may not be the best thing until you can kind of get the one get your stress a little bit more under control and your body will let you know right you kind of listen to your body if you're doing high intensity exercise and you just don't feel feel good yeah yeah I mean

one specific thing for me um long term excess cardio can lead to you know weight gain around your midsection it can lead to inflammation of your gut so for me I got to the point where when I would do a really intense bout of cardio, I would have, like, my stomach would expand from, like, processing everything and the inflammation from, you know, higher intensity run. And so I just got to the point of, like, I don't feel good after I run. My gut is wrecked. And so I don't do it near as much as I used to.

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If you're a Christian parent with young kids, I have some questions for you. When are you going to talk to them about sex? How are you going to talk to them? When are you going to talk to them about porn? Are you going to send them to public school, private school, or are you going to going to homeschool? When are you going to give them a phone and how are you going to manage their screen time? How are you going to respond when they ask, can two girls get married to each other or where do babies come from? Raising kids today is not for the faint-hearted and we need guidance. We need help. This is why I'm so excited to tell you about a brand new, comprehensive discipleship experience called Christian sexuality Raising Kids. This eight-week engaging video-based

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that's when it releases, you'll get a 15% off discount. That's center for faith.com. In this day and age, disciple in our kids in conversations about sex, sexuality, gender is not an option. But it doesn't need to be terrifying. Christian sexuality, raising kids at Center for Faith.com. Let's flip the coin around because health, exercise, diet, or nutrition, these can become idols. They can become good things turned into bad things. Can we go back to your eating disorder? I mean, you've mentioned a few times. So it sounds like you're fine talking about it. What led to that and how did you, I assume you recovered from it? What did that look like?

Yeah, so I have, I'm totally comfortable. I have a book on body image and I explain the situation in that. So, yeah, late teens, early 20s, I'm type A perfectionist, which so if you have certain personality tendencies, kind of already predisposed to an eating disorder and then just as a female. Thankfully, no social media was around back then, which obviously has skyrocketed body image issues. But I went through a pretty traumatic situation in my church. And everything in my life was suddenly out of my control. And I went to, okay, what can I control? And at that point, I was a personal trainer. So I knew about exercise. I knew about nutrition. And I controlled how

much I ate, which was not much at all for two or three years. And then I controlled how much I exercised. And so, yeah, I starved myself, had a lot of physical issues that developed from that. It was about two, three year process. But yeah, the Lord, the Lord is kind to work me through all that depression coincided as well, which often does because we're embodied beings. So I was, you know, harming my body in these ways. And my mind was responding. Disorders, I feel like they've been around for as long as I've been around. Are they on the rise or dropping or the same? Yeah, no, definitely on the rise just because of largely social media.

So there are new disorders. There's something called Snapchat dysphoria that is fairly recent. Really? Snapchat dysphoria. Yes. There are, so plastic surgeons have names for things like TikTok face. because people will come in and they'll be so obsessed with their filtered image on a social media app that they'll want the plastic surgeon to make, it used to be they'd take a picture in of a celebrity, but now it's a filtered image. And so, yeah, and just because we see ourselves all the time, now we can post if we don't get the interaction, we are expecting to, if we don't get the likes, if people say ugly things to us, that can drive our body image.

And then certainly that can lead to an eating disorder. There's something called big orexia. This is a newer disorder that largely affects college guys because they're getting super obsessed about their physique. And so it's driven by social media. They're spending hours in the gym. They're taking steroids. And they're just absolutely obsessed with getting as much muscle mass as possible.

Golly. So it's not, it's, I feel like body image has always affected women more. and it still does, but you're saying there's kind of new ways in which even guys are becoming more obsessed with it too. Yeah, and that's actually in my book. I say body image issue is an across the board

problem, and there are different reasons for that. And men, you know, they may not struggle in the same, they don't struggle with body image in the same ways. But it can happen for guys in their teenage years like it does often for girls because of off-time puberty.

So for girls, if they start puberty earlier, then their peers, you know, their body starts putting on fat in certain places, which is the way God designed it, right? Yeah. But the name may perceive themselves to be fat compared to their friends. That starts an eating disorder with guys that's flipped. So if a guy in his peer group is the last to go through puberty, his friends are getting taller, they're getting more filled out. And he's not.

That could launch him into something like bigger. And then, you know, his guys age. Oh, big erexia. You're saying like an unhealthy desire to be super buff and ripped and jacked. Yeah. I mean, anorexia, bulimia, even binge eating disorder, those primarily impact females more than males. But the negative body image issue that drives it all. It's mostly been studied in women. Men have been overlooked. So something, you know, I think a lot of men are struggling with later in life is when your body starts breaking down in your, you know, 60s and 70s. And physically, you're not able to do the same things you once were. You know, how you think about your body then, we're still supposed to glorify God in our bodies. So are you, you know, are you being super negative in your thinking about what your body now can't do compared to when you were younger? Wow. Okay.

I could see that because I okay so I'm 49 and I was an athlete in college and I would say in the last few years I've struggled with idolizing youth because I still feel I still I see I've been 26 like I still look around I see a 26 year old like oh yeah that's like me and I look in the mirror I'm like nope not 26 anymore and I and I and I'm like gosh I I miss being 26. I miss being invincible. I miss being not, I, you know, how do we embrace healthy aging where our bodies can't do what they used to do? They don't look like they used to look because we do live in an idolatry of youth culture, right? Which isn't other cultures outside of America. It's, you know, the older you get, the more gray hair you get, it's kind of like a sign of honor.

And here it's like, no, we want to dye our hair. We want to try to, you know, even. go to a plastic surgeon and it would look young again. I mean, yeah, it's a real issue. Yeah. I mean, for believers, you know, body image kind of has three components. So there's the mental picture that we have of our bodies. There's a filter in the middle.

And then there's a resulting assessment. And so if we have a subjective filter in the middle, one that's informed by the world, informed by, you know, ideals that we see in our culture, then we're going to have a subjective filter. then we're going to have a picture of our body that we pass through that subjective filter that is then going to result in negative body image for most of us. But for Christians, because we have the mind of the spirits, because we can take after our thoughts, think things that are true, lovely, noble, right pure, we can change out that middle filter and have an objective standard from God's word that we pass the thoughts about

our bodies through. And so I think for believers, when we focus on, you know, the way I think about my body needs to be informed by God's word and not by the world, no matter what age we are. That's really when, you know, we can start to make a change. So for aging, you know, just recognizing that we are promised a resurrected body that's going to be perfected. We're going to be resurrected for all eternity and re-embodied. And so that's what our hope is in. It's not in pursuing a perfect body now. It's certainly not found in lamenting the fact that you are getting older and your body is changing. Yeah, that's good.

That's good. It seems almost contradictory that going back to our previous conversation, that obesity and unhealthiness is on their rise, but so is an obsession with body image and eating disorders and getting as skinny as we can. Like, that seems those are two very different problems, but if both are increasing, what does that mean? Is it, does it mean there's fewer people in that healthy middle, I guess? That's a great question. I don't know if I've thought about that. But I think what it means for Christians, man, you know, we have to have a biblical view of the body and start with that. We've got to be able to offer hope.

The world is looking at us and what we do with our bodies, how we treat our bodies, you know, pastors, church leaders, ministry leaders, we should be leading the way in how we think about our bodies, how we steward our bodies so that congregants can, you know, have that example and the watching world can have that example too. Do you think these issues should be addressed from the pulpit? I mean, this is something, I don't know, it's so hard to do because especially, I don't know, I'd imagine myself trying to give a sermon on stuff we're talking about. It's a great thing about doing a podcast. I just speak freely and I'm not behind a pulpit. But I'd be nervous to talk about this from behind the pulpit because I, you know, I know people. I've got family members who

has struggled with weight. And it's not necessarily because they're unhealthy. They're just different body types too. I could, I could imagine hearing, I can imagine one person, even listening to this podcast feeling shamed, even though they shouldn't. And other people feel angry even though maybe they should receive, you know, some challenge in this area. But with such diversity among people sitting in the pews, it's hard to, I don't know, I don't even know how I'd navigate this conversation without sending a wrong message or certain people feeling shame that shouldn't feel shamed in this conversation. Does that make sense? I mean, how have you navigated that as, I mean, you've spoken publicly about this? Yeah, I mean, I can set those,

Those things up front, I can say that. And usually I give examples of how I haven't treated my body well over the years first. I've had to learn a lot of things a hard way. We've not even talked about ministry burnout. I was super burnout in ministry, wasn't caring for myself the way I should, wasn't just being anorexic and over-exercising. So I start there to kind of say, I'm not coming for anybody. this is something that we all need to think about. But these are kind of the signs where you can look around and see maybe as a church,

maybe we're not stewarding our bodies and thinking about them, caring for them the way that we could. And that's going to land on people differently. The other thing, too, is, you know, health doesn't necessarily need to revolve around our weight. There's a phenomenon called skinny fat, which oftentimes characterizes a lot of guys. So you may look like you're a okay weight. but inside, because of the way you eat, because of the lack of exercise or something like that, your insides could be very unhealthy, covered with a lot of visceral fat that can threaten your

health. And so, yeah, the standards by which we think through that as believers, we kind of need to set off some of the worldly ways that, you know, we might assess those things. And there are different body types, right? Like some people can be completely healthy, eating great, exercising a lot, and they're just going to be, you know, 10, 20, 30 pounds heavier than somebody else at the same height doing the same thing, right? And that's, yeah, I don't know. I could. I wouldn't want somebody that is just not as thin as the next person feeling like, oh, I'd need to look like that

person, you know, they may be. Is there such thing as being like a healthy overweight but not obese? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the way that we often measure, that, the BMI standard, your body mass index, that's not helpful. If you have more muscle mass, you could be considered overweight or even obese. So really, you know, it just comes back to, it's not a number on a scale. It's kind of all those areas of, am I caring for myself and how I rest? Am I getting regular activity? Am I eating decent nutrition? Not am I obsessed, But am I paying attention to these areas? Because health is going to, it's fully orbed.

It's not just one thing. It involves family history, a lot of different areas. And stress affects unhealthy weight gain, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. How does that work? Yeah. So long-term chronic stress can create a lot of issues physically.

So, you know, psychologically, you may have something going on that's causing stress. Um, your body is trying to deal with it, trying to suppress it as much as it can. But physiologically, that's only going to last so long. So, so I'll use myself as an example. Um, I worked 10 years at a church in Knoxville before the PhD. And five years in, um, I had high blood pressure. And so I was 25. I was a personal trainer. I ate well. I exercised. Um, I was like, I have to go on high blood pressure medicine. Well, fast forward five years later, when I'm leaving to go get the PhD, I got out of that job. And guess what I didn't need anymore?

I didn't need my high blood pressure medication. And so so many things can be based on our environment, not necessarily, you know, what we're putting in our bodies or not putting in our bodies. Stress overlaps with chronic disease. So like I developed high blood pressure, long-term chronic stress can lead to high cholesterol. It can create, you know, things that are laying down the track. for heart disease. So then when you combine our tendency to be chronically stressed as believers, if you look at,

you know, burnout that happens in the church and church leadership, and you combine that with, you know, the weight issues that statistically we have, it's concerning, you know, for our longevity, for sure. Well, Lenny, thank you so much for the work you're doing and for sharing on Theology and Raw. This has been a fascinating conversation for me at least. I don't, especially the older I get, I've been trying to pay more and more attention to all the things you're talking about. And I love and I totally agree with seeing all these things through a lens, not of, I don't know, idolatry or vanity, but seeing it through a lens of theology.

And again, it can become an idol for sure, but we also need to care for our bodies for theological reasons. So thank you so much for the work you're doing. Thanks for being to get some theology in Iraq. Yeah. much for having me. Are you looking for news with a faith-based perspective? Then tune in to the pour over today. The podcast that delivers the world's biggest news stories through a lens of faith every

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