Bacon Strength & Performance

In the kitchen… 👨🏻‍🍳🍳🥓🥩

Inspired by a conversation with a friend yesterday, I thought about all the wild stuff that we see on social media, particularly in the realm of fitness and nutrition. Influencers always posting their workouts that they claim will “get you shredded” or “grow your glutes 🍑.” Or nutritionists telling us that everything under the sun is bad for us and we should just stop eating food all together and live off of oxygen alone 🙄 (okay maybe I haven’t seen someone say something that extreme, but I feel like that’s the direction we’re going). When in reality they’re photoshopping their pictures and don’t actually do the workouts they share.

We’ve seen this type of activity a lot when it comes to politics over the years, especially in the social media/internet era where anyone can put out anything that may or may not be completely truthful.

Moral of the story here is, do your own homework. Seek knowledge and truth for yourself and only allow people to speak into your life that you know you can trust.
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“You believe that God is one; you do well. The demons also believe — and they shudder.”
‭‭James‬ ‭2‬:‭19‬

It’s easy for us to embrace feelings of accomplishment and pride when we feel like we’ve “made it.” However, it’s important for us to remember that we didn’t get where we are alone. We had help along the way, whether that’s from family, friends, mentors or others that influenced our lives along the way. Even those who have hurt us in some way, we learn from those relationships too and should be thankful for those life lessons just the same.

For me, all of the above have had tremendous impact on where I find myself today, but no one has done more for me than Jesus Christ. Without His sovereignty and placing these people in my life at the exact right time that I needed each of them, whether they were long term influences in my life, or seasonal, I would not be who I am today.

Ultimately, though, without Christ’s sacrifice in giving His life on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins, none of the rest of my life would matter. I am able to be who I am because of what He did for me 2000 years ago.

This reminder that God provided yesterday morning hit me square in the face. Humility is one of, if not the most important traits we can adopt and I needed that reminder in this new season of life that I’m entering.

So we shouldn’t forget what others have done who have gone before us, because we didn’t get here alone. We’ve all had help from someone in some way.
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“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”
-Sir Isaac Newton
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I’m as guilty of this as the next person. If some of y’all could read my mind when I talk to myself about my own shortcomings, you’d feel better about yourselves. Thankfully, I’ve become better about this over the last year or so, once I realized how much my own negative self-talk affected my own psyche.

I saw post something a day or two ago that said “if you talked to your best friend the same way you talk to yourself when you “mess up on your diet” or make a mistake because you’re human, you wouldn’t have a best friend anymore.”

We all need to offer ourselves a little more grace from time to time. Just yesterday I went a little (a lot) overboard and bought a bag of funyons, bacon & cheddar potato skin chips, cheez it party mix and a large bag of flamin hot Cheetos. Ate every bit of each of those and half a thing of double stuff Oreos. Do I feel like 🗑️ today, yeah, who wouldn’t after eating all that junk. But do I hate myself bc I made a poor choice? No, certainly not! I’m getting back to it today and forgiving and forgetting yesterday’s shortcomings.

1 Corinthians 13 tells us that “love keeps no record of wrongs.” I think we tend to read this passage at weddings and apply it to our marriages or relationships with our significant others, but fail to realize that this can, and does, also apply to our relationships with ourselves.

So have some grace for yourself when you slip up or aren’t perfect, whether in your fitness journey or just in life. God doesn’t hold it against you, so you shouldn’t hold it against yourself.
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“But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.”

‭‭-2 Corinthians‬ ‭12‬:‭9‬ ‭
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In 2 Corinthians chapter 5 we are told that those who are followers of Christ are a new creation and that because of God’s grace in sending Christ to be crucified on our behalf we are no longer held to account for our sins. We are free from the shame and guilt that this world brings and are seen as righteous in the eyes of the Lord.

Despite reading these passages from a young age, this is a lesson that God has graciously opened my eyes to in 2023.

I love how puts this in his memoir:

“We all step in [crap] from time to time. We hit roadblocks, we [screw] up, we get [screwed], we get sick, we don't get what we want, we cross thousands of "could have done better”s and "wish that wouldn't have happened”s in life. Stepping in [crap] is inevitable, so let's either see it as good luck, or figure out how to do it less often...

The problems we face today eventually turn into blessings in the rearview mirror of life. In time, yesterday's red light leads us to a greenlight. All destruction eventually leads to construction, all death eventually leads to birth, all pain eventually leads to pleasure. In this life or the next, what goes down will come up.
It's a matter of how we see the challenge in front of us and how we engage with it. Persist, pivot, or concede. It's up to us, our choice every time…

I believe everything we do in life is part of a plan. Sometimes the plan goes as intended, and sometimes it doesn't. That's part of the plan. Realizing this is a greenlight in itself.

-Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights
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John 3:16-17 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”