Eat healthy, exercise, pray: Advice from judge who changed her habits

That faith, healthy eating and physical exercising is good medicine for most ailments and a better life is demonstrated by the life of High Court judge Asenath Ongeri.

The judge narrates in her book The Making of a Judge that changing her eating habits, exercising and taking her faith seriously literally transformed her life, healed her physical problems and transformed her attitude towards work, making her more productive.

She writes that her experience is based on the time when she worked as a magistrate at Kikuyu law courts.

 She was not doing well in health, work productivity and was lethargic in her faith.

She would wake up late and miss her devotion time, drag herself late to court, and was putting on weight due to careless eating habits.

“While working at the Kikuyu law courts, I was not doing well health-wise. I had grown fat and sickly. I had fibroids, haemorrhoids and a goiter. I regularly visited a goiter clinic at the Kenyatta National Hospital, a referral facility, and I was on thyroxin,” Ongeri writes.

Consequently, I had a bad attitude and a temper, she says. In that state of affairs, I could not wake up early to report on duty on time or even pray.

 “The prevailing attitude at the Judiciary was that court starts when the magistrate or the judge arrives... no matter what time that was.”

“I rarely started my court at 9am which was the official time for beginning court hearings.”

In fact, the judge writes, she was so lazy that when departing for work on some mornings, her husband would go and start the car and wait her, only to come back to the house to find that she had sneaked back to bed to sleep.

A two-week seminar organised by Ongeri’s church changed her life, but she was ready for change.

It was a training for lay preachers and she decided to sign up, securing leave from work to be part of it.

“The first miracle toward my personal transformation journey happened when I wrote a letter to [then] Chief Justice Bernard Chunga to allow me take leave to attend the lay preachers training seminar for two weeks, although my colleague had just gone on leave.”

“He allowed me to go to the seminar, albeit with clear instructions. A stand-in replacement was sent to the Kikuyu law courts from the Kiambu law courts.”

 It turned out that though the announcement had indicated a seminar for training lay preachers, the actual message was on lifestyle transformation, she says.

“I had never taken seriously the restrictive health message taught by my church although I knew it in theory, but during that seminar, I decided to give it a try.”

At the time, Ongeri writes, she was addicted to sugary soda and fast food.

“I recall a restaurant I used to frequent in town before my reformation. It sold fast food. The chicken was big and very tasty, and towards the bone it appeared as if the chicken was raw but it was too sweet to abandon,” she writes.

“I heard some participants vowing they would reduce their intake of sugar and soda and related foods. As for me, I made up my mind to drop everything I perceived to be harmful, and eat everything good, and to eat in moderation. It was going to be a big test of resolve.”

 Ongeri suffered withdrawal symptoms and lost weight.

 “The amazing thing is that all the tumours I had been nursing disappeared. I had known ‘Newstart’ in theory, and had even taught it, but I had never lived it.”

Newstart with its eight rules stands for nutrition, exercise, water, sunshine, temperance, air, rest and trust in God.

From the conviction she developed after the seminar, she reduced her extra work to ensure she got quality rest. She ended her junk-food eating habits and fired up her faith practices and everything about her changed.

 “I even stopped teaching evening classes (which was a side hustle) at the National Polytechnic and at the Australian University Studies Institute, and I concentrated on my work. The transformation was total, embracing both diet and values.”

 “The lesson I learnt was that your food is your medicine. You’re what you eat!” The change was holistic and she was born anew.

 “It made a brandnew me... I was suddenly excited about my work. It was as if there was new blood in my veins.”

 “My energy levels soared, and they’ve never waned to this day as long as I religiously follow those Newstart eight rules of health.” “I started waking up very early every morning to start my day with devotion and focused prayer, and I became enthusiastic about my assignments.”

Ongeri says she has turned into a healthy living advocate.

 “My journey of transformation started when I started walking the talk and it’s still ongoing because the making of a golden gem takes time.”

 Her husband initially dismissed her efforts and carried on with his unhealthy eating habits; it took a major disease diagnosis to change his course, the judge writes.

“My husband would accompany me to various churches to tell my story but whenever we got back home, though, he would brew his tea until it became yellow. Today he has seen the light – but only after a [major ailment] diagnosis. In addition to this lifestyle change, he has responded remarkably well to treatment.”