I believe we live in a society that obsesses over food. I am not referring to glutenous overeating. I'm referring to the opposite extreme. I constantly see ads online or in magazines for weight loss programs. I see articles and trends about what we should eat (or not eat) for optimum health. Low-carb diets have been popular for the last two decades. Low-fat was in before that, and still is with some people. Now intermittent fasting is making the rounds of popular diets. A lot of this has to do with weight loss, but there are also diets that are just designed to promote health. I used to know a woman who obsessed about what foods would make you get cancer (and she believed burnt toast was on the top of the list!). On top of this, we have organic, gluten-free, vegan, and numerous other diets. If you listened to everything that everyone has to say about this, you probably couldn't eat anything! With all of these messages out there, it seems hard to just enjoy good, old-fashioned food!
I am going to look at four aspects of food consumption: weight/health as a whole, my own food journey, the ways food affects so many other areas of our lives, and the Biblical attitude toward food.
Our society can be obsessed with the number on the scale. We often attach our self-worth to that number. I find it interesting that the Bible barely mentions weight at all. Not very long ago, thin was in. Every person was expected to be the weight that this arbitrary chart said they should be for their height--as if all people the same height had to be the same weight! That's really preposterous if you think about it!
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| Beautiful women at different sizes |
I have seen a slight shift in this mentality recently, and it is starting to be recognized that people can be attractive at different sizes and shapes (people have always known this to be true, it just wasn't always publicly acknowledged). No two people's bodies are exactly the same, and expecting them to be is a lie. This lie has led to a lot of eating disorders, and I also believe it has led to all these crazy diets. Matthew 6:25 says, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? We are not to obsess about food or clothes, and today's preoccupation with weight, dieting, and how we look seems to be in direct opposition to Jesus' words. I personally believe overall health should be a bigger concern than the number on the scale. I am not saying that weight should never be addressed, because it can contribute to other medical concerns. I just don't believe that trying to have people all be at some imaginary "ideal" weight is as important as their overall health. I also think a preoccupation with weight can psychologically damage a person. In a 2019 article published by Scientific American, Monica Reinagel reported: It's not that your weight doesn't matter. It's just that it's not the only thing that matters. She points out that body weight and body mass index don't take into account the body's composition. She also adds that the way we are being told to lose weight has had very little effect in the last three decades, and a saner approach is called for. She closes the article by encouraging everyone to focus on being as healthy as they can, and not making weight in and of itself the priority.
It is true that the number on the scale doesn't tell the whole story of your health at all, and it should not be something we obsess over. If it needs attention, give it the attention needed, but don't make it the center of your existence, or the source of your value. In trying to be at my best health, I have done different variations of diets. Basically, as a young woman, I watched calorie intake, and tried to get exercise. I ate very small amounts throughout the day, and then really enjoyed a good-sized dinner, and filled up on popcorn in the evening. I walked several miles over hilly terrain every day during my breaks at work. This kept me in good shape as an older teen and into my 20's. The problem with it was, I didn't really eat healthier food. I just monitored calories. Sometimes I would eat a candy bar for breakfast. It was about 220 calories, and I just figured that was better than eating a 300 or 400 calorie breakfast of whole grains and fruit (since it was only about calories with me, not nutrients). This kind of dieting caught up with me in my mid-20's. My metabolism slowed down. Even though I remained active, and watched calories, I gained a little weight, bringing me to what has basically been my "average" in my adult life. That's lesson one: your metabolism slows down, and you should be making nutritious choices, not just watching calories.
After I got married, I started to gain weight again, just from the whole life change. I wasn't overeating, and I was trying to get a lot of exercise. My sweet husband never noticed or commented on it, but I knew about it. This is lesson two: a life change (marriage, moving, job-change, or any other routine disruption) can cause weight gain. I started looking for ways to lose the weight, and this was when I came across Intermittent Fasting (IF). IF was virtually unheard of back then, but is now quite popular. What this looks like is eating the normal amount of calories, but doing it during a specified time, and then fasting the rest of the day. You focus more on when you eat than on what you eat. This is understandably appealing for a lot of reasons. Before I go on, I will say that I believe it can be sustainable under the right conditions. I started by eating in a 12 hour window, and then fasting for 12 hours. As I'll explain later, I still try to do this. This basically just meant that there needs to be 12 hours between dinner and the next morning's breakfast. I saw results very quickly. Gradually, I got to the point of eating in an 8 hour window and fasting for 16 hours (which I don't attempt now, and if it happens that way, it is by chance). If you eat breakfast at 9am, and finish dinner at 5pm, this works. Eventually, I got to the point of eating in a 6 hour window (1pm-7pm, skipping breakfast but having a good lunch and dinner). However, again, I wasn't watching what I was eating that closely (though by that time I did have a pretty balanced diet). I was focused on the hours, though. And you know what? It worked...for several years. This organized way of eating and fasting really seemed to help me get into a good routine. I quickly lost the weight I had gained, and then some. I got to the point I had been at as a slender teenager. I felt great. But I still didn't have the best habits as far as picking the healthiest foods (even within relatively balanced eating). I had found my magic formula, and it was working for me! It worked for me for years, with no problem...until...
My husband and I have moved a few times in our marriage, for different reasons (grad-school and jobs, in a nutshell). As I said, moving can disrupt your routine and can throw off eating. I had managed all right through a few states, but we finally moved to Texas. My husband got a job in his field. I got a job at a Christian preschool. It was supposed to be a little part-time job, but due to them being short-staffed and needing to remain "legal" with teacher-to-child ratio, it quickly grew to 11 and a half hours a day for me (I got paid well!). Texas does not require employers to give lunch breaks, and so I did not receive one unless there was availability with other teachers able to step in...and that was rare. Being on the clock with children that many hours each day really threw me off of my eating window. What had worked before no longer worked. My previous window had been about 1pm-7pm, but now, most of my entire window was in my working hours (I got off at 6:30pm), and I didn't really have time to eat or enjoy my meals unless I ate with the children (and I was with one-year-olds, so it wasn't appetizing watching them eat!). What was more, I was working with hospitable Texans (Baptists no less!)--the type who want to make sure their friends have enough to eat. My coworkers didn't see me eating during the day and worried about me, and were constantly bringing me food (they were so sweet). What I really wanted was to eat a good meal when I got home at the end of it all. I tried to redefine my window, but even though I still ate in a window, my weight began to climb. My body had become dependent on the old window, and changing it threw me off. I began to panic that my weight was climbing, even without me overindulging. I had put my body in the situation where it was depending on IF instead of on me making smart nutritious choices. It felt like it was now out of control! And that's lesson three: Intermittent Fasting, like so many fad diets out there, works best if you can commit to it forever. Trying to change it can make the weight come back (not necessarily that it will, but it can, and did for me). I will say that I think Intermittent Fasting has the potential to work over the long haul, if you are committed to it, and also practice good nutrition. I think my extreme schedule in Texas was more to blame than anything else. I will also add that a friend of mine has used IF and said it taught her that it is "okay" to be hungry sometimes, and that was something she needed in her own struggles with food. Additionally (as I said earlier), I still use some principles from IF, in that I try to have a 12 hour break between dinner and the next morning's breakfast, but it is okay on the rare occasion that doesn't happen. Trying to make the window too constricting doesn't work for me anymore.
Covid closed my husband's job in Texas after only 9 months (and the company had only opened a few months before we arrived). God opened the door for us to get into the ministry here in Arkansas. Another routine change. I tried to get back into my old eating/fasting window, but my weight kept climbing, slowly but surely. What could I do? This summer, my weight hit the highest it had ever been, and I knew Intermittent Fasting wouldn't work for me anymore. I got into a program called Noom (it is almost completely done through an app on your phone). I'll give some pros and cons of Noom in a minute, but first, I will say that as of right now, I have lost 22 pounds, and am back to my "average" adult weight, though I'd like to lose a little more. Noom is not a fad diet. It isn't a diet at all. They have the philosophy of, "If you don't want to eat this way forever, why are you now?" They encourage you to enjoy your meals, while also giving information that helps you make choices that fill you up better and decrease your food intake. Their slogan is "Brainpower, not willpower." I really like it.
Here are some pros of Noom: It is very personalized to you (when you sign up for it, it asks you tons of questions to help come up with the right plan and pace for your goals). No judgment is passed. You are accountable to yourself. You have the option of being accountable to a coach or group through the app, if you so choose, or you can just keep it with yourself. You have no official restrictions. You are given helpful information every day to apply to your new habits. You are given a calorie budget, and you can pretty much fill it the way you choose. Splurging is okay! You learn delicious and healthful recipes. You learn some great healthier substitutes to some of your favorite foods. I have also found that, as I have gotten my eating habits into a more organized situation, all of my other habits have become more under control as well. I am spending less money when I go out. I am maximizing my time and other resources.
Here are the cons: There is a lot of logging food, water, and exercise on the app. I don't mind this, but some people might not like keeping on top of it. There is also a cost. It is dependent upon how long they decide you need to be on it. You pay upfront for the months they say you should be on it. For example, when you sign up (and answer all those questions), if they decide you need six months, or twelve months, or whatever, they will calculate the cost for that and charge you for it (they tell you what it is, and you accept it before it actually charges you). It isn't divided into a monthly payment, just one lump sum. You can cancel anytime, but you don't get a refund. You have access to everything you paid for. If you don't cancel, you will be charged again when your months are up, so keep an eye on that (maybe you'll want to continue going when your months are up). The daily lessons they send you have some helpful advice and info (and they're not very time-consuming), but they are also a little bit sarcastic and attempt to be funny in ways that fall short (that is only minimally annoying, but it is a con). This program is definitely not from a Christian worldview (They encourage things like twerking for exercise, and things like mindful meditation). I take the good and leave the bad, but these things go in the con category for me.
Overall, I am very glad I started Noom, and I do recommend it. It builds good habits. What it has that my previous plans were missing was actual focus on nutrition--without depriving myself of things I enjoy as well. My body has become used to eating nutritious things (and even treats that can fit into my calorie budget at times). I don't ever feel like I'm forcing myself to stay away from food I want to eat.
There are many other eating programs out there as well. I wanted to share how my food journey has been. You need to do what is right for you, your needs, your body, and your overall health. No judgment from me. Personally, I don't really enjoy hearing people get into too many specifics about their diets, which is why I didn't give precise numbers or tell you details of what I like to eat. I hope my sharing has been helpful.
Here are a few little tips I have learned in my journey:
1) Eat when you are genuinely hungry.
2) If what you are eating is physically small, use a small side plate instead of a large dinner plate. This helps you feel fuller when you see yourself starting with a full plate as opposed to a mostly-empty pate.
3) Set your fork down between each bite.
4) Really taste each bite. Think about what you are tasting, and enjoy it.
5) As an experiment, stop eating with five bites left to spare, and save the rest for later (don't do this at every meal, but try it sometimes). See if you can be satisfied on less. "Cleaning your plate" has been drilled into a lot of us, but only do that if you actually want to eat it all, and are hungry.
6) Eat foods that are less calorie-dense, because they will fill you up more. For example, 100 calories of grapes will fill you up a lot better than 100 calories of raisins. It's still 100 calories, but the grapes will give you more "bang for your buck" (or rather, satisfaction for your calories).
7) A little exercise routine: Do this in six minutes, or in multiples of six (such as twelve minutes, eighteen minutes, or even sixty). Set a timer and walk at your normal pace for the first three minutes (or half of your full time). When that is done, set it again for two minutes, and speed-walk those two minutes (or one-third of the full time), and then, for the remaining minute (or sixth of the full time), run. Keeping active is healthy in any event. Food intake has a greater impact than exercise, but keeping active will help you keep weight off.
8) If you work a job with a lot of sitting, get up and walk around every hour.
My weakness when it comes to food is disorganized eating. When I lose my routine, that's when I get into trouble. We are all different, and this is particularly true in our battles and relationship with food. I have done a lot of soul-searching in this, and have concluded that I'm not a compulsive over-eater per se, but I am a disorganized eater sometimes. I also enjoy good food as much as the next person. The hard thing (I imagine for everyone) is that we need food to survive. We have to have it. It isn't a guilty pleasure, but a daily necessity. It isn't something we can just decide to give up, like drugs or smoking or something like that. Another complicated aspect of food is that it affects almost all areas of our lives. We attach emotions to eating. I was very poor during the Great Recession of the late 2000's and early 2010's. My bills all got paid, but there were days I didn't have food in the house. I was too proud to ask for help. When I did have access to food, I never knew when I would get to eat again, so I would go kind of crazy and overeat. It became an emotionally-related issue to me, and it was hard to build back to to a healthy attitude toward food. We attach feelings of being nurtured with food. We have fellowship over food. It plays such a big role in our lives.
What does the Bible say about all of this? Well, I think Matthew 6:25 (which I already shared) helps us realize that being preoccupied with food and body image isn't God's will for us. We should take care of our bodies, because they really belong to God. First Corinthians 6:19-20 tell us: What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. God is our provider when it comes to food, and all else. He provided manna for the children of Israel in the desert. This is described in Exodus 16. God promised to send bread from Heaven to feed His people, but He was testing them as well. They were only to gather what they needed daily. Anything hoarded for later would rot. Some did not listen to God's instructions. Trying to get extra food for the next day, they found what God had said to be true when it rotted (verse 20). The only exception was that they were to gather extra for the Sabbath. They had to trust God to meet their needs. Trying to hoard it for the future was disobedience in this case. I'm not saying it's wrong to plan ahead, but we need to be trusting in the Lord as our provider. Also, on an emotional level, God alone (not food) can meet our needs. His grace is sufficient (Second Corinthians 12:9).
There are times when a doctor might tell you to remove something from your diet for your own good. I was told to remove caffeine from my diet in 2010. It has now been eleven years since I've had a caffeinated beverage. Maybe you have had to remove something. But unless you are instructed to do so, I truly believe God wants you to enjoy the food He has provided. He gave you taste buds for a reason. Remember in Acts 10? Peter saw the vision of all the "unclean" animals in the sheet, and a voice spoke to him saying to kill and eat. Peter refused, saying that he had never eaten anything unclean. The voice of the Lord replied, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." First Corinthians 10:23 says that All things are lawful... Being obsessed about what we're eating or what we're cutting out isn't really helpful. I was once in a Bible study with several women who were very self-righteous about their diets. They distrusted the FDA (and considered it a sign of spiritual maturity to distrust it), and would look down on people who shopped at regular grocery stores and ate regular food. One of my friends pointed out that it was as if these ladies had made a whole religion out of food. That's fine that they wanted to grow their own organic vegetables, slaughter their own animals, and only shop at specialty health stores, but it was also fine for the rest of us to shop at the regular grocery store and eat food approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It's all okay by God's standard. First Corinthians 10:23 continues to remind us that not everything is particularly helpful, even though lawful. You need to determine what God would have you eat. Don't let your eating (or anything else in your life) be a stumbling block (Romans 14).
Go enjoy a good meal! So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (First Corinthians 10:31).
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