How many lies do we believe when we are overweight...'We can't lose weight', 'It's too much to lose', 'I'm going to fail anyway, why try?', 'Everyone will notice me losing weight and then fail, again', 'I'll be the person asking for special orders on food and still be fat and look like a fool', 'But oreos taste so good!' I used to tell myself these things daily. That's how I maintained my 246 self for years. Now the scales have been removed and I can see :) Watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Food Inc, Hungry for Change, Food Matters, Forks Over Knives and others has helped educate me in the fact that I was slowly killing myself with food. And that's just what satan wants. He wants me to only think about the next meal. He wants me to be too tired to play with my kids. He wants me to be in withdrawal between meals so that I'm short and crabby with my family. He wants me to eat to promote disease in my body so that I die before my time. He wants me to feel so unattractive that I limit contact with my husband. I do believe God is bigger than all these lies. But we have to take the step toward God and away from the food that is harming us.
God wants us to be healthy. He gave us the perfect diet. So many different varieties of fruits and veggies. Potatoes, rice, wheat, and so many other grains. Everything we need to thrive. Yet greed (sin) has taken over our food. We don't need anything that is made in a chemist's lab to be keep our bodies healthy. God has provided all that we need without man's help. Man wants us to be so obsessed with the boxed, packaged stuff that we pay and pay and pay and can never have enough.
I think it's funny how when we are overweight and tied to food, we think that losing weight and eating a healthy diet is too restricting. I thought that I'd have to eat boring food and limit myself on how much and be tied to certain portions and be hungry all the time. Now that I eat a super healthy diet and am thin, I see what bondage I was in when I was overweight. There is such freedom being able to shop in any standard store for clothes, not just the 'big girl' stores. There is freedom in being able to sit anywhere, in any chair and not fear breaking it or not fitting in the chair. My food choices are endless. I have yet to be at a restaurant and find nothing on the menu for me. Granted, I eat more salt and fat when I eat out, but I make sure my eating out is limited. I love the food I make so much that I'm happy to limit my eating out. (Having 6 mouths to feed at a restaurant is also a reason to stay home.) I look at all the different vegetables at my market and can't even begin to conceive cooking with them all. AND they keep changing with the seasons. Do the boxes of pop-tarts or cereal or frozen foods change? No, but you can bet that each time I head to my local organic farm there is something new to try. Pinterest is such a blessing to find tons of different recipes with all the produce. Most recipes can be adapted to this lifestyle. I find that many vegan recipes still have salt and oil, I just omit it and it tastes great. It took me a couple of weeks to get used to not eating salt, but now if I have a chip or something salty, it tastes REALLY salty, too salty!
There is so much peace in living in limits. When I was obsessed with food and had the choice of any food, I chose very poorly and became a slave to that food. Like I said before, I was obsessed with food and addicted to sugar. I can now go hours without thinking about food. I don't get paranoid about knowing what I'm going to eat. I always make sure and menu plan and have soups frozen so that I do always have something healthy on hand, but there is freedom in that and it gives me peace. Eating to live rather than living to eat keeps me full longer and I don't get blood sugar spikes and dips and have very little toxic hunger between meals. I'm still shedding fat, so when I get down to my ideal weight, I'm confident the toxic hunger will be gone.
I must say that I have one area without peace at this time. That is being very self-conscious about how I look and thinking about my body when I go out of the house. I still can't believe that I'm not overweight and a size 20 anymore. I think about my new body and the clothes I'm wearing quite frequently when I'm in public, not out of vanity, but out of shock that my journey has taken me to this place. I know that I will get used to my body and the excitement of all of this will die down and become normal, but for now I'm just so excited to be in this place and to have accomplished it with the Lord at my side and I love the journey He has led me on.
I'm praying for each one reading this that you would be aware if you have any bondage to food and that the Lord will deliver you from it. Peace is attainable. You can have a thin and healthy body with God to guide you. Listen for His leading, He will show you His will for you!
Blessings to you all!
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