It’s three days until a new year starts. If you’re like most other people, one of your goals for the new year has something to do with food, exercise, and health – all good goals. I’m right there with you. Except for this year, I’m breaking up with all of it. This post explains why.
First I have to tell you, I have no answers. I want to say that upfront. What I do have is a lifetime of evidence and unintentional research because of my personal experience.
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” Isaiah 61:1
When My Food Struggles Began
My first memory of a food-related event was when I was around four-years-old. I sat on the sofa at my house and someone said to me, “You don’t need to get fat.” I wasn’t fat at four-years-old, but I wasn’t “skinny” either. With a family history of more overweight people than not, I can understand the concern. Plus, this was a time when there wasn’t any thought to emotional or psychological consequences. People were either unaware or apathetic to emotional health. Psychologists were called “shrinks” and “pull up your bootstraps and move on” was the motto.
So I don’t blame the comment, however, I recognize it as the catalyst to a lifetime of food strongholds that I am not over. I believe Satan chose his fiery dart well, aimed and fired, knowing he’d have me tied up for a long, long time. After that comment, I tried hard to not get fat.
During my childhood, I remember being encouraged to just eat an apple for lunch, I made my Barbies run around their dream house for money, I hid brownies in my room to binge on them, and I stood over a pot of spaghetti sauce when no one was looking and gorged out on all the sausage in it.
Then, there was the dreaded BMI instrument that my P.E. teacher used on my upper arm when I was in the sixth grade. I cried to my mom that I was fat. Since I’m only 4’11” tall, she would try to comfort me by comparing my physique to Mary Lou Retton’s (my idol at the time) who was also short. I was not even in junior high school yet. None-the-less, I got first place for the most sit-ups in the fitness test that year.
I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.” Psalm 119:45
This past September I was cleaning out a box in our house and found an old cassette tape. In my 12-year-old handwriting was written “Exerise Tape.” Bless me, I didn’t even spell exercise correctly. Remarkably we still have a cassette player, so I put the tape in the player, a little fearful of what I might hear. There it was. Music was playing, and I was giving instructions for a workout as if I was an exercise instructor. Then, in my childhood southern accent, I said, “Do this, and you’ll lose all the pounds.” On social media, I laughed about it. But listening to the tape I cried.
Satan’s grip wrapped around a child girl and hasn’t let go since.
In high school, I went to visit a friend in another state. I remember my mom calling her mom before the trip to explain to her, “Brenda won’t eat meat. She will only eat veggie burgers.” She gave her strict instructions on my eating habits.
Back then “health food” was in a separate section of the grocery store. I’d peruse it for cheddar puffs that were all natural and cereal made of whole grains. These foods weren’t sophisticated like they are now, so they genuinely tasted like cardboard. I ate them none-the-less.
On band trips (I was in the color guard in the marching band in high school), I packed healthy food. I was never the teenager to eat Doritos freely. I’d eat them, but it came with an emotional price. I had two coaches tell me I needed to watch my weight.
Then came college. By this time it was “cool” to have an eating disorder, and this is where my obsession with food and dieting took that turn. I don’t mean it was really cool, but it was socially acceptable. Everyone had an eating disorder. It was like a club. I vividly remember watching my roommate separate the yolk from the white of her hard-boiled egg that came on a salad she ordered at a restaurant. I replay that memory weekly in my mind to this day.
By the time I graduated and moved to Athens for graduate school, my disordered eating was out of control. It was scary because I didn’t have a lot of support with what to do next. Again, the adults I knew didn’t grow up understanding emotional health. Mental issues were weird, self-perpetuated, and solved with “This is life, get over it.” But I was self-aware enough to know that eating disorders were serious, and I could get really sick.
Later, I moved back to Atlanta and sought help. Treatment gave me more knowledge and understanding of how to think, but my disordered eating never went away completely. It is something I still struggle with today.
Throughout these years, I’ve learned a lot. Here is what I now know.
Eating plans don’t give you freedom.
This is a realization I just came to over the past few months. All the eating plans that are popular right now? They’re bogus. How do I know this? Because God did not intend for us to view food – any food – as an enemy. He did not design food for us to classify as “good” and “bad.” Food is a blessing. It’s a commodity. And we’re blessed beyond words to have a variety and abundance of it.
Any time we have too much of something, that something has the potential of becoming more important than God. In other words, it has to potential of becoming an idol. In America, we have an abundance of food. For many of us, food is an idol. We’re complacent, entitled, and addicted. We’re complacent with eating unhealthy food instead of food that fuels us well. We’re entitled to demand certain kinds of foods and not eating others. And we’re addicted because we turn to food instead of to God when we have a need. Friends, our obsession with food is a first-world problem. I don’t know about you, but for me, this is very convicting.
Food is not supposed to have this much power, this much thought. God did not intend for us to analyze it. He didn’t mean for us to dissect it. He meant for us to enjoy it and use it to fuel our bodies for His service and glory. Is that a pass to eat whatever we want, whenever we want? Of course not. And I’m sure some people will make the argument that only organic, healthy food glorifies God. But I just don’t think that’s the case.
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.” 1 Corinthians 6:12
Have you noticed that “diets” no longer marketed as “diets”? We’re too sophisticated for that now. Diets are from the past. Today they’re not “weight-loss plans” but plans that help you know what foods work well with your body and don’t cause inflammation, etc. Whole30, Keto, Paleo, and the list goes on. I’ve tried some of these. Whether it’s intentional or not, however, for people with food-related issues (which is almost everyone), these plans create an obsession with food that is not healthful either physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1
My goal is to be free from obsessing about food. Like my six-year-old who eats when she’s hungry and stops when she’s full regardless if there’s a cupcake on her plate or a pile of broccoli. I want to be free. Eating plans do not make you free.
God wants us to be free.
It’s a spiritual issue, too.
This will most likely be a controversial statement, but it’s no less true: my issues with food are a spiritual issue as much as a physical or psychological issue. Sin keeps me in bondage.
Yes, Satan had a plan and executed it well. I believe that. Yes, people harmed me, most likely unintentionally, through their words and advice. Yes, God allowed all of this in His sovereign will because He saw a purpose in it that I do not understand. However, what also keeps me where I am is the sin of not surrendering to healing. What keeps me here is going to food instead of God when I need emotional help. What keeps me here is believing the lies of Satan instead of God’s truth about who I am. What keeps me here is not truly believing God’s Word, that He is my strength, support, and healer.
Throughout my adult life, I’ve learned that problems in my life can be both not my fault and my fault. For example, I can have a physical or emotional issue that developed and that’s not my fault and at the same time have choices that are my fault. Only by admitting this, admitting my sin, will the darkness be brought to light and I will be set free.
Where Am I Now with My Distorted Eating?
I’m still not free. I’m still not healed. But for the first time in my life, it’s becoming less and less about the number on the scale. I’m exhausted. I’ve been in bondage for a long, long time, and I’m tired. Now I want to be free for the right reasons. I want to be free because God did not intend me to live this way. I want to be free so that those thoughts that are on food and diets and exercise will instead be on Him and how I can serve Him more.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh ; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” Galatians 5:13
As I’ve mentioned before, unashamedly, I see a counselor regularly. I’m also seeing a nutritionist. I’m learning about my brain and how it can be retrained. In Bible language, “how to take every thought captive.” I’m learning about intuitive eating.
What I’m not doing is starting another diet or eating plan or whatever you want to call it. I’ve gotten off the bandwagon. And I’m not getting back on. I’ve broken up with eating plans, diets, and bondage.
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” Romans 6:22
Resources that have helped me:
**Update**
Here are a few resources that I have used and that have been helpful.
Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch (I just bought this book and haven’t read it yet, but I hear it’s a good one.)
Love to Eat, Hate to Eat: Breaking the Bondage of Destructive Eating Habits by Elyse Fitzpatrick
Brain Over Binge: Why I Was Bulimic, Why Conventional Therapy Didn’t Work, and How I Recovered for Good by Kathryn Hansen
“Scripture-Prayers for Overcoming Food-Related Strongholds” – a blog post and list of scripture prayers by Beth Moore
Revelation Wellness – a ministry for wellness and health
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