Reflecting on Healthy Eating. Selah.

I’ve written it before: it’s not about the food. It’s not about the program. It’s not about the diet.

No diet has ever made me stick with it. God does that.

No diet made me willing to change for the long haul and actually learn to adopt healthy habits for life. God did that.

No diet taught me that hunger is something I don’t have to give into every time it strikes. God did that, too.

No diet ever healed me spiritually as well as physically. God is doing that in my life.

Seeking God as the source of our change and our healing is the best first step we can take to getting a handle on our weight or our health or fitness, or whatever goal we’re working toward.

But a girl’s gotta eat.

We want to learn to eat wisely and well, and there’s not necessarily a recipe for that in the Bible. Conversely, there are so many recipes for that floating around the Internet, it can seem impossible to choose one.

So how do we pick a program or decide what to eat amid all these options and all the conflicting opinions masquerading as data?

Deciding is part of the growth process, and it is as individual as our taste buds. To the extent my experience can be useful to someone else facing similar choices, here goes:

After bouncing around a bunch of diets (and no structure at all), I elected to follow a ketogenic diet. Here’s why:

• I’m insulin resistant, and taking all that extra sugar out of my system is the best way I’ve found to keep excess insulin from wreaking havoc on my system. It is really tough for me to lose weight any other way, and eating that way actually makes me feel a lot better.
• Keto is scalable. You can go hard core with minimal carbs or you can scale up a little. The trick is listening and responding to what your body needs. This was important to me, because we all go through seasons of life when we’re more or less active and when our bodies demand more or less from what we eat.
• When I’ve had past successes in losing weight, typically it was from reducing or eliminating carbs and processed sugar (think Atkins, South Beach, etc.). I knew my body responded to keto.
• I am prone to overeat processed carbohydrates. In fact, I struggle to eat almost any refined carb in moderation. So it’s just easier for me not to eat them at all most of the time. That said, I’m not a rock. I do not do this perfectly, but it’s my goal.
• My primary care provider (PCP) recommended keto for me, and I’ve met with nutritionists in the past who suggested low-carb eating plans for me as well. In other words, expert opinions seemed to match my own instincts.
• I wanted to ditch the supplements. I’ve had experience with supplement-heavy plans in past and the idea of swallowing a dozen giant pills before every meal makes bile rise in the back of my throat. I knew it wouldn’t last for me because I hate it.
• For me, keto means real food. I do not have a chemistry set in my cupboard for whipping up brownies made from cauliflower and erythritol. No offense if that’s your thing. It’s not mine.
• Bearnaise sauce is keto-friendly. Score.
• Keto fits my taste buds (#bearnaise). Eating is not supposed to be the center of our existence. Neither is it supposed to be a miserable experience to be dreaded. Part of satiety is savoring flavors, textures, smells and experiences we like. Life in Christ is not supposed to be miserable. I believe that extends to what we eat. Practically speaking, since I need to eat a finite amount of food in order to be healthy, I’m going to make sure what I eat tastes good to me. Why waste calories on stuff I don’t like? Why, why do we do that to ourselves?
• I knew I could cook food I like that fit the ketogenic eating style … forever.  And I was finally willing to make lasting changes to how I do things, so choosing something I can live with over time, not just long enough to hit some weight goal, was a big priority.

So far, I’m down about 70 pounds from highest-ever weight, and 50-plus of those happened in the last 14 months. The ketogenic diet suits me and works for me, and I’ve seen a lot of other people benefit from it as well. It has been a great SECOND step, after turning myself and this whole battle over to the Lord. I’m not perfectly compliant, but I’m practicing it daily and improving with time.

That said, keto is not the only right answer. It’s my choice, not your rules. My mom lost 70 pounds on Weight Watchers not long ago, and has kept the majority of that off for several years, and I know a number of women who share similar stories. Still others don’t need to buy someone else’s program. They can cut back on portions, beef up their exercise routines and get exactly where they need to go. Tons of variations exist, and just because I haven’t mentioned your program here doesn’t mean it isn’t valid.

Conversely, I know people (my past self included) who invested a few months in keto and bounced right back to old patterns and old weight. Same with Weight Watchers and all the others. So it’s obvious that there’s not just one right answer.

Keto is not magic. Neither is anything else. So how do we choose?

The “magic,” if you will, is in discarding the unrealistic and unsustainable, and then learning through practice how to effectively fuel your body in a way that you not only can live with, but actually enjoy. Selah.

The “magic,” if you will, is in discarding the unrealistic and unsustainable, and then learning through practice how to effectively fuel your body in a way that you not only can live with, but actually enjoy. Selah.

This bears closer examination over the next few blog posts, so stay tuned (or subscribe if you like) to dig deeper. For the time being, though, I hope you’re not too frustrated by the fact it’s quite subjective and nothing at all like the quick fixes we all know and love. But if God saw fit to give us all free will, we should exercise it in every part of life. Learning to choose wisely leads to maturity, physically, mentally and spiritually.

Where do we start?

Fortunately, God gave us some guardrails to think about in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. The Corinthians were, it would seem, my kind of people — they thought quite a lot of themselves and their own intelligence, they liked to have a good time, and they tended to take everything a little too far. Left to my own devices, I identify as a Corinthian (thank God I’m not left to my own devices). I digress. Here’s what Paul writes:

• 1 Corinthians 6:12 is my go-to verse for decisions about food. “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.” That means if there are certain foods (or behaviors or relationships) that make me lose control, I should avoid them. In response to this verse, I’m gradually assembling a list of foods that pretty much always trigger overeating for me so that I can avoid them. I’m finding it is super tough to work up the courage to remove them from my life, despite the fact the ones on my list have virtually no nutritional value and have only served to contribute to my weight problem. At the same time, it irks me that something as ridiculous as pasta has any measure of influence over me. This process reinforces for me that I can’t trust my cravings. It’s also a positive exercise in submission and is teaching me larger truths about dealing with strongholds in my life.
• 1 Corinthians 10:13 says it a bit differently: “All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up.” We’re supposed to make choices that build up not only ourselves, but those around us. So our way of eating and how we manage our health should set a good example to our spouse, our kids, our families and other people.
• “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). This, too, is great advice for eating and everything else. We should do so in a way that glorifies God. Godly eating habits are a little nebulous to me, but I have found that ungodly ones are much easier to spot.
• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” This verse is in the context of avoiding sexual immorality, but the principle of stewardship is an important one. God gave us free will, yes, but our bodies are not our own to do with as we please. We’re supposed to take care of them just as the priests maintained the temple of old. That means we keep our bodies clean and in good repair, maybe even a little bedazzled. A look at the ill health effects of excess body weight and lack of exercise on our bodies is a clear call to invest time, resources and energy into being good stewards of the bodies God gave us.

Selah.

I have come to appreciate this word. In Hebrew, it means “pause.” It was used in the psalms and elsewhere as something of a pregnant pause, if you will, to lend emphasis to what had just been sung or spoken. It means “pause, think, reflect.”

While people who don’t struggle with their weight can go through their day instinctively knowing how to stay powered up without overdoing it, not everyone is so lucky. If you’re like me, you have to pay close attention to what you’re doing to avoid going off the rails.

So as you consider how you’re going to eat today and tomorrow and next week, take the time to think it over, applying your own experience and Biblical principles to your course of action. Be intentional. Selah.