Tonight at church the pastor was giving a sermon on living in the Spirit versus living in the flesh, I promise I won’t get all religious with this but what she was talking about really struck me as something applicable to a lot of people who are trying to lose weight. She was talking about being able to cut off a fleshly desire, and mentioned fasting as an example of controlling the desires of your flesh. Obviously, we’re not meant to completely cut off the desire to eat, but many of us have to change that desire into something healthier.
To me, it seems that as part of a fast you’re denying your flesh in order to refocus spiritually or otherwise. If all you’re thinking about is food, how hard does that make it to get healthy? In dieting, a lot of us are trying to take control back from our flesh. Part of my reason in posting this is that I’ve seen a lot of posts about people missing food or feeling like that have nothing other than food or taking their comfort from food. I never did a complete fast in trying to lose weight, but the idea was there. When I wanted food when I wasn’t hungry or craved unhealthy things, I found something more important to focus on. I denied my body so that I remained in control and the unhealthy desire wasn’t controlling me. I’ve even reached a point where just the thought of eating some horrible food can turn my stomach. I want to encourage people who are struggling: find those things in life that are more important to you than food and refocus your life on to those things.
The other part is that this was a revelation for me in my own lifestyle change. I’ve been dieting since my mom took me to a nutritionist in the third grade. In the following 18 years, I gained A LOT of weight despite everything I did. Yet, since the end of April, I’ve lost 40 lbs (more weight than I have ever managed to lose in my life with all the nutritionists and trainers and doctors) and I’ve been trying to figure out what changed. Tonight it finally clicked that April is when I recommitted my life. My life is no longer about food and dieting because I changed my life to being centered on love and usefulness and responsibility and reciprocity and perseverance. Leaving religion entirely out of it, those are still amazing things to be living for. There has yet to be a moment in the last few months when I have felt deprived. It was important for me personally to come to this realization because it gives me more hope and strength, and I wanted to share because there might be just one person out there who needed to read it to gather hope and strength too.
Revelation about Fasting/Dieting
