Food for Thought

Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.  Proverbs 30:6

 

This past Fall I went on another diet. I did this about the same time last year on a different diet.

A few years ago I ate a low-carb diet and lost weight which I kept off for ten years. It wasn’t hard. The weight seemed to fall off. They say as you get older it is harder. I’m wondering if there is more to it.

I gained weight by slowly but surely re-introducing bread, and then “occasional” desserts into my diet.  Over time they all added up to more weight.

Last year I went on a diet that taught me to count calories. I could eat some carbs, whole wheat bread, more fruits than I could on my Atkins-like diet, and some of the higher carb vegetables that I had learned to avoid. It got confusing.

This year’s diet was not well-defined for me because I didn’t want to purchase pre-packaged foods from the diet plan I was following. I counted calories and tried to follow their guidelines, which are a little different than the ones I followed last year.

I realized that my thinking was getting all mixed up. I would think low-carb at breakfast and then low calorie at lunch. If I hadn’t eaten a lot of calories by dinner I felt free to eat some carbs that I know used to make me gain weight. At the end of three weeks I had lost little weight.

I  am now trying to examine exactly how I sabotaged myself outside of the breads and desserts I added. Each time I ate I figured I would just take the calories into account.

As I was pondering this lack of willpower I realized that I was trying to combine three eating plans into one diet. Each one probably “works” for someone but I know that over the long haul my body uses protein as fuel. It takes carbs and adds them directly to my middle. I hate that, but it is my repeated experience.

Isn’t this what we do when we try to take our Christianity and add a little something to it? Perhaps a “sin isn’t so bad” thought or a “I can willfully break God’s law here and then ask Him for forgiveness and still get to heaven.” The perennial favorite is: “Well, God will understand if I don’t study the Bible (go to church, get baptized, stop a sin, or if I take my child to the soccer game on Sunday morning instead of Sunday School, etc.).”

There are so many ways that we sabotage our own faith just like I sabotage my own diet. There is one way that works for me with eating and God has given us one Truth that will guide our lives for living that pleases Him and brings blessing to us. We can each choose what we will eat just like we can each choose who will be God in our lives.  We can follow His ways and live in peace or follow our own ways and slowly but surely feel the weight of sin coming over us.

Discipline applies to more than food.