Four tips to make peace with your food and your body today.
Tired of Chronic Dieting?
What does peace mean to you?
The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. This concept of peace means total health or wholeness and completeness.
For the past 30 years, I’ve felt the opposite of peace when it came to my food and my body. I have had an internal conflict- a love-hate relationship with food.
Over the years, I tried countless diets and eating plans, including Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and Whole 30. I joined countless wellness challenges, hired a nutritionist for six weeks, tried the cabbage soup diet (only tried that once), and starved myself, still never able to maintain any sustained weight loss.
I had become a chronic dieter obsessed with my body in a culture that promotes thinness and the “perfect body.”
How can I help encourage others in our Wellness Ministry at my local church and proclaim myself to be a Fitness Teacher Gospel Preacher, but cannot overcome my own issues with food?
I am a believer of Christ- a true worshipper, but why couldn’t I respect the body that God gave me? Why was I continuing to obsess about what I was eating and then deprive myself of foods that I liked? I knew as a nurse that continuing this see-sawing behavior could lead to chronic illness and disease.
How to Make Peace With Your Food
I finally decided to surrender my stronghold with food to the Lord. Food was an idol for me. It was constantly on my mind- when I woke up in the morning and especially before going to bed at night. I was sick and tired of cycling through the same issues on the hamster wheel of life.
I first heard the term “Intuitive Eating” during a presentation on obsession and neglect at my Revelation Wellness Instructor Retreat. I felt led by the Holy Spirit to dig deeper into this concept and purchased the Intuitive Eating 4th edition book by Evelyn Trilobe & Elyse Resch, which outlines the concept of being aware of our eating patterns and being fully present.
I realized that if I continued to be at war with my body, it would be nearly impossible to be at peace with my relationship with food.
So, if you are like me and want to finally make peace with food try these four strategies.
1. Honor Your Hunger
The first step to becoming an intuitive eater is being aware of the intrinsic signals that your body is communicating to you. God, in all his infinite wisdom, designed our bodies to self-regulate. He created and designed us with intuition, the ability to understand something immediately without a lot of conscious reasoning.
I needed to return to the basics and begin a journey of self-discovery.
What foods did I really like? How do specific foods make me feel after eating them? Do they give me heartburn? Do I feel bloated? Does my nose feel stuffy?
Through this practice, I could make my decisions about eating certain foods based on how they made me feel instead of automatically categorizing foods as good vs. bad.
I also began to ask myself routinely before each meal or snack (1) Am I hungry? (2) Am I bored? (3) Am I thirsty? (4) Am I feeling hurt, anxious, or lonely?
2. Give Yourself Permission to Eat ALL Foods
It was essential to stop depriving my body of any food or food group. Restriction can easily lead to an obsession.
Studies have proven that when we restrict or deprive ourselves of something, we can begin obsessing about that thing, which can then lead to guilt or shame.
Romans 8:1 says, “There is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.” Food can no longer be deemed as either good or bad. The key is moderation and balance.
3. Seek His Perfect Peace
Jesus came to give us peace and wholeness in every single area of our lives. I believe that God wants to give each of us peace in this area of our lives.
The Holy Spirit lead me to Psalms 34:14, which in paraphrasing, says, to seek peace and to pursue it. Pursue means to chase after or to run after. We must search for peace and work with the Lord to maintain it.
Do you need to surrender your relationship with food to God? Do you need to seek His guidance and direction?
Ask the Lord to dig up the roots of the strongholds that keep pulling you into yo-yo dieting. Trust that He who personifies Perfect Peace will totally set you free. It may take time. It may be uncomfortable, but there is freedom on the other side.
Jesus came to give us peace and wholeness in every single area of our lives.
4. Glorify God With Your Body
1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
This means I need to take the focus off myself and food and seek God.
This has meant two things to me:
Pray Before Meals: I had gotten out of the habit of saying grace before eating my meals. I reinstated a pre-meal prayer, which allowed me not to dive headfirst into the meal, but first to give thanks for the food that He so graciously provided for me. It helped me to put things in perspective and remind myself of what food was made for God’s glorification.
Christian Community/Accountability: I also joined a women’s group at a local church that meets weekly called “Glorifying God with Your Body/Coaching Healthy Behaviors.” This class focuses on prayer, healthy behaviors, and daily movement. I am also so thankful to have the thoughts and prayers of my beloved Revelation Wellness Family to help me feel supported and encouraged on this journey of peace.
What does it mean for you to glorify God with your body? What practices will help you stay on track?
I’m so glad for you to join me on this journey of Intuitive Eating, and let’s finally make peace with our food.
Patrice Oliver is a mom of one daughter- Alexis, and a proud Gigi to two beautiful grandchildren, a grandson named Cai, who is seven, and a 22-month-old active granddaughter named Nova. She lives in the Dallas Fort Worth area and has been an RN for over 32 years and is active in her local church’s Wellness Ministry and is a Revelation Wellness Fitness Instructor (P25).
You Can Trust God with Your Food
The purpose of Intuitive Eating isn’t just about a new way to eat.
If you’ve been in diet culture for most of your life, Intuitive Eating can be a way to surrender your food choices and body image to the goodness of God. Because God cares about the whole you.
You won’t be looking at the world’s prescription for the perfect body anymore. Instead, you’ll trust God has made your body with specific needs that can be met with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Food doesn’t have to be the boss of you anymore. Tune into God’s voice and find food freedom!
Learn more about Intuitive Eating:
