Why
Diets Don’t Work, Especially For Christians
(part II)
by
Paula Neall Coleman
WHY DIETS DON’T WORK,
ESPECIALLY FOR CHRISTIANS – PART 2
By Paula Neall Coleman
In
the last “Food for Thought,” we looked at why,
because of the ramifications of legalism in the
Christian’s life, diets don’t work, especially
for Christians.
The following reflection questions were
presented:
- In what areas of your life do
you currently have discipline and why do you
think you have it in those areas?
- What are some of the reasons
you are motivated to “do right” (avoid
sin, do loving acts, pursue a relationship
with God, treat others well, etc.)?
- What would happen if you
never, ever dieted again?
What would happen if you continued to
diet?
Through
the years of conducting Weight of Grace small
groups for women, the following are insights about
the answers women typically give to those
questions:
In what areas of your life do you currently have
discipline and why do you think you have it in
those areas?
Many
of the women in Weight of Grace small groups give
a knee-jerk answer to this questions, saying, “I
don’t have any discipline,” which is an
indication that they are focusing almost totally
on their eating and dieting and that they are
failing to see the bigger picture of their life as
a whole. Among
those same women, none fails to brush her teeth
regularly, bathe regularly, do laundry as it is
needed, pick the kids up after school and other
events, get the shopping done so that there’s
enough food in the house, and somehow arrange her
hair nearly every day.
Most women take these activities for
granted and don’t realize they are part of the
discipline in their lives.
Now,
are people disciplined in the areas of their
hygiene and taking care of the needs of their
families because there is a set of rules that says
they must do so?
Usually not.
Usually, people are motivated to brush
their teeth and groom their hair regularly because
they enjoy how it feels when they do and they
dread the consequences of not doing so. They like feeling clean and don’t like feeling grungy.
And most people are motivated to engage in
activities that meet the needs of family members
because of their love and loyalty, wanting to do
what’s best for people who count on them for
nurture and care.
The
truth of the matter is that if rules were in place
regarding the routine “disciplines” of our
lives, we would probably resent them.
As long as my husband doesn’t tell me he
expects me to pack his lunch each day, it’s a
joy and a gift to get to do so.
I can well imagine that I’d frequently
find excuses to avoid making his lunch if I knew
he believed it to be my “duty.”
If there were monitors who checked our
teeth every day for cleanliness, don’t you know
we’d find ways to cheat and bluff?!
It’s the same with trying to motivate
ourselves to “eat right.”
As long as the rules say we ought to, who
wants to? And
this doesn’t even take into account that our
motivations for wanting to lose weight are based
on less than godly principles and, therefore,
create inner conflict over whether we really
“ought” to be “thin.”
Now
that I no longer try to use rules and regulations
to keep my eating in line, I’m as motivated to
avoid getting overly full as I’m motivated to
keep my teeth clean.
I don’t like the way it feels to be
overstuffed.
I like how I feel when I’ve eaten just
the right amount of food to satisfy my hunger.
I feel energized and content when I’ve
eaten to that “just right” point.
I feel sluggish and bloated when I overeat.
Since I know I can eat whatever I want the
next time I get hungry, why overeat now?
There’s no diet around the corner that
motivates me to “eat now for tomorrow we
diet.” There
are so many things other than eating that I want
to do. When
the rules said I couldn’t eat, that was all I
wanted to do.
Now that there are no rules and I can eat
whenever I want and whatever I want, I have the
freedom to assess what I really do want to do, and I don’t want to overeat. It just doesn’t feel good.
And that’s evidence of my return to the
“real me,” the new creation in Christ that
allows the Holy Spirit to direct her.
What are some of the reasons you are motivated to
“do right”?
There
are many things we do that are outside the regular
“disciplines” of our day-to-day lives.
There are times we are faced with rudeness
and we choose not to react in kind. There are times when we are very tired and we choose to go
help a friend with her garage sale anyway.
There are times when we really want to
spend time praying or reading the Scripture and
don’t6 even think of turning on the TV. What gives us that “umph” to do what is right, especially
when doing right is to some degree difficult or
inconvenient?
There
are two basic types of motivators for all that we
as Christians do.
One motivator is self-centered, doing
things because it will somehow get us something.
Many of our “good deeds” are done for
very selfish reasons.
(In fact, given the fallen condition of our
souls without Christ, all good deeds done by those
who do not believe in Christ are done, ultimately,
for selfish reasons.)
This is where doing good because the
“rules” say you should can come in.
There is a personal satisfaction we can
enjoy when we “do as we ought.”
Of course, there can also be other rewards
of various types and sizes for “doing good”:
the appreciation of a recipient, the smugness of
knowing we’re better than others, the
recognition of those who notice our not-so-random
acts of kindness.
Christians are not exempt from this form of
motivation. When
we as Christians act out of the flesh, even when
we do “good,” the motivation is always
selfish.
On
the other hand, for new creations in Christ, the
greatest motivators in the universe are within us,
the Holy Spirit and the love Christ puts in our
hearts. (Philippians
2:13, 2 Corinthians 5:14)
Because God indwells us and has changed our
hearts, it is indeed our nature to act in godly
ways. When
we turn to God for his power to motivate our
behaviors, we act in ways that are Christ-like.
Why should our eating be any different than
other areas of our lives?
The Holy Spirit is at work in us to make us
more and more like Christ in every
area of our lives.
What would happen if you never, ever dieted again?
What would happen if you continued to diet?
There
are usually two distinct camps when it comes to
how Weight of Grace small group participants
answer this question: those who are terrified and
those who are tired.
The terrified ones are those who say they
will experience extremely negative consequences if
they give up dieting.
They expect to become “blimps,” to
start eating and never, ever stop. They feel they are facing the death of a dream, of a goal for
which they have striven for years.
One woman answered, “I’ll never weigh
what I want to weigh.”
When I asked her if in all the 20 years
she’d been dieting she had ever weighed what she
wanted to, she said she had once, but that lasted
only a few months and was one of the most
stressful times of her life.
Almost everything women feel they’d be
giving up by not dieting they never did achieve by
dieting anyway – and certainly for no
significant period of time.
At some point, the dreams and goals need to
be recognized for what they are, fantasies.
Another
answer that came from the “terrified” camp was
so very telling: “I’d have to accept myself
whether other people do or not.”
Yes, as long as you’re dieting, you can
tell yourself you’re going to get “better,”
and you can accept yourself later. And others will accept you more later too, so it doesn’t
matter that they don’t accept you now.
Not dieting does mean going ahead and
accepting how you look right now, and others who
have minds polluted by this world may not accept
you at this point.
Not dieting also means putting faith in God
and in his assessment of you, which is not
dependent on your size.
It means you get to exercise faith that God
will enable you to be your best self, your true
self, regardless of whether that person looks the
way the culture says is ideal.
The
tired ones are those who see the end to dieting as
the beginning of freedom and rest.
They answer this question with comments
like, “I’ll have more peace of mind,” or
“I won’t think about food so much and I’ll
have less guilt.”
They’ve dieted a long time with not much
to show for it but self condemnation and two or
three wardrobes to match their constantly changing
size. Many
times, those in the “tired” camp are women who
have had some experience with the grace of God and
release from legalism in other areas of their
lives. They
just haven’t before seen grace applied to eating
and weight. So,
it starts clicking with them.
One of the best ways to prime yourself for
accepting that dieting doesn’t work is to expose
yourself to God’s grace.
Prayerfully read the book of Galatians and
ask God to show you how this applies to you in
areas where you’re still trying to “live up
to” standards and rules.
There are numerous books available that
have “grace” in the title or with grace as the
theme. A
few of my favorites are Grace
Walk by Steve McVey, Grace
Works by Dudley Hall and Tired
of Trying to Measure Up by Jeff Van Vonderen.
There are also many books that address how
to live in the Spirit.
I would recommend Lifetime
Guarantee by Bill Gillham and the Be
Transformed workbook by Scope Ministries.
This
question of what would happen if you never dieted
again is often the “make it or break it”
question for members of Weight of Grace groups.
If they really can’t accept the
diets-don’t-work thinking, then this material is
just not helpful to them.
My prayer is always that women will catch
the vision of how God desires to work in their
lives to allow them to be themselves, their true
selves, which means quite naturally eating in
moderation after a transition time of a few months
to a couple of years of learning what that feels
like for them.
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