My wife, Kathy, recently started buying bread in smaller loaves. The kids and I looked at the miniature sandwich slices and complained about their tiny size. Kathy pointed out that when she was a kid, all bread slices were that size, and we had gotten in the habit of thinking humongous pieces of bread were normal rations.Ouch! She got us.
Thinking back to my bread-eating habits of yore, I realized she was right. What used to be “normal” in food helpings years ago is now considered small. And what is considered a normal sized ration today would have been considered outright gluttonous 3 decades ago.
I’ve known this lesson for years in other ways. My wife and I routinely share meals at restaurants because of the gargantuan amounts served, and our family as a whole eats quite modestly. But the bread slice lesson was an eye-opener for me.
With the obesity epidemic sweeping the globe, it can be helpful to stop and ask oneself when preparing to eat, “Do I need to eat this much food?”
Jesus taught, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.” Integrating this admonition into my lifestyle helped me lose 30 pounds over 20 years ago, and permanently so.
With the vast temptations to overeat being served to us from all directions these days, I still pray to know what keeps me genuinely filled. And thanks to my wife, I can see in another degree that it’s not large slices of bread we need, but a growing commitment to understanding God better and keeping my thought filled with spiritual mindedness.
It’s a diet that works.
4 comments:
Good point!
I was just thinking the other day, when and who decided that we should eat three meals a day? My parents eat three meals, whether they are hungry or not, at 8 a.m. noon and 6 p.m. Most times they are not even hungry, but it's become their routine.
I often ask myself, am I really hungry or I am just eating because "it's time", or to be social, or out of boredome, or just without thinking. Identifying ourselves, not as material beings confined to laws and habits of matter, but as God's spiritual ideas help us be alert to the suggestions that we want more than we need.
I am learning to be alert to how marketing would impact my eating.
Did you know that one snack food maker tests its chips on what it refers to as the "eatability" factor? If a food has a high eatability rating, it means people want to keep eating it until it's gone. That's right. They are designing and marketing their products to induce me to eat and keep eating, no matter how little food value the product has and regardless of whether or not I am still hungry.
This kind of influence is not from God, and we don't have to fall for it.
Cindy,
I didn't know about any "eatability" factor. I'm going to think more on that one. Sounds like a mental influence we need to conscientiously defend ourselves from.
"lest something worse befalls you" is what came to me when I thought about overeating, in conjunction with reports of swine flu in Mexico (apr. 2009).
If you don't have mastery over something that is 100% within your ready conscious control through prayer -- the simple matter of how much food you eat -- what will happen when the more-aggressive swine flu breeze blows seemingly closer?
For a long time now, there have been reports over rising obesity in the US. A common slang term related to obesity is 'pigging out.' So perhaps no wonder the mortal dream virus has mutated in pigs and is trying to suggest it's way into the land of plenty.
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