Part 4: What Is Your Relationship With Food?

Last week I established that scripture encourages us to eat until we are satisfied. I also talked about what happens when we indulge in gluttony. This week I talked about the opposite of gluttony, which is food deficiency.

Some people purposely deprive themselves of food for one reason or another. I didn't talk about the reasons since that will be covered in class next week, but rather I talked about what scripture says about food deficiency and how it impacts us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Before I go any further, I need to clarify that the context of my discussion is not about fasting, but rather then a person who deprives themselves of food in an unhealthy manner and for all the wrong reasons. There is a difference between a person who fasts according to principles taught in the Bible and one who intentionally deprives themselves of food for all the wrong reasons.

In looking up scripture regarding food deficiency, I had to broaden my search to include famine. There are many famines documented throughout scripture and probably one of the worse ones is described in Lamentations; see the following references: Lamentations 2:19, 4:1-10, 5:10. Another famine occurred during Joseph's time as second in command in Egypt. Genesis 47:13 describes how Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine.

I know that the two famines described in Lamentations and Genesis were not self-inflicted by the people who suffered through them, but the scripture does clearly indicate some of the impacts of them on the people:

1. The lack of food and water caused dehydration to the point where the children's tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths (Lam 4:4);
2. Dehydration also causes the skin to become dry to the point where it sticks to the bones, becomes blackened as though baked in a oven and hard as wood (Lam 4:8, 5:10);
3. Lack of food causes parents to ignore their children's cries for help and in extreme cases of starvation causes them to cook their own children and eat them in order to survive (Lam 4:3 and 4:10); and
4. People experience weakness, faintness, and wasting away of the body due to the lack of food (Lam 2:19, 4:9, and Gn 47:13).

Lamentations 4:9 clearly shows us that dying from hunger is far worse then dying from something that causes death immediately. The commentaries that I read about this shared that dying of hunger is a slow painful process that not only torments the body, but the soul and spirit as well.

Since I know the situations described in Lamentations and Genesis are extreme cases of food deficiency and represent probably the last stages before death from starvation, I was interested in learning how a person may be impacted when they purposely deprive themselves of food even in the mildest sense. I found several resources to be helpful.

The first one is from my Rev It Up Fitness Manual. Rev It Up is a nine week wellness program that I participated in this past winter at my job. It is a program that helps people develop a healthy partnership with their bodies. On page 14 of the manual, it describes five changes that begin to occur when someone deprives their bodies of food:

1. Your body will start to lower the rate it burns calories, or fuel, to conserve as much energy as possible;
2. Your body will begin to protect its extra fuel stores, your stored body fat, just in case you decide to skip the next meal, too (Remember, it's not sure WHEN you will fuel again!)
3. Your body may burn some of its own muscle tissue for extra energy if burning LESS calories is not enough to make up for the lack of energy fuel (Your own muscle "tastes like chicken" to an empty fuel tank!)
4. Your body will trigger your brain to send signals to make LPL, or lipoprotein lipase. LPL is an enzyme that's main purpose is to encourage your body to store fat. More LPL in your body means more of the next meal you DO eat will be made into stored fat instead of used for immediate energy or fuel, and
5. Your body will probably crave fats and/or sugars when it feels overdue for fuel: FAT, because this food group has the most calories per serving size, and SUGAR, because this food can be broken down very quickly. Who craves lettuce and carrots now? Don't be surprised if you cannot resist a quick drive through the fast food window!

(Source: Rev It Up Fitness, LLC. Tammy Beasley, 2005)

Two other sources that I found helpful are found here and here. As you check the last two sources out, you'll see that both of them describe conditions related to dehydration, weakness, and wasting away. I found this interesting that modern day science is documenting the very conditions that are described in Lamentations and Genesis.

I ended the class last night by asking the question: "Is it a sin to purposely deprive yourself of food for unhealthy reasons or motivates?" This is a hard question to answer because I couldn't find scripture that comes right out and says that it is sin like I did for gluttony. Two scriptures that did come to my mind were 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and Matthew 22:36-40. These two scriptures tell us that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, that we are to honor God with our bodies, and that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. I propose that if we purposely choose to deprive ourselves of food for unhealthy reasons then we are sinning. This action doesn't occur out of love for ourselves and we certainly aren't honoring God by depriving our bodies of the food God gives us to survive.

If you have issues with depriving yourself of food for unhealthy reasons, rest assured that there is a way out of this. I encourage you to read Part 3 of this series since I describe a process that can be used to overcome gluttony. This same process can be used also with people who deprive themselves of food for unhealthy reasons.

When I began teaching this series 4 weeks ago, I envisioned that it would be a 5 week class. I am extending the class to 7 weeks. The next two weeks will be spent looking at reasons why people indulge in gluttony or purposely deprive themselves of food for unhealthy reasons. The last week of class will be a wrap up of the whole series.

Part 3 - What Is Your Relationship With Food?

I applaud the ladies that attended the Fire Up Club meeting last night and listened to my teaching entitled "Gluttony - Do You Have the Food Bug?" The message was a difficult one to hear since I shared that gluttony is: (1) a sin; (2) takes our focus off from people who need us; (3) leads to poverty; and (4) it harms us. Most of us, if we are honest, have or have had issues with gluttony. The good news is there is a way out. Read on to learn more.


Last week I established that food is for the stomach and stomach is for the food (1 Corinthians 6:13) and that God gives us food to strengthen, refresh, and revive us.

With God's purpose for food established, the question is now: how much do we eat in order to be strengthen, refreshed, and revived? A look at scripture shows us that we are to eat until we are satisfied, eat with moderation, and that it is okay to leave food on our plates if we have had enough to eat. Bible verses to support this conclusion are: Ruth 2:14, Acts 27:33-38, Ex 16:11-18, and Prov 25:16. Please know that I'm not suggesting that we waste food by not eating everything on our plates. We have to use good judgement in knowing how much we can eat, but if by chance we take too much, it is not wrong to leave food on our plates. This probably goes contrary to how most of us were raised, but I believe scripture encourages us not to eat beyond our fullness level.


Eat until we are satisfied. How do we define satisfied? I couldn't find scripture to help me out with this one. My logical mind suggests to me that if food is for the stomach and stomach for the food, then satisfied is connected with how satisfied is my stomach, or how full am I.


This past winter I attended a Rev It Up nutritional class. The class was taught at my workplace and it is a wellness program designed to help you develop a healthy partnership with your body. The class talked about our bodies' hunger and fullness fuel gauge, which is a measure of how full your stomach is. Hunger tells you when your body is out of "gas" and needs refueling. On the other side, fullness tells you when you're full, but not overflowing. The key is to eat until your stomach is full and don't go beyond the fullness level. The class presented a hunger or fullness fuel gauge in order to help us measure our hunger/fullness levels.

Scale: 1 (starving) - 10 (stuffed)

1. You're dizzy and unable to think clearly. "I'm going to pass out if I don't eat RIGHT NOW!

2. You're very irritable, and your stomach feels like a deep, dark hole. Where IS that food?

3. You NEED to eat, but you are not going to pass out...at least not yet!

4. You feel a little hungry, and your body is sending signals to fuel your engine.

5. Your stomach is in neutral. If you stop eating right now, your fuel tank will not need more "gas" or food within 2 hours.

6. Your stomach knows that food (fuel) has arrived, but you still want to eat more.

7. Your stomach is getting full now. If you stop eating, your fuel tank will not need more "gas" or food until about 4 hours later.

8. You are full, and that "deep, dark hole" has now been filled to the top!

9. Your stomach is completely stretched to the point of discomfort, and one more mouthful may not even fit!

10. Help! Fuel overload! You really cannot eat even one more bite.

Reference: Rev It Up Fitness, LLC. Tammy Beasley, RD, LD, CEDSN, 2005.

Rev It Up taught me that my stomach is satisfied when my fuel gauge is between 5 and 7.

Gluttony is defined as excessive eating or drinking. The Bible is very clear that gluttony is a sin, limits our focus, leads to poverty, and harms us; see the following Bible references:

Prov 23:1-3

Prov 25:27-28

Ezek 16:49

Prov 23:19-21

The first thing to do in order to get free from gluttony is to admit that you have a problem with gluttony, confess it as a sin and ask God to forgive you. As you do this, you can be confident that God forgives you; 1 John 1:9-10. The next step is to surrender the gluttony problem to God and ask Him to help you gain and maintain freedom from it. It will also help for you to lay the movie forward and find your Emmet's to help you along the way; see here to learn more. Additionally, start becoming aware of your fullness level and take at least 20 minutes to eat your food. The stomach needs at least 20 minutes to communicate to your brain that it is full. If you're full, stop eating. If you continue to eat, ask "why are you still eating when your stomach is satisfied and full?" Waiting for an answer will help you to learn more about the real reasons why you eat beyond your fullness level or being satisfied.

Part 2 - What Is Your Relationship with Food?

Last night at the Fire Up Club meeting I taught on God's purpose for food.

I began my research a week ago in search of finding a statement in the Bible that would tell me the reason that God gives us food. My logical mind told me that if I could find a statement like "God is love" in the Bible, I should be able to find a similar statement like "God created food for....." I was wrong - I didn't find a definitive statement about food.

God has a lot to say about food. Depending on what translation you read, there are anywhere from 50-362 references to the word food.

The closest definitive statement I found was in 1 Corinthians 6:13: Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them (NKJV).

I began to ponder about what happens in the stomach. I always thought the main function of the stomach is digestion, which is the breakdown of food into a usable form by the body that involves mechanical, chemical, and absorptive events. A quick lesson on digestion showed me that digestion actually begins in our mouths as we begin to chew and the our saliva contains enzymes that begin the chemical breakdown of the food. The food passes through the esophagus and into the stomach. The stomach provides four basic functions: (1) serves as a short-term storage reservoir; (2) substantial enzymatic digestion begins, particularly proteins; (3) Food is liquefied through contractions and gastric secretions of the stomach; and (4) stomach releases liquefied food into the small intestine for further processing. Once in the small intestine, more digestion occurs and the nutrients from the food are absorbed by the body so that we have energy to function. Although the stomach is a critical component for digestion, the main digestion occurs in the small intestine.

I also found Scripture that clearly shows that God gives us food for strength, to revive us, and refresh us. Here are some of the Scripture references:

1 Kings 19:5-9
Acts 9:18-19
Acts 27:33-35
Eccl 10:16-17
Gen 18:5
1 Sam 14:24-30
1 Sam 30:11-12

In conclusion, the Bible doesn't make a definitive statement like "God's purpose for food is...." Nevertheless, the Bible does tell us that food is for the stomach and stomach for food. The stomach plays a role in breaking down the food so that our bodies can readily use it as fuel to carry on our daily lives. God's purpose for creating food is to sustain our our physical lives, give us strength, and revive us.

I am encouraged by the ladies that come to the meetings and their interest in learning about our relationships with food. In the past two weeks, we have had great discussions concerning the way we eat and why we eat. We will continue looking at this issue next week when I talk about Gluttony-Do You Have the Food Bug? Hope to see you there.

Part 1: What Is Your Relationship with Food?

I felt God nudging me to teach on the topic entitled "What is Your Relationship with Food?" for the past few weeks. I feel a little bit like Moses when God asked him to go free the Israelites from Egypt since I don't feel qualified to teach about this. Nevertheless, I'm stepping out in faith, trusting God to lead me, and praying that lives will be transformed through this teaching.

I started the teaching last night. I introduced the ladies to the basic definition of relationship as defined by Webster's:

• the state of affairs existing between those having relations or dealings; relations being an aspect or quality that connects two or more things or parts as being or belonging or working together or as being the same kind (the relations of time and space).

These definitions clearly show that we need two or more objects in order for a relationship to exist. The objects may be people, animals, or non-living things. Ladies also agreed that we need a feeling or desire towards something, a connection or familiarity, and a two-way street in order for relationships to exist.

There is also a level of intimacy with relationships. I did a Bible study on friendships and found that a range of friendships exist. Acquaintances can be called friends just as your spouse can be your friend. The level of intimacy experienced from an acquaintance is much different than the level experienced with your spouse. Additionally, looking at the life of Jesus we see that he had different levels of intimacy with people too. He had a deeper level of relationship with the twelve disciples than with other people. Out of the twelve, He was more intimate and shared more things with three of them.

God created us since He desired to have a relationship with us. As a Father, God's purpose was to have a family, children to have a relationship with. Our primary focus in life should be on developing a personal relationship with God through Jesus.

A Bible study on Biblical womanhood also shows that God created women equal to men with a different focus. The women's focus is on relationships. This is interesting since the fall of Adam and Eve negatively impacted women's ability to have satisfying relationships the way that God originally designed. Could it be that women eat out of emotions because they are trying to fill a need that they are not getting met through their relationships or they are trying to stuff feelings associated with failed relationships down with food so that they don't have to face the feelings and deal with them? It certainly seems possible. This will be explored more as the class continues.

With respect to emotional eating, one participant suggested a pathway to freedom that involves us being real with God and each other about what our issues are. The pathway to freedom that she described reminded me of the 5-step pathway to freedom (ARISE) that God showed me several years ago. The 5-step pathway is based on Psalm 32:5-11.

1. A-Acknowledge: We admit the sin that was done to us and the sin that we committed as a result of the original sin done to us (Ps 32:5). In doing this, we face the pain associated with the original sin and the sin that we committed and allow God to heal our wounds.
2. R-Restore: As we allow God to heal us, He will restore us (Ps 32:6-7).
3. I-Instruct: God will guide us and instruct us in the way to go (Ps 32:8).
4. S-Surrender: We need to surrender and yield to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and don't be like the horse or mule that needs to be harnessed with a bit and bridle (Ps 32:9).
5. E-Exalt: We can exalt God for bringing us through and setting us free.

That concludes the first week of teaching. Next week we will be looking at God's view about food and His purpose for giving us food.

Meeting Summary-June 25

Since most of the ladies that attended the meeting last night didn't attend the meeting last week, I taught the the lesson on self-discipline again; see here to review the teaching. Next week we will discuss the homework assignment that was presented at the end of the self-discipline teaching. Please come prepared to talk about your answers. Thanks.

Self Discipline

This past week I shared about self-discipline at the Fire Up Club meeting. The first question I asked the group was to define self-discipline. There were many good answers, but I like the definition that I found from the Webster’s Dictionary: the correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement. All the members liked the definition too since we are making changes in our lives for the sake of improvement.

The second question I asked was “how do people get self-discipline?” I think sometimes we are all under the impression that self-disciplined people were born that way or have strong will power. Dr. Henry Cloud disagrees with this. He believes that self-disciplined people are disciplined well from the outside and they internalized it & apply what they’ve learned to their lives. I learned this from the recent Woman of Faith (WOF) conference that I attended in early June. Dr. Henry Cloud was a guest speaker and shared about how we can achieve our dreams in life by becoming self-disciplined. Did you see these words: becoming self-disciplined? This means that if you’re not self-disciplined you can become self-disciplined. This gives me hope.

The third question that I asked the ladies was “What are outside sources to help you develop self-discipline?” Dr. Henry Cloud shared three sources.

The first is God. We all need the grace of God to become self-disciplined and we need to pray and ask God for His help.

The second source is people. Are you trying to make your journey across the desert alone? What are you thinking? People can help you develop the self-discipline that you don’t have. We need structure from other places, we don’t possess structure and discipline because we’re not God. We are the created and not the creator. We need others to help us. Tiger Woods has a coach. Find one.

The third source is what Dr. Henry Cloud called “play the movie.” Every person who reaches a goal plays the movie forward. Every day is not only today only – it is only a scene in the movie and we ask how will this play out? This motivates us. Ask yourself the question: if you continue to not take steps, do you like how the movie ends? How much is your activity bringing you toward your goal? What kind of structure do you need and where will you get it?

At the end of the meeting I gave ladies the following homework assignment:

Dream your dream, “play your movie”. What structure do you need to have your movie end the way you want it (make sure you’re realistic). How can other people help you develop self-discipline? Find areas in your life that you are already self-disciplined and see how you can adapt this self-disciplined to other areas of you life.

I’ll be talking more about self-discipline at Monday’s meeting. See you then.

Fire Up Eating Helps to Lower Cholesterol

A member of the Fire Up Club shared with me that her cholesterol is now within normal range limits after she joined the Fire Up Club in February. Her cholesterol reading was above 300 and it is now 184. She doesn't have to be on cholesterol medicine now.

My cholesterol before I began my lifestyle change was 150. It was 90 when I had it checked last summer. My LDL also decreased by 50%.

I once told myself that I could eat anything that I wanted and that it wouldn't impact my overall health. I was surely decieved. I'm a firm believer now that I need to continue sowing good eating habits today so that I may reap the health benefits tomorrow.

I've been doing a lot of traveling in the past couple of weeks and have missed not seeing all the Fire Up Club members. I hope you all are well and I look forward to catching up with you in a few weeks.