Revelation Within On the Go!
Discernment in Spirit-Led Eating
What if you could transform your relationship with food from a battlefield to a place of peace and joy? Discover how mindful eating can revolutionize the way you nourish your body in our latest episode of Revelation Within On the Go. Join us as we explore the empowering concept of spirit-led eating. We delve into the third intention of this practice: choosing food in just-right sized portions that delight your taste buds and energize your body. Drawing from our personal journeys and coaching experiences, we address common questions and challenges around identifying what and when to eat and recognizing the true feeling of satisfaction. This episode is packed with insights on how to overcome feelings of helplessness around food by embracing the power of choice. Tune in for an inspiring conversation on how to honor your body while enjoying the foods that nourish and energize you.
Get details about our class starting July 17th at https://www.revelationwithin.org/blueprint
Learn more about our Revelation Within Community: https://www.revelationwithin.org
What if you could transform your relationship with food from a battlefield to a place of peace and joy? Discover how mindful eating can revolutionize the way you nourish your body in our latest episode of Revelation Within On the Go. Join us as we explore the empowering concept of spirit-led eating. We delve into the third intention of this practice: choosing food in just-right sized portions that delight your taste buds and energize your body. Drawing from our personal journeys and coaching experiences, we address common questions and challenges around identifying what and when to eat and recognizing the true feeling of satisfaction. This episode is packed with insights on how to overcome feelings of helplessness around food by embracing the power of choice. Tune in for an inspiring conversation on how to honor your body while enjoying the foods that nourish and energize you.
Get details about our class starting July 17th at https://www.revelationwithin.org/blueprint
Learn more about our Revelation Within Community: https://www.revelationwithin.org
Hi, welcome to our podcast Revelation Within On the Go. I'm Heidi Filesma-Epperson, one of your hosts and the owner and lead coach of the RevelationWithinorg ministry.
Speaker 2:And I'm Christina Motley, your other host, also a Revelation Within coach and Heidi's partner in all things Revelation Within. We are so happy to invite you to join us for this episode of Revelation Within.
Speaker 1:On the go.
Speaker 2:That was a good one, Heidi.
Speaker 1:So we decided that we are going to talk about some of the things that have come up this week in our free class series that we have going on in.
Speaker 1:June. Yeah, we've been doing a number of spirit led eating classes at least two of the six classes that we're doing and, of course, spirit led eating. Just go over all of the intentions of spirit led eating so that we have a context for what we're going to talk about, and then we're going to narrow in on one of the intentions specifically. So I think there'll be something here for all of us. So, christina, there's that little paragraph before we start the intentions. That is so good, I don't want to skip it.
Speaker 2:It is so, so good. I love this. Okay, so here it goes. My body is a gift from God to me and is fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image and by his careful and loving design. I am his beautiful masterpiece, his poetry in motion, one of a kind. I look to the Holy Spirit for his wisdom and loving leadership. Therefore, I will honor my God-given body with these intentions.
Speaker 1:If you've been with us any length of time at all, you've heard us read this Five Intentions of Spirit-Led Eating, but we wanted to be sure we gave context to where we're going with today's episode. Yes, so intention number one is I will busy myself as the spirit leads until I prayerfully sense a physical hunger signal.
Speaker 2:Okay, number two, I will invite the spirit of God into my meal with a heart of gratitude and praise.
Speaker 1:Number three I will choose food in a just right sized portion that delights my taste buds and causes my body to feel energized and strong. That is the intention that we're going to be circling back to in a minute.
Speaker 2:Number four I will create a peaceful eating experience by being present with the food and reducing distractions.
Speaker 1:And intention number five I will stop eating before my stomach is full, at the peaceful place, of just enough. I love these. I absolutely love these. Yeah, I do too. So let's look at intention number three. I will choose food in a just right sized portion that delights my taste buds and causes my body to feel energized and strong. This week and last, when we've been doing our classes on spirit led eating, we've gotten some questions about, basically, how do I know what I should eat, and even some questions about how do I know what satisfied feels like, and what do I do when somebody I'm eating with wants to eat now and I'm not ready, and so anyway. So there's so many questions about that that we thought maybe we would want to address this a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know where should we start with this?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we should start with the word I. It's the first word in the sentence I will. So I'm actually I will choose. I love that this intention starts with I will choose and actually today I choose is one of our mind renewal strategies that we use often. So I love it because for so many years I didn't feel like I had a choice. I don't know if you felt like this, heidi, but I was so discouraged and so downhearted, so defeated in my issues with food and eating in my body for so many years that I had kind of just given up. I was kind of like you know what? I don't have a choice. This is how I am, this is how God made me. I'm sure it's in my family, maybe it's in my genes or something. Well, I really felt like I don't have a choice in this. I can't do something different. I'm too stuck, I'm too far gone. Did you ever feel that way, heidi?
Speaker 1:Well, yes, and I have a lot to say on that topic, but I will save it for another episode, probably, but many of us. If you can identify with some of the stories that you've heard me tell about my upbringing in an abusive home, a very dysfunctional home with alcoholics and parents who were hitting on each other and on me, then you may be able to identify with this feeling that all of your agency has been removed. You have no choice. Yes, I mean, I don't know if that's the way it is for people who are raised in a normal home. Is there a normal home?
Speaker 2:I don't know if there is really. I don't know. I mean there's no perfect parents, we know that for sure. So there's just kind of a variation.
Speaker 1:In any event, we get to a point, and certainly by the time where the age most of our listeners are and beyond, you know above, we want to recognize that God has given us freedom to choose. Most of us do not have parents who are in charge of our lives, unless you happen to be a minor, but it really it's an interesting to think about and renew our minds about that. We get to choose a lot of things in our lives. I remember when that struck me fresh, really, and it was the sense that wait a minute, I don't have to deal with something that I do not feel comfortable with.
Speaker 2:I can.
Speaker 1:if God's leading me to, I can walk away from it, and the same is true with the way we eat. We can choose to walk away from what's going on around us. Obviously, it's ideal if we choose to process things along the way.
Speaker 2:We have so many people come to us and, of course, heidi and I can always relate to almost everybody that comes to us because we're on the journey. We've been on the same journey for many, many years but we have so many people that come to us with a sense of I'm defeated, like I can't, I don't. This is, you know, is this different? Because it's kind of my last effort and I felt that way too. I felt like you know what I've tried to change. I've tried to do things a different way. I've tried to follow this plan or that plan or this.
Speaker 2:You know these 10 steps? Or this book, this video series? I've paid money, I've done all these things and I'm more stuck than ever. I am like my feet are in molasses. You know, I can't move, and so I think it's so important that this intention begins with I will choose, because right away it's like wait a minute. This is truth. This is truth from the Word of God that we are free to choose and that we do not have to stay in our old patterns. We can move forward into healing and freedom with the Lord, again and again and again, and that's a beautiful, freeing truth. I mean, how many times during the day do you think we choose something?
Speaker 1:I feel like in front of me almost every moment practically, is a choice Am I going to do this task or this task, am I going to call this person, am I going to return this phone call, and so on and so forth. I mean so many choices in any given day and I really want God to be the author of what I choose to do.
Speaker 2:So that's, and that's one of the reasons why we named these intentions, because we want to be intentional, and that means choosing, that means thinking about it, renewing our mind, thinking God's thoughts after him, instead of going down the same path that we've gone down a million bazillion times. That is destructive and harmful for us.
Speaker 1:So if you hear yourself speaking these thoughts or thinking these thoughts of I can't, I'm not able to, or that's not possible, or but you don't know my story, I want to encourage you and I'm sure Christina would be right there with me, encourage you to ask God wait a minute, what are your thoughts, god, about what I'm telling myself, and see if they line up with what he says or his character, his word, his Holy Spirit. Because if we can just bust out of the same old same old that we've been stuck in it's like a self-imposed prison, really, a prison where we don't feel like we can choose we are going to experience life completely differently. If we break out of that, I really believe that and also recognize that we do have choices in the way we treat our bodies and in the way that we live in the world today we really will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will never forget. We had one participant who was talking about this, sharing about this, in one of our escape groups. I don't know if you remember this, heidi, it was a couple of years ago I think, and she was thinking about this and trying to kind of practice it and she was at dinner with her husband and she had found that place of just enough. She was really working on that with the Lord and she stood up in the middle of the know, pushed the food away, stood up and said I can choose to be done. I don't know if you remember that, but that's, that's what we're talking about. You know how it's like. Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna think my thoughts after what is true, after what God says is true in the word. And he says that I'm free. He says that I am God's girl or guy. He says that I belong to him, that I'm adopted, that I'm chosen by him, that I'm more than a conqueror. He says that his strength is in me. So, absolutely, I can choose, absolutely we can choose.
Speaker 1:Yep, definitely. And so what are we choosing? We're choosing food, hopefully, when we're hungry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, of course, in this podcast and with these intentions, we are talking about food and eating, even though you could make your own, you know, intentions for anything yeah, your marriage, or your meeting with the coworker, or parenting you're parenting, anything. I mean, basically, this is a truth list, but it's a. It's a I will truth list. It's I get to choose. So in this list and number three, it says I will choose food in a just right size portion. So we're talking about food and we're talking about how, throughout the day, we have a choice with food. So what does that?
Speaker 1:look like. Yeah, what does it look like? One of the things I love about the way it looks is that it doesn't look like a list of good foods and bad foods that I am trying really hard to stick with, and I want everything on the bad food list, but I have to eat everything on what somebody calls the good foods, and the good foods usually are short on flavor and they may not have as much energy as the foods I really want to be eating, but I don't have any interest in them. I was raised that way. I mean, that was my parents. This is what you have to eat in order to get this that you want to eat. I was like what kind of deal is that? How come all of these foods over here that are the ones that I have to eat Don't taste as good, nowhere near as good as the ones I get to eat if I eat the ones I don't want to eat? Does that?
Speaker 2:make sense. It does, because so many of us were raised that way, although I was kind of raised in a very strange way, I don't know. You know, just because some of the issues that my mom had with which are totally understandable, yeah, given she was in World War II Germany and starving yes.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was raised with these two extremes. We were either all of us just going for it, just kind of binging on a lot of the quote, unquote, bad foods, or we were completely restricted and on the other end of it and my mom, you know, made choices in the in the name of nutrition and we were shopping at the health food store, and so we were either one or the other. It was constantly an extreme. We didn't really, my family didn't really have a middle ground until much, much later.
Speaker 1:The cool thing is with this approach to eating, when I am eating between the parameters of my physical hunger and my physical satisfaction, I can choose, yes, a just right sized portion. I can choose, yes, a just right sized portion, but I get to enjoy short of a dietary restriction that's been imposed on me because my get a vote, so I don't have to eat all the things on the yucky list. Oh my gosh, yeah, oh, that was terrible. I mean, my parents and I had knocked down, drag out, literally, literally knocked down Heidi's on the floor drag out.
Speaker 2:She's dragged down the hallway. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just. It was not a pleasant thing. You know, parents, please, if your kids don't want to eat something, just ask God how to handle it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because what happened.
Speaker 1:as a result of my parents' really good intentions but overdoing what they were willing to do to get me to eat those things that were quote nutritious, I can say with calm assurance I'm very calm that they created the eating disorder that I struggled with.
Speaker 1:I really believe that and I forgive them. And I know now I am a grown, redeemed woman of God who can make choices. You know, the food doesn't own me. I make a choice to eat it or not, to wait for hunger or not to stop when I've had enough or not Everything. There's so many choices I get and one of those is what will I eat when I'm hungry? Yeah, and that's a fun choice.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, and one of the things that helps me so much with this is to renew my mind about what food is and where it came from, and that sounds so simple, but for me, in the place that I was in, where I had so many disordered thoughts and beliefs about food for so many years, this has really helped me, and I know it's helped you as well, heidi. So thoughts like food is a gift from God, what is it? I mean, it wasn't put on this earth to torture me. No, exactly, food is a beautiful gift. It's actually. It's an example of God's abundance gift. It's actually. It's an example of God's abundance, of his abundant love for us, of his abundant provision, his generosity, creativity, creativity. He could we've said this before but he could so easily have just made food like a green liquid that we got from a tree or something.
Speaker 1:When she says that, I always joke. I got that green liquid powder stuff that is in there on the counter that I can put in a cup and blender and add some ice, and then I don't have to eat vegetables, I drink them instead.
Speaker 2:I mean, god could have easily said, okay, I've got these wonderful people that I've created fearfully and wonderfully. They need fuel. What should I do? Let's see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's tons of colors and shapes and sizes of food and textures, all kinds of ways to prepare it, and so my taste buds get a vote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is really, really fun. And so I remember when I kind of got going with intuitive eating spirit led eating I thought is this for real? I don't know. I really struggled with it at first. I thought I don't know. I mean, how can this be real when for all of my life I've been told that it's not and that there's, you know, this whole list. Like you said, heidi, that's bad, bad, bad. Don't have any and you have no self-control. So if you have one, you're going to have to have them all, and for years and years. And it's like wait a minute. Food is a gift from God. That's the truth and it's fabulous, and it's wonderful and I can have more when I'm hungry again, when my body needs fuel. That's. Another huge truth for me is wait a minute, I can have more, I can have more. I can say, yes, I can have that. I'm just going to wait till my body needs fuel again, right?
Speaker 1:right, and I've mentioned that the taste buds do get a vote, and the reason why I like to highlight that is because for years, with the whole dieting thing, it felt like my taste buds weren't going to get a vote, that the only list I could eat from was the list that my taste buds rejected. But this is important too, is that my taste buds get a vote. Yes, they do not drive the bus. What they are not in charge of the ship. But here's the thing, and people who come to this approach of eating sometimes just lose their minds with delight when they have no restrictions on which foods they can eat. They eat when they're hungry, they stop when they're no longer hungry and they enjoy eating foods they haven't eaten for years sometimes, and they do that for every meal. But the taste buds are the only part of them that are involved in the decision Right, and they end up feeling really rotten.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, just terrible. No, that's so true. Did that happen with you, heidi, when?
Speaker 1:you first started. Not just first started, but along the way. Yes, definitely. I mean I lost a hundred pounds eating this way, but a good part of the time I felt awful, really.
Speaker 2:Yes, I felt great losing weight Because of the choices you were making. With what?
Speaker 1:kinds of food felt great, losing weight because of the choices you were making. With what kinds of food? Okay, so here's the thing. Left to my own devices, the 10 year old Heidi is in charge and she's not redeemed. She doesn't know Jesus and she doesn't have this concept of my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. I need to be ready for whatever he calls me to. She just wants food that tastes good to her taste buds. That's all she wants, and she wants a lot of it. And okay, so we'll put a beginning and an end on it. Hunger satisfaction Okay, but every meal. I remember a time when I was into my journey quite a bit. I bought a sleeve of Oreo well, not a sleeve, but I bought a package of Oreos and vanilla ice cream because I love Oreo milkshakes. And so, okay, hunger, satisfied, eating. I can eat whatever I choose. So I'm going to have an Oreo milkshake.
Speaker 1:Next hunger I had an Oreo milkshake. Next hunger I had an Oreo milkshake. And no, the digestion didn't like that very well even at that young age.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because sometimes when we're young we can kind of get away with almost everything, yeah, although even then I couldn't.
Speaker 1:But I got to keep in mind that the rest of my body may want a vote and may need a vote, and God may want the rest of my body to have a vote. He certainly wants me to surrender that decision to him and get wisdom that comes from heaven. You know, I feel like my joints. If I eat certain things consistently and don't bring in certain other foods, my joints will ache and I feel like my gallbladder used to have a vote.
Speaker 2:It doesn't anymore because it's not in there.
Speaker 1:I don't have one either, which usually happens because of choices we've made a lot of times. When you think about it, our arteries want a choice.
Speaker 1:They wanted to have a vote in this because high cholesterol is a problem for many of us when we eat too fatty foods. And so I mean, the list goes on and on, and so we want to consider okay, if my pancreas could vote, what would it vote for right now, what would my joints vote for, what would my heart vote for, and so on. And it doesn't mean my taste buds don't get a vote, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm imagining a little voting booth and I'm imagining all the little body parts lining up and saying I'm putting in my vote, I'm putting in my vote, I'm putting in my vote. That would make a great cartoon picture, wouldn't it?
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:I love the way you describe that, that's such a great way to look at it, and I think I've told this story before. I mean, I kind of did the same thing when I goodness, I love the way you describe that, that's such a great way to look at it, and I think I've told this story before. I mean, I kind of did the same thing when I started. I thought this is not going to work. I'm going to prove this whole thing wrong about this hunger satisfaction. And I made this huge batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that my grandma used to make, the kind that get hard as rocks the next day. I love those so much, oh really. Oh, my gosh, they're like eating rocks the next day, but I love those. And so I thought, okay, I'm doing it, I am going to have those every time I am empty. Hit a zero. I did that for a week and I released weight. I totally did, I absolutely did and I, I was so completely surprised.
Speaker 2:But, of course you know, did I get the nutrients that I needed that week? No, absolutely not. So, anyway, of course there there's balance, there's a balance. But a lot of people do go through something like that at first which is totally fine because many of us have been restricting for so long that it's like, oh my gosh, I'm going to go back and have some of those foods that I've been restricted from for so long. And then once we for me anyway, I know once I say I can have that and I can have it again later with my meal or whatever it's like, it takes that quote, unquote magic out of the food.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean Forbidden fruit idea and one of the things that I have told the people I've worked with.
Speaker 1:One-on-one yes, and one of the things that I have told the people I've worked with one-on-one and I think we've mentioned it in our classes and coaching groups over the years is it can be really helpful if, before you lift that limit off of those foods, to renew your mind, to ask God okay, what are your thoughts about me having vanilla, ice cream and Oreos for every meal? I mean, is it okay to have it sometimes? He will reassure me it's okay to have it sometimes. Yes, absolutely, and that's what I want to do. Is I want to think God's thoughts about food and eating? And really, when I restrict, restrict, restrict, am I thinking his thoughts? Am I believing what he says? I've found it so refreshing to actually bring these foods to him and say what are your thoughts? Am I free to eat these things? And typically I find he doesn't tell me everything's off limits, unless there's a sensitivity to certain foods or allergies or something like that. He will often say we can do that, just in moderation.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that you said we, Heidi, we can do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because he does it with me. He does, he is with you at all times. I love that. I'm going to use that. We can do that Well, and I just I think about who God is and how he created the world.
Speaker 2:This is something I think about sometimes. I think about the squirrels right outside of my window. Here I'm sitting on my porch and I'm thinking about how they're completely, totally provided for. You know, there's never a squirrel that comes up to my door and knocks and says do you have any nuts? I'm starving here. Yeah, I mean the squirrels and the birds and the raccoons. I'm trying to think what else we have in our neighborhood. Anyway, when I think about the way that God made the world, you know, and how many bazillions of animals he takes care of they, you know, the birds all get their worms in the right amount and everybody gets what they need. But there's a balance, you know, and there's an order to everything. God created things. You know the seasons, and I mean I look at his creation and there's there's a beautiful balance and order and that's what he wants for us too. There's peace there.
Speaker 1:One of the things that you know. In the past, when we were thin within, we referred to taste bud teasers, and if, time and time again, we're enjoying foods that are taste bud teasers, if they don't offer us anything else, you know, if our other body parts aren't getting to vote on them and say yes, then we aren't going to feel as good and we may not be ready for something when God calls us to be, because we'll feel lethargic Just the blood sugar drops that can come after eating certain foods by themselves.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:That's something to consider and then so very often we get caught in these cycles of having most of the people I've talked with it's a carby thing they want more carbs than not, and so they have this spike in their blood sugar. Then it dives, and then the only way to get it back going again is more high-carb stuff.
Speaker 1:And so really, we want to invite God into that. Yes, we've also had people who have said you know, when I was on X program or Y program before I came to Revelation Within I ate a lot of protein and I felt so much better than I do now. I'm like well, why don't you bring that knowledge of your body into this? Yeah, bring that into it. I know I learned an awful lot back in the day it was called the zone. Later on, keto and Atkins somewhere in there. Basically, protein works well with my body and I work well with protein, so I like to have protein at every meal. Every like my sister calls them feeding Every feeding is going to have protein in it for me and I do so much better. So let's talk about that. The food that I can choose can delight my taste buds, but it will cause my body it says in intention three to feel energized and strong.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 2:about. Well, I mean, that's exactly what we've been talking about. God wants his best for us, he wants the best of the best of the best, and that is something I also renew my mind about when I'm choosing a just right portion of food and I'm putting things on my plate, whether it's one thing or five things, because I do love variety, but that's me, that's not everybody. So I'm thinking about, as you said, heidi, asking God what's going to make me feel good? I want to feel good. I do. Now.
Speaker 2:It's true that when I was younger, I could eat almost anything and feel just fine. I mean that's true, especially like in my twenties and teens. I mean you see that all the time, but that's not true at all anymore. Not at all. And there's definitely some things that have come along with the chronic illness that I deal with, where I have to be very careful what I choose. I mean I have to be very careful or I'm going to be suffering for hours. It's like you know, and many of you listening have similar experiences because of a medicine that you're on or a condition that you have. We want to find peace and balance in that. Like you said, heidi, inviting God in. So recently I've been asking him a lot Lord, what does my body need right now? What will help me to feel good, strong, energized, not bloated, not like a slug, not like you know, some of the other things that certain foods can cause me to feel? I can choose well. I can choose to feel my body well and that feels good, yeah, it does.
Speaker 1:So let's just restate this intention again, so we kind of remind ourselves of the context of our conversation. I will choose food in a just right size portion that delights my taste buds and causes my body to feel energized and strong.
Speaker 1:I remember when I first recognized that exercising my freedom to eat whatever food I wanted to wasn't always the way my freedom had to be expressed. I could also express my freedom to eat whatever I wanted to by not eating certain foods at certain times, for instance. You know, we talk about discernment and this was one of the first times I discerned that I needed to adjust something. My daughter was home from college for the holidays and she had established, before she left for college, a kind of a habit at Christmas time of doing from scratch these lovely homemade cinnamon rolls. And oh my goodness, they were. I had not ever had homemade cinnamon rolls up until that point in time. It was always the store-bought ones and it was wonderful.
Speaker 1:But I noticed when I had these cinnamon rolls of Michaela, even between the parameters of hunger and that's enough, I'm satisfied, wow, my blood sugar sure did all kinds of wonky things and I would be off my eating. I couldn't figure out my zero, my five, my hunger, my satisfied signals for the rest of the day. And so I came to a point where, god, what should I do with this? And I love the fact that Michaela had made these. How can I honor her for that, without disrupting what my body clearly needs and needs to avoid.
Speaker 1:And he just laid on my heart that that's not a food that I should have for breakfast by itself, or maybe at all for breakfast, but I should wait until later on in the day, and so I made that adjustment and over the years that's kind of where I've stayed and that has been a really good way of doing it. Having a boundary about when I will have such a high sugar food has been helpful for me. It keeps me feeling energized and strong, like intention. Number three says how about you? Do you have anything like that?
Speaker 2:Well, it's definitely. For me, I think it's more about the portions, because so many of the things that I used to choose of course I have freedom to choose, but I would just choose too much of something and because I did that, I didn't feel good. I didn't feel it was because of the size of the portion, and I've been doing that for my whole life. I would choose too much of something was usually a sweets of some kind.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting. I never thought that that would be your answer, but I mean I'm sure it is other people's answers too. I mean too much of something instead of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like, because I was raised in a home where it was all or nothing. We either had lots and lots and lots of this food or none of it. For weeks it was all or nothing. And so when I was old enough to say, well, I'm going to buy my own food and be on my own and I would get, you know, get that food. That didn't make my body feel well, but only because of how much I ate. It was a lot, it was a lot. It was really way too much. So I didn't feel well, I didn't feel energized and strong. I felt like a slug, I felt defeated and upset and, you know, anxious in an emotional way, physically and emotionally. Eating that much of a certain food brought me down, so then I felt bad about it. So then I ate more because I felt bad, which is what we call the shame guilt cycle. It just goes round and round and round, and I did that from about the age 14 until about 45.
Speaker 1:So when you started eating, between hunger and satisfaction, did you still have trouble with foods making you feel cruddy?
Speaker 2:So for the first time then, when I started eating that way for the first time, I was eating kind of a just right size portion of that food, whether it was chocolate or a cookie or those kinds of foods for me was definitely that was it Because those were the ones that were forbidden so often at my home for all those years and also dieting all those years. Those were forbidden. And so for the first time I said you know what, I can choose those kinds of foods in a small amount and I can actually choose to have something like that at every meal, but it's really small, yes, it's really little. It's like a square of chocolate, okay, great. But it took me a while to renew my mind enough to realize and to really believe that that was enough for me and in that amount. With the other foods on my plate there was no problem at all. It was fine, it's totally fine, as long as I had, you know, other foods on my plate that were fueling my body as well. I like to have at least three or four things on my plate. I like that variety of different foods and flavors and textures and I like to be able to add in if I want to, but I can also say no thanks if I don't want to. There's freedom there too, like you said, but I love to be able to add in a little bit of something if I want to, that would have been in that forbidden category before, like for okay, here's an example.
Speaker 2:So you know, my kids have been teens for a while and young adults and they love candy. They don't eat it to excess, they really don't, and we don't have it around that often. But, like, for example, the other day, my daughter brought home some sour balls. I love sour balls. I used to eat them in a very disordered way. I would eat them, you know, kind of hiding away, and I would eat the whole bag and then I'd have an entire stomach of sour balls and, yeah, that made me feel horrible. With me it was hot tamales. So I get it. Oh, hot tamales. Yeah, I couldn't. They were too hot for me, I couldn't do those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would burn the taste buds right off my tongue before I'd ever stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had a good flavor, but I remember I just couldn't handle those, but anyway. So, for example, you know, my daughter brought home sour balls the other day and I thought I love sour balls. Do I have to never eat sour balls again? No, of course not. It's a taste bud teaser. Is there really anything in there that's beneficial for me? I don't think so, but if I have a plate that is in front of me with a variety of foods that are beneficial for me, I can put three sour balls on there and that's fine. I can enjoy that. There's no problem. I'm not going to do that every day, but I can choose to do that sometimes and I can choose not to, and that feels amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what true freedom is. You know, freedom isn't the freedom to eat, really, whatever I want the 10 yearyear-old inside of me votes for and decides I'm going to have. It's freedom not to eat sometimes. It's the freedom to respond to what the redeemed woman of God knows would energize me and help me feel strong, and we call those foods whole body pleasers because, that's what they are.
Speaker 1:My taste buds are on board, they go, yes, that's what they are. My taste buds are on board, they go, yes. But my pancreas is also on board. My brain is on board. My heart is on everything, my joints, yeah. And so, you know, we want to develop that sense of discernment. We want to invite God in and ask him what is going to make me feel the best today? I want to feel my best. Sometimes that means I might bypass the next fancy coffee that comes my way, because I've had two already today. You know, it just might not be what I'm needing right then, in order to be my best, in order to be ready for whatever God calls me to, yes, anyway, we hope something here has been helpful to you.
Speaker 2:Yes, Thank you so much for being here in our discussion about food and whole body pleasers and taste buds lining up with the heart in the pancreas casting their goat.
Speaker 1:If you're like me, you need the reminder that the 10-year-old dude probably should not be in charge of every eating decision. Yes, let's welcome the redeemed women and men of God to the table. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Won't you join us for our next episode of Revelation Within on the show Bye for now.