Worldly eating disorder recovery vs. Bible

[bornagain2011]

I have been off and on a road to disordered eating recovery, and have been doing the online Christian program called Setting Captives Free, and it's been wonderful!

But I started to get discouraged with the slow progress and fell back into not eating again for a short time. And now once again Im trying to be healthy.

I was looking at some things online to help with recovery. I found some Youtube videos by eating disorder specialists who strongly encourage the person in recovery to eat whatever they want and however much they want without worrying about weight gain. Their theory (and what they said they've seen works) is that after the initial weight gain, which could even cause the person to become obese, they will level out and not binge or crave junk anymore, but they will start to crave healthy foods and lose the weight and become a normal weight. They admit that this isn't always the case and that some people remain obese. 

They said it is so so important to not restrict yourself at all or else you will relapse and hinder the process.

Something about this doesn't sit well with me. First of all, Im already ten pounds into the overweight BMI, despite starving myself before, so why would I want to gain even more weight? Why not just eat healthy most of the time and exercise?

Second of all, wouldn't allowing the patient to become obese put them at risk for diabetes,heart disease, depression, etc?

And my final point, and this is what raised reg flags; this goes against what the bible has to say about eating. The bible talks about having self restraint with our appetites. I agree, our bodies have a certain wisdom, for example if we are lacking certain minerals or vitamins we will crave certain foods and thing like that, but we don't need to follow every craving our body has. Our flesh desires to satisfy itself.

So I just get confused about the two competing worldviews.

On one hand you have the world using "science" to say to follow our flesh because it knows how to keep itself healthy, it will eventually crave healthy foods and eventually reach an optimal weight (setpoint theory). On the other hand you have to Bible, which has more logical advice...the more you eat, the more you want to eat. Overeating is called gluttony and becomes an idol. Laziness is called being slothful. So there is certain personal accountability.

The world says eating problems are a disease and takes away much of the accountability. The Bible says it's a choice. Amd the choice turns into a habit that feels extremely hard to stop and can feel like an addiction.

I think I will start listening to the bible and not the world.

I have been gaining the weight I lost back, it's terrifying. But I have to force myself not to starve. I think if I try to just be healthy i don't have to get stuck in the cycle of overeating and then restricting to compensate.

Any thoughts? Can anyone else relate? 

Thank you

[4LdKHVCzRDj2]

27 minutes ago, bornagain2011 said:

Any thoughts? Can anyone else relate?

I have been observing people around me, and how they are eating. The problem is lack of self control and discipline.

 

Nowadays we have so many kind of tempting foods, it does not mean we cannot them but we definitely have to put limits on how much we are getting.

 

People have to change their mind, today most people eat primarily for pleasure while their focus should be to eat to stay alive.

[missmuffet]

1 hour ago, bornagain2011 said:

I have been off and on a road to disordered eating recovery, and have been doing the online Christian program called Setting Captives Free, and it's been wonderful!

But I started to get discouraged with the slow progress and fell back into not eating again for a short time. And now once again Im trying to be healthy.

I was looking at some things online to help with recovery. I found some Youtube videos by eating disorder specialists who strongly encourage the person in recovery to eat whatever they want and however much they want without worrying about weight gain. Their theory (and what they said they've seen works) is that after the initial weight gain, which could even cause the person to become obese, they will level out and not binge or crave junk anymore, but they will start to crave healthy foods and lose the weight and become a normal weight. They admit that this isn't always the case and that some people remain obese. 

They said it is so so important to not restrict yourself at all or else you will relapse and hinder the process.

Something about this doesn't sit well with me. First of all, Im already ten pounds into the overweight BMI, despite starving myself before, so why would I want to gain even more weight? Why not just eat healthy most of the time and exercise?

Second of all, wouldn't allowing the patient to become obese put them at risk for diabetes,heart disease, depression, etc?

And my final point, and this is what raised reg flags; this goes against what the bible has to say about eating. The bible talks about having self restraint with our appetites. I agree, our bodies have a certain wisdom, for example if we are lacking certain minerals or vitamins we will crave certain foods and thing like that, but we don't need to follow every craving our body has. Our flesh desires to satisfy itself.

So I just get confused about the two competing worldviews.

On one hand you have the world using "science" to say to follow our flesh because it knows how to keep itself healthy, it will eventually crave healthy foods and eventually reach an optimal weight (setpoint theory). On the other hand you have to Bible, which has more logical advice...the more you eat, the more you want to eat. Overeating is called gluttony and becomes an idol. Laziness is called being slothful. So there is certain personal accountability.

The world says eating problems are a disease and takes away much of the accountability. The Bible says it's a choice. Amd the choice turns into a habit that feels extremely hard to stop and can feel like an addiction.

I think I will start listening to the bible and not the world.

I have been gaining the weight I lost back, it's terrifying. But I have to force myself not to starve. I think if I try to just be healthy i don't have to get stuck in the cycle of overeating and then restricting to compensate.

Any thoughts? Can anyone else relate? 

Thank you

I hope you are working with professional on this.Eating disorders can be serious.  You do know that some with an eating disorder can have serious problems when their electrolytes are imbalanced. In fact they can die. Karen Carpenter from the famous singing group died that way. You need to give this to God and let Him guide and direct you in this.

[shanee]

This might not be much help...but have you tryed making like a kale +fruit smootie?i try to make one everyday...It seems to me like it suppresses my appitite some and gives me more energy..I like mostly Kale(red or green or both;organic),some banna,pomegranate juice,blueberry's or juice,couple strawberrys,ice,maybe a little water too.And ofcorse remembering you can do all things though him.Agape.

[GandalfTheWise]

14 hours ago, bornagain2011 said:

Edited for space...

Any thoughts?

Thank you

Just a few random thoughts here that may or may not apply.  

I think that a key principle with regard to eating (or anything else for that matter) is not being in bondage to it.  To have a strong compulsion to overeat or under-eat is to be in bondage of some type.  Neither is spiritually healthy.  To have a strong obsession with being in a particular weight range is potentially to have a spiritual bondage of some sort.  There are many things in life that are good to work on (health, financial independence, good relationships, etc.).  But when any of those things becomes an uncontrollable obsession (e.g. working 16 hours a day 7 days per week at two jobs for years to not only get out of debt but to build up a huge savings account), they can become spiritually, emotionally, and physically unhealthy.

From what you wrote, I have the impression that you are very concerned with what the scale reads.  What a person weighs is but one measure of health.  BMI was developed as a statistical measure of groups of people.  It was not developed as a measure of health for a particular individual.  Certainly long-term bad eating habits and lack of a healthy lifestyle will lead to chronic problems.  However, temporary weight gain is far different than being a sedentary 200 pounds overweight for 30 years.   It's possible to maintain a "healthy" weight on the scale by eating inappropriate amounts of junk food or by having unhealthy eating patterns that are adversely affecting one's overall health.  There is a huge difference between doing whatever it takes to have a "healthy" weight on a scale and actually living a very healthy lifestyle that eventually leads to the scale showing a "healthy" weight.

My observation of people over many years is that many compulsive behaviors are often *symptoms* of some deeper issue.  Sometimes the things that we are most concerned with in our lives is not the main thing God wants us to work on.  For myself, I've been overweight for many years.  A few years ago, God pretty much changed my employment situation and I'm now semiretired.  In hindsight, I can't believe the amount of stress I put on myself that I considered normal.  I lost about 40 pounds in about 18 months without making any real effort to change my diet or exercise habits.  It was mostly due to eliminating stress in my life.  I didn't try to do anything special and the weight just dropped off.  As I've kept closer tabs on my weight and eating habits, I find that the healthiness or unhealthiness of how I eat is often tied to my mood and mental state.  When I'm comfortably mentally engaged doing stuff I enjoy during the day, I simply eat less.  When I'm bored, frustrated, or otherwise not engaged in healthy mental and emotional patterns, I tend to eat more.  I've heard from many people how emotional issues (sometimes current, sometimes past hurts) can affect them.  Sometimes it takes God pointing this stuff out in our lives and doing something about it.  All those years worrying about my weight when it was really unhealthy amounts of stress that was the real issue I needed to worry about.  I'm still in the "overweight" BMI category, but I've been slowly losing (about 10 lb/year) weight and overall having a much healthier life than I did before.  The bottom line for me is that the scale is not so much a measure of my weight (and how much I'm eating) but it's a longterm indirect measure of how healthy my overall lifestyle is.

It's possible that your body needs some time to adapt to healthy patterns and that what you experience for awhile will not be the new normal you are aiming towards.  This might take months of time.  When I left my last job (due to high levels of stress), it took me months before I started feeling "normal".  I had been running at such high stress levels, I was simply used to that being normal.  The first couple months was weird.  When I had been running in a state of highly stress, my body had little room to react to more stress.  When something unexpected happened around me, I'd usually be the only one not to react when everyone else was jumping.  I thought I was "calm".  I wasn't.  After I left that job, I felt like every unexpected thing around me was a shock.  When our dog would bark, it felt like my whole body would suddenly ache.  Things that annoyed me would quickly push me to a point of feeling a panic attack coming on.  It took on the order of 3 or 4 months before this really went away.   It also took me close to a year to get back to normal sleep habits.  I had gotten used to sleeping for 3 or 4 hours (on a good night), waking up and reading for a couple hours until I got tired, and then trying to sleep some more.  I had gotten used to getting up and reading a couple times per night.  After about a year, I realized that I was going to bed and getting up the next morning most nights.  I had forgotten it was normal to do this.  I also noticed my dreams changed.  I had gotten to the point that the only stuff I dreamed about was related to work or something that had happened during the day.  A few weeks after I left my last job, I started having typical random dreams that had nothing to do with work.  The bottom line was that months of readjusting was necessary to get to where I needed to be.  If you've had unhealthy eating habits, it may take some time for your body to get used to healthy ones.

[bornagain2011]

1 hour ago, GandalfTheWise said:

Just a few random thoughts here that may or may not apply.  

I think that a key principle with regard to eating (or anything else for that matter) is not being in bondage to it.  To have a strong compulsion to overeat or under-eat is to be in bondage of some type.  Neither is spiritually healthy.  To have a strong obsession with being in a particular weight range is potentially to have a spiritual bondage of some sort.  There are many things in life that are good to work on (health, financial independence, good relationships, etc.).  But when any of those things becomes an uncontrollable obsession (e.g. working 16 hours a day 7 days per week at two jobs for years to not only get out of debt but to build up a huge savings account), they can become spiritually, emotionally, and physically unhealthy.

From what you wrote, I have the impression that you are very concerned with what the scale reads.  What a person weighs is but one measure of health.  BMI was developed as a statistical measure of groups of people.  It was not developed as a measure of health for a particular individual.  Certainly long-term bad eating habits and lack of a healthy lifestyle will lead to chronic problems.  However, temporary weight gain is far different than being a sedentary 200 pounds overweight for 30 years.   It's possible to maintain a "healthy" weight on the scale by eating inappropriate amounts of junk food or by having unhealthy eating patterns that are adversely affecting one's overall health.  There is a huge difference between doing whatever it takes to have a "healthy" weight on a scale and actually living a very healthy lifestyle that eventually leads to the scale showing a "healthy" weight.

My observation of people over many years is that many compulsive behaviors are often *symptoms* of some deeper issue.  Sometimes the things that we are most concerned with in our lives is not the main thing God wants us to work on.  For myself, I've been overweight for many years.  A few years ago, God pretty much changed my employment situation and I'm now semiretired.  In hindsight, I can't believe the amount of stress I put on myself that I considered normal.  I lost about 40 pounds in about 18 months without making any real effort to change my diet or exercise habits.  It was mostly due to eliminating stress in my life.  I didn't try to do anything special and the weight just dropped off.  As I've kept closer tabs on my weight and eating habits, I find that the healthiness or unhealthiness of how I eat is often tied to my mood and mental state.  When I'm comfortably mentally engaged doing stuff I enjoy during the day, I simply eat less.  When I'm bored, frustrated, or otherwise not engaged in healthy mental and emotional patterns, I tend to eat more.  I've heard from many people how emotional issues (sometimes current, sometimes past hurts) can affect them.  Sometimes it takes God pointing this stuff out in our lives and doing something about it.  All those years worrying about my weight when it was really unhealthy amounts of stress that was the real issue I needed to worry about.  I'm still in the "overweight" BMI category, but I've been slowly losing (about 10 lb/year) weight and overall having a much healthier life than I did before.  The bottom line for me is that the scale is not so much a measure of my weight (and how much I'm eating) but it's a longterm indirect measure of how healthy my overall lifestyle is.

It's possible that your body needs some time to adapt to healthy patterns and that what you experience for awhile will not be the new normal you are aiming towards.  This might take months of time.  When I left my last job (due to high levels of stress), it took me months before I started feeling "normal".  I had been running at such high stress levels, I was simply used to that being normal.  The first couple months was weird.  When I had been running in a state of highly stress, my body had little room to react to more stress.  When something unexpected happened around me, I'd usually be the only one not to react when everyone else was jumping.  I thought I was "calm".  I wasn't.  After I left that job, I felt like every unexpected thing around me was a shock.  When our dog would bark, it felt like my whole body would suddenly ache.  Things that annoyed me would quickly push me to a point of feeling a panic attack coming on.  It took on the order of 3 or 4 months before this really went away.   It also took me close to a year to get back to normal sleep habits.  I had gotten used to sleeping for 3 or 4 hours (on a good night), waking up and reading for a couple hours until I got tired, and then trying to sleep some more.  I had gotten used to getting up and reading a couple times per night.  After about a year, I realized that I was going to bed and getting up the next morning most nights.  I had forgotten it was normal to do this.  I also noticed my dreams changed.  I had gotten to the point that the only stuff I dreamed about was related to work or something that had happened during the day.  A few weeks after I left my last job, I started having typical random dreams that had nothing to do with work.  The bottom line was that months of readjusting was necessary to get to where I needed to be.  If you've had unhealthy eating habits, it may take some time for your body to get used to healthy ones.

Wow, what an eye opening post! It now seems silly to expect my weight to just magically drop right away. I still have loads of stress. I have three children that I love, my husband works nights, so I am on my own quite a bit. The older two (girls ages 8 and 9) argue a lot, I put my foot down a lot, but each time I have to deal with it builds up more and more stress.

I watched a show that talked about how some noises are calming to the brain like music, and some noises are stressors to the brain like sirens or a baby crying, and they are designed to move someone to action. I feel like with all the noise my body is in an almost constant state of fight or flight. I decided I should turn on my Christian music during the day to have something pleasant to listen to, it may even help the mood of the house.

I don't sleep enough. My 3 year old climbs into bed with me a few times a week and sleeps horizontally with his feet poking my back. I move him, but he goes right back to it. And my middle child has a hard time sleeping so she comes knocking on my door crying "I can't sleep". So the only nights where I sometimes get good sleep is when my husband is home during the night, or the girls are at their dad's house on the weekend.

The other night I got such incredible sleep. I was dreaming such a long dream it felt like it lasted all night long. I slept for 11 hours! From like 9 till 10 am! That never happens! I take melatonin, but it only helps to put me to sleep, not keep me asleep. On days where I have a good run i sleep better. But Im sure my cortisol levels are high.

Gandalf, I like how you said that preoccupation with undereating is bondage as well, it feels like that. I would get a high from knowing I could go days, even a month, without eating. I got addicted to the feeling of hunger. And that feeling would actually go away after a few days. But I also got addicted to the control and power. I think that stems from my childhood of abuse where I didn't have control over what happened to me. When I was a baby and toddler i was severely abused and then abandoned. And my adoptive mom didn't really show me love either, she was cold and distant. I learned at a young age that food gave me comfort. And I could control my body. I think subconsciously I used food to keep people away. If I lost my girly figure men wouldn't mess with me anymore, I could be invisible. And even now when I lose weight I start to feel insecure when I get looks. Im thankful that my husband loves me no matter my size. We met when I was at my heaviest.

I don't know why, but I feel like being at a lower weight would validate me as a person. I would be taken more seriously. I notice that when I am thin people are genuinely more happy to see me, they look me in the eye and shake my hand, or seem more interested in what I have to say. Maybe it's the way I would seem more confident, or maybe we do judge people based on their looks. 

Thank you all for your responses! It's given me a lot to think about. Our bodies are so amazing and wonderfully made! They can take a lot of abuse and bounce back to healthy. I will keep trying to seek the lord in this area, and keep busy with my life so Im not tempted to snack.

God bless!

 

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

On 11/27/2017 at 7:39 PM, bornagain2011 said:

I have been off and on a road to disordered eating recovery, and have been doing the online Christian program called Setting Captives Free, and it's been wonderful!

But I started to get discouraged with the slow progress and fell back into not eating again for a short time. And now once again Im trying to be healthy.

I was looking at some things online to help with recovery. I found some Youtube videos by eating disorder specialists who strongly encourage the person in recovery to eat whatever they want and however much they want without worrying about weight gain. Their theory (and what they said they've seen works) is that after the initial weight gain, which could even cause the person to become obese, they will level out and not binge or crave junk anymore, but they will start to crave healthy foods and lose the weight and become a normal weight. They admit that this isn't always the case and that some people remain obese. 

They said it is so so important to not restrict yourself at all or else you will relapse and hinder the process.

Something about this doesn't sit well with me. First of all, Im already ten pounds into the overweight BMI, despite starving myself before, so why would I want to gain even more weight? Why not just eat healthy most of the time and exercise?

Second of all, wouldn't allowing the patient to become obese put them at risk for diabetes,heart disease, depression, etc?

And my final point, and this is what raised reg flags; this goes against what the bible has to say about eating. The bible talks about having self restraint with our appetites. I agree, our bodies have a certain wisdom, for example if we are lacking certain minerals or vitamins we will crave certain foods and thing like that, but we don't need to follow every craving our body has. Our flesh desires to satisfy itself.

So I just get confused about the two competing worldviews.

On one hand you have the world using "science" to say to follow our flesh because it knows how to keep itself healthy, it will eventually crave healthy foods and eventually reach an optimal weight (setpoint theory). On the other hand you have to Bible, which has more logical advice...the more you eat, the more you want to eat. Overeating is called gluttony and becomes an idol. Laziness is called being slothful. So there is certain personal accountability.

The world says eating problems are a disease and takes away much of the accountability. The Bible says it's a choice. Amd the choice turns into a habit that feels extremely hard to stop and can feel like an addiction.

I think I will start listening to the bible and not the world.

I have been gaining the weight I lost back, it's terrifying. But I have to force myself not to starve. I think if I try to just be healthy i don't have to get stuck in the cycle of overeating and then restricting to compensate.

Any thoughts? Can anyone else relate? 

Thank you

 

 

Speaking from personal experience, sometimes it requires God to truly deliver a person from an eating disorder, when that disorder is truly an addiction, because it is more than just a personal choice; it is a demonic affliction. When you really want to stop doing something and can't no matter how hard you try, and it's not a chemical addiction---like cigarettes, alcohol, or addictive drugs---it's demonic. I don't really know much about Christian eating disorder programs (I never went to one personally, just secular ones), so I don't know whether they address this aspect of eating disorders. It would be a pity if they didn't.

 

Like the demoniac(s) of the Gadarenes/Gerasenes who Jesus delivered and restored to his right mind, demons can attack or even possess people and "drive" them to do deviant and harmful things, strongly influencing the thoughts of their minds. In my own experience, I was 'compelled' to act on my eating disorder, and I felt I had no control over my mind. Abstaining from it made me feel like I was going to go crazy---it was unbearable---to the point of actually asking my mother once to handcuff me to my bed to keep me from doing it. Seriously. (She refused.)

 

No matter what I tried, I could not recover. I cycled in and out of treatment centers and programs for years, and tried to take my life on more than one occasion in despair---nearly succeeding the first time. 

 

Everyone's case is unique, of course; not every eating disorder is the result of demonic affliction, just like not every case of mental or physical illness is a result of demonic affliction. Taking a black and white approach is not beneficial; every individual case has to be examined and treated as such. The problem with secular eating disorder programs is that they don't acknowledge or address the possibility of demonic affliction being the cause, since they don't believe in demons. A Christian program, on the other hand, might attribute all cases to demonic affliction, which they may or may not be.

 

What ended my battle with orthorexia and bulimarexia, as well as with chronic depression and anxiety, was that I got saved; and at the moment Jesus saved me, all of it went out of me like a candle being snuffed out, never to return. And I knew I was well, just like that woman who had been bleeding for twelve years who touched Jesus' garment. What years of eating disorder treatments and medication had been helpless to do, He did in an instant. I've never been troubled by any of those things since, and that was nearly twelve years ago.

 

After I was saved, my loathing for my body became appreciation for it as the temple of the Lord, and I wanted to honor Him with it, and take care of it. Jesus became the worth and the reason that I didn't have before I was saved, which was part of the reason I couldn't maintain my recovery. I had no desire to harm myself anymore, and I no longer felt the need for control and power that the eating disorder had given me a feeling of, even though I hated it. The things that used to trigger eating disordered thoughts and compulsions ceased to affect me, and over time, with the Lord's help, I learned to eat normally again---as I had long been out of the practice of doing. And it felt absolutely wonderful. Every time I ate I thanked Him for giving me the health to enjoy it. People who have never had an eating disorder don't realize what a blessing it is to just be able to eat normally and enjoy food: Eating---like sleeping and breathing---is such a normal activity that most people take it for granted; but there are people for whom normal things like these are not natural and easy.  

 

I just thought I'd share my own experience with this, in case any of it is applicable to your own situation. Every case is unique, of course, as I said. There's no addiction that God is not able to deliver a person from.

[bornagain2011]

Thank you so much for your reply! I have found freedom and deliverance from my eating sins. I learned that as I draw closer to the Lord and renew my mind, my sins lose their hold on me. I didn't believe deliverance was possible and that was part of the problem.

 

I realize now that God isn't interested in helping me fix this problem, but He wants more than that, He wants all of me! He wants a true heart change! I am becoming a different person now. It's been amazing! All because of God!!