It Starts With Food: Getting Educated on Weight Loss

On October 30, 2014 my husband and I went to the Land Transportation Office to get our new driver’s licenses as they had expired. A medical examination was completed and I was horrified to discover that I weighed 65 kilos (143 lbs). I felt really bad.

Left: November 11, 2014 (photo taken after jogging)
Right: January 13, 2015 (photo taken after making better food choices for a couple of weeks)

I felt bad because I had lost all form of control over what I ate and why I ate in the first place. I had never let myself go hungry and I often used food to comfort me when I was stressed or bored. John Piper accurately says that “eating is not the anesthesia of sadness,” yet even when I was happy and contented, I would still eat much more than my body needed to survive. In his chapter on fasting in Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster explains:

Psychologically, that sort of thing is spoken of a lot today, especially in regard to people who have much pain in their lives. We would say they “medicate” their pain with food. They anesthetize themselves to the hurt inside by eating. But this is not some rare, technical syndrome. All of us do it. Everybody. No exceptions. We all ease our discomfort using food and cover our unhappiness by setting our eyes on dinnertime. Which is why fasting exposes all of us—our pain, our pride, our anger.

In A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer, John Piper encourages fellow Christians to fast because “Christian fasting, at its root, is the hunger of a homesickness for God.” He clarifies:

Abstaining from food (or other things) for a period of time is not an end in itself but a means to cause us to learn about and increase our love for Christ.

I had known all along that the root cause of my uncontrollable appetite for food was deeply spiritual, so the first thing I did was to PRAY, then I immediately got educated by thorough research and serious contemplation. Here are some of my discoveries from books and blogs.

• C.S. Lewis knew that “the appetite grows by indulgence.” The more we eat and the more frequently we do, the stronger our appetite for food will become. Overeating is just too risky because man is insatiable.
• Weight is 10% genetics, 10% exercise and 80% diet. Clearly, diet is more important than exercise. So I stopped blaming my mother for my obesity. I refused to accept that a woman’s body shape will ultimately become just like her mother’s. It’s a lie.
• Creating a calorie deficit means you must consume fewer calories than your body can burn. If one has a sedentary lifestyle and eats way too much food, you can expect him or her to be overweight.
• Planning ahead is critical to battle cravings and distract oneself from food. You’ll need to stock up on the healthy food and cook from scratch, so plan for kitchen time. You have heard it before: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
• Reduce food intake before dinner as our metabolism slows down at night. Sleep early and get enough sleep to avoid stress during the day.
• Loren Cordain, PhD, claims that by eating like our prehistoric ancestors, we will be leaner and less likely to get diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other health problems.
• The Paleo Diet promotes that certain food groups like sugar, grains, dairy and legumes could be having a negative impact on your health and fitness without you even realizing it.
• There are no cheat days. The Whole30® Program challenges us to make healthy food choices each and every time. Unless you physically tripped and your face landed on a box of pizza, there is no “slip.”
• Write down your goals to increase your motivation. For example: I want to lose weight, 20 lbs. to be exact, because I don’t want to be a fat, aging woman. Period.
• Fasting is also spiritual cleansing. Man does not live by bread alone but from every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)

The only form of exercise I tried - jogging - did not help because I was already obese; hence, I could not stand the pain and exhaustion that I felt after only 10 minutes of slow jogging. Going on a diet was equally challenging and stressful for a person like me who loved pizza and pasta, burger and fries, potato chips, cheese, muffins, ice cream, chocolates and all those addictive objects that look like food, but are not actually real food. The solution? I changed my mindset and I changed my lifestyle.

Left: December 13, 2014. Right: January 25, 2015
Lost: 5-8 kilos (11-17 lbs)

With a limited, often weak willpower, I must continue to educate myself and put my weight loss goals in the proper perspective. I can't promise to be skinny in six months, or to start going to the gym next month, but I do promise myself that I will stop being ignorant about this matter. Certainly, there are greater, more important successes or long-term goals than shedding a few pounds. Well, for me - it starts with food.

(To be continued...)