Hello friends! Last Saturday I had the opportunity to present a nutrition seminar at Union Church of Manila called “Eat, Pray, Thrive.”
I began by asking a question: What do the words “health” and “fitness” mean to you?
Take a second right now to think about that for yourself… what images pop into your head? What ideas surround these words for you? Some ideas that we heard included:
- Freedom from illness and disease
- Ability to participate in physical activities
- Good results from check-ups
- Energy to do life!
Great answers! And there are probably as many more as people reading this post! I’d like to also suggest that the health & fitness industry very consciously focusses on weight & appearance; and not only connects the two with health, but actually equates weight and appearance with health. I think this is not only misleading, but also contributes to weight and body image dissatisfaction which pervades our society today. We are conditioned to believe that there’s only one way to look “healthy” and “fit”, and that anything else means you’re not trying hard enough. Our seminar explored what it really means to be healthy, and HOW to walk along our own path to our best health and fitness. One of my goals in the seminar was to begin to dissociate our mind’s-eye images of what we think health and fitness needs to look like.
Our seminar title “Eat, Pray, Thrive!”is something I can’t take any credit for. One of my dear sisters in faith and fitness came up with it… and more on a whim than anything else! The idea popped into her head as a funny offshoot of “Eat, Pray, Love” as she was helping to make communications media to promote the seminar. But as so many things do, this was just another example of how God works all things together for good for those who love Him. As I went through the process of developing the content for this talk, I knew that this title gave me the perfect framework for what I wanted to share. So a huge thank-you to Tina, and praise be to God.
Let’s just dive into these three words like we did in the seminar introduction…
Every diet, even the ones that proclaim, “It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle!” is rooted in restriction. What you can’t eat… when you can’t eat… myriad rules to follow that distract you into thinking this diet is different than all others (it’s a “lifestyle” after all!) But I’ll tell you a little secret: when you peel away all the rules and timings and foods you need to avoid, what lies at the bottom is just another low-calorie diet. When I was a teenager, I often wanted to diet to lose weight. I was a competitive gymnast (and a teenager in the 80’s!) and being thin was highly prized. Thankfully I had a very wise mother who had not only been through her own struggles with weight, but also somehow emerged with a clear picture of (and victory over) the psychological fallout that usually happens from dieting. And here’s what she always told me, “Dear… first of all, you don’t need to lose weight. And second of all, the thing about diets is, it’s something you do by not doing.” How true that is, right? You “do” a diet by “not doing” eating. It makes me laugh a little to think about it in that way. Because we all know how hard it is to keep “not doing” something that’s as necessary as eating.
So, even though I’m a DIETITIAN, and the first 4 letters of that word spell “DIET”… I’m all about EATING! I guess you could say I’m a “NON-DIET” DIET-ITIAN. I believe that we can not only eat and still be healthy, I believe that we need to eat in order to be healthy. Let me say that again:
I believe that we can not only eat and still be healthy, I believe that we need to eat in order to be healthy.
I think we’ve lived too long with the mindset: “Oh, I shouldn’t be eating that…” or “I shouldn’t be eating so much…” This is the diet mindset.
But I believe there’s a better way. I believe in adding foods to your diet, rather than taking them away. I believe that by eating more in the way of healthy foods, the less healthy ones get crowded out without it being too painful. I believe in fueling your body for the work that you do. We are living, moving beings! And, we must eat to nourish ourselves.
Believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time restricting. I grew up doing club gymnastics, I ran track, and later in life (just a few years ago actually), I did competitive bodybuilding. All very body-conscious sports. And while restriction can work in the short term, it doesn’t really work so well in the long run. We can only live out of sync with our bodies for so long. This is why most diets fail. (Note that I just said it’s the diet that failed, NOT the person.) Diets don’t work. Eating works. So let’s take a step in our journey of learning how to eat well.
God created our bodies. He created them very intentionally and carefully (Psalms 139:14), He set apart good works for us to fulfill(Ephesians 2:10), and He has a purpose for our lives (Jeremiah 29:11). We need a healthy physical vessel in order to do this! It’s so easy to get caught up in “body” for “body’s” sake… by that I mean focusing too much attention on how our physical bodies look. But this is NOT the thing that God cares so much about. He’s more invested with what we do with the health that we’re granted. Please don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not trying to say that we have ultimate control over our health. Health crises happen regardless of how well we take care of ourselves. What I am saying is, are we using our physical health in order to fulfill the purpose we’ve been called to?
I also believe that God cares very much about our physical bodies. I’ve studied nutrition for a long time now, and the more I learn about the human body, the more I am in awe of how intricate and wonderful they really are. All of our systems and organs are finely balanced, interwoven, and self-regulating, with feedback mechanisms that absolutely blow my mind. Nutrition is a beautiful science! And an evolving one at that. But you don’t have to have degrees in nutrition in order to have healthy habits. God made food to be pretty simple and straightforward. He created our bodies to need physical nourishment, and, not coincidentally, He also created lovely, healthy, delicious food for us to eat. And on a more personal note, He knows what our ideal weight is (it might be different than what we think!), all the details of our physical health, even what our food cravings are! And I strongly believe that He wants to walk with us, and help us, in our health journey. So let’s not try to do it on our own, but rather be strengthened by the God who cares.
I want to talk about this last word in terms of thriving on our own health journey; vs. striving for some beauty or fitness standard that eludes us.
I think we all have some amount of pressure, one way or another, to “look” a certain way. We’re physical beings, with cultural and generational ideals of what beauty is. But these “beauty ideals” actually have very little to do with health or fitness. A beautiful physical appearance is not always indicative of strength, cardiovascular fitness, metabolic wellness, absence of illness, or anything!
So let’s talk a little bit about where these pressures are coming from:
Historical/Generational: every culture and every generation has their own ideal of beauty. The thing is, hardly anyone actually fits it! A few lucky beautiful people fit the mold, and everyone else just has to “try harder.” Some cultures prize thinness more than others; and some families do too.
This value on thinness can be passed down from generation to generation through being conditioned as children and teens that thinness is somehow tied to personal value. I was blessed that my mother had healthy attitudes about weight, dieting, and appearance. She did not in any way connect weight with other character traits; in fact, I feel like she just saw, and valued, ME, not what I looked like. I think she knew I faced a lot of weight pressure as it was, from being so heavily involved in gymnastics, and as a teen in general. But I know people who have faced pressures (subtle or not so subtle) from family members to look a certain way. And the things that are ingrained in us during childhood are hard to cast off.
I really want to encourage and remind those of us who are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, caregivers, etc., that our kids are watching us. They are listening to our words about weight and appearance, both our own, other people’s, and theirs. We have a big responsibility to them to break any generational bonds of unhealthy body image or overly focusing on weight or appearance. So let’s be mindful of how we speak about physical attributes and health.
Societal: everywhere we look, we’re being influenced by society’s current ideas of what’s beautiful. Social media really equates beauty with health & fitness.
The message is: “Look at this fit, toned, gorgeous person! This is what healthy looks like. Don’t you want to be healthy too?” But we don’t know what lengths these fit, toned, gorgeous people went to in order to look like that, right? Maybe they’re chronically under-eating. Maybe they’re smoking to curb their appetite. Maybe they’re obsessively exercising to the detriment of their health. Maybe they spend so much time in the gym that their relationships are suffering. And, maybe their photos are so photo-shopped that they don’t even look like that in real life! This really skews our mind’s eye into how we think we should look in order to be healthy. We need to keep this in mind as we choose where we spend our time online, and especially what accounts we follow.
Personal: perhaps we also have our own standards and expectations of how we should look. Maybe we get some of our self-worth or identity through how we look, or how fit we are. Maybe there’s a bit of fear of not being able to meet our own standards, or maybe a bit of pride when we do?
I’m putting this out there because these are all things I’ve struggled with for much of my life. The unrealistic standards, the self-worth/identity I’ve attached to looking a certain way, the pride, and also the fear of “losing” my fitness. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be fit and healthy. It’s just that if we allow our self-worth or wholeness as a person to be bound to these things, that we get ourselves into trouble.
It’s hard to thrive in health, and to choose truly healthy (and sustainable) behaviors, when we’re wrapped up in unrealistic standards. Because you know what? We can’t totally control the outcome for how we look. And that’s not the most important thing anyway! It’s really what we DO with our health that matters.
I want us to begin to change the way we see our bodies. I want us to disconnect our idea of “health” or “fitness” from a certain body type or appearance, and to broaden our ideas of both. Let’s see our bodies as a means to an end… fulfilling our calling in life… rather than an end unto themselves. That way, we can let go of rigidity for a certain appearance, and focus on what really matters.
So let us EAT… foods that nourish our bodies and bring us joy.
Let us PRAY… and ask God for help to develop truly healthy lifestyle habits. He cares for us.
And may we THRIVE in health!
Cheers, friends! Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more content from the seminar- everything you need to know about proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, as well as lifestyle habits that make a difference in your health for GOOD.