Do you believe that you will benefit in your walk with God, in your physical, spiritual and emotional health if you become more in tune with your body’s physical hunger and satisfied signals?
The premise of Thin Within is that you will! You will discover that eating only when you are hungry and stopping when you are not (what TW calls eating 0 to 5) is a simple concept, but it is hard to actually do! When you discover this, you will begin to find that not eating just because you want to makes you cranky. And God wants to move into this place and show you why…what is really going on. This is where the real stuff happens–the real, deep healing that lasts. You will begin to find that your time with God in the Word and in prayer is definitely what Beth Moore refers to as God being in your business. Yes, he has plans, a future, and a hope, not to harm you…but there is a lot of ground to cover. It doesn’t always feel good.
One of the first things we have to be willing to do is set aside the idol of “Thin.” God doesn’t call us to be thin. He calls us to be HIS. He is using our weight, eating, and body issues to woo us closer to his heart so that he might flood ours full with his provision. We have a hunger, all right. It is a heart hunger that screams to be fed. When we feed that heart hunger physical food, it misses the mark, doesn’t it?
The Keys to Conscious Eating are in the first chapter of the Thin Within book:
1. Eat only when my body is hungry.
2. Reduce the number of distractions in order to eat in a calm environment.
3. Eat when sitting down.
4. Eat when my body and mind are relaxed.
5. Eat and drink the food and beverages my body enjoys.
6. Pay attention to my food while eating.
7. Eat slowly and savor each bite.
8. Stop before my body is full.
Many people object “Why do I need to turn off the computer?” or “Why shouldn’t I read when I eat?” or “But I have to eat in the car or I won’t have time for lunch!”
Each of us has to decide if we buy into the Keys to Conscious Eating in the first place. Here is sort of the way it works:
If I focus on my food, instead of anything else, if I slow down, if I am present in the moment, is there a chance that it will help me to recognize and be willing to respond to a satisfied signal when my body no longer needs fuel? (Thin Within calls this a “5” on the “hunger scale.”) People for 35 years now (Thin Within began in 1975) would say a resounding YES! It will HELP!
We need to back up even further, though. A person has to decide if they even buy into eating less food! 🙂
Will eating when I am hungry and stopping when I am not, be in any way a benefit to my spiritual, emotional and physical health?
If a person isn’t convinced that there is any need to stop eating outside of the parameters of hunger and satisfied…or that it glorifies God to eat within those parameters, then it stands to reason that they won’t go along with the keys to conscious eating which assume that a person wants to do that. That is what the keys to conscious eating are for!
The keys to conscious eating are designed to help us to be aware of our body’s need for food…am I at a 0 (physical hunger) and am I at a 5 (physical satiety)?
When I slow down, sit down, stop doing anything else but focusing on the food, I begin to have a better ability to sense the 5…the place that God’s Spirit whispers “enough.” The place where my body no longer has need of nourishment because in about 10-20 minutes, my brain will finally get the signal from my stomach. In fact, I have found that, if I don’t start at an honest 0, finding 5 is sort of a joke for me! I have to be honest about eating when hungry or a 5 becomes a moving target…it is all about eating food for some reason other than need.
If I don’t think the keys to conscious eating will really help me figure this out or I don’t really care to eat less food or don’t believe that it will make a difference in my life, then I will continue to want to read or putz around or do whatever while I eat…and as long as I do those other things, I am likely to miss the 5 altogether!
What about you? Have you “bought in?” Do you feel like the Keys to Conscious Eating have value for you in the goals God has for your life? In what way?
