The end of food and body preoccupation starts with recognizing the lies of diet culture that we believe. It requires that we challenge those thoughts against the word of God and cast out the lies. We must recognize that our thoughts determine our actions. And, we must wage war against the strongholds the Enemy has worked tirelessly to build in our minds and commit to ditching diet culture for good.
You can experience body satisfaction and food peace by offering your body as a living sacrifice to the Lord. You can embody wholeness, Biblical health and wellness, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance and through His strength.
Ditching Diet Culture: Step One
Recognize that the war is not against your body. Body dissatisfaction, preoccupation with food, and obsession with exercise, are all the results of strongholds the enemy has worked hard to place in your mind. This battle is fought by recognizing our thoughts and challenging them against the Word of God. Our weapons in this battle are worship, prayer, and the study of God’s word. The end of diet culture is the embodiment of God’s word in our lives.
For though we live in a body, we do not wage war in an unspiritual way, since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (HCSB)
Step Two: Recognize that actions are the result of thoughts
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7 (NKJV)
If we think thoughts that align with diet culture, such as:
- We need a thin body to be worthy of love.
- We’ll be happier if we change our body.
- We must be thin to be healthy.
Then, we will act upon those thoughts by trying diets and exercising militantly. Waging war with our bodies, fighting against God’s creation, as if to say that He messed up. Then, as a result of experiencing the diet cycle, we’ll have new thoughts in line with diet culture such as:
- I have no self-control.
- I can’t be trusted around food.
- I’m unworthy, pathetic, weak, unlovable.
When we meditate/think on God’s word our experience is much different. God’s word tells us to dwell on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable (see Philippians 4:9). When we think on these things we know in our hearts that:
- We are worthy of love in Christ.
- We get to choose the joy of the Lord in all circumstances.
- Health has nothing to do with the size of our bodies.
When these are our thoughts, our actions will include things like respecting our bodies by listening to them. Eating when we are hungry, eating food that we enjoy, moving our bodies in ways that feel good, resting when we need to rebuild. Accepting our bodies as the gifts that they are and using them to serve the Lord.
Ditching Diet Culture: Step Three
God helping you, take your everyday, ordinary life- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2 MSG
Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. Romans 12:1-2 NIV
Offering our bodies as a living sacrifice to God means that we let God use them, use us. It means that we surrender our body dissatisfaction to Him, ask Him transform our relationship with food, body, and exercise by renewing our mind. It means that we allow God to show us what a healthy relationship with our bodies, food, and exercise is instead of following cultural ideas.
Step Four: Lean on God
The most effective thing we can do on this journey is ask God for Help. We cannot willpower ourselves into body satisfaction and food peace. We need to be committed, but committed in the Holy Spirit, not in our own efforts.
Not by strength or might, but by My Spirit. Zechariah 4:6 (HCSB)
Ditching Diet Culture: Step Five
Keep on keepin on. Continually thank God that He is taking you THROUGH this. You will come out on the other side! By the grace of God, you will be able to call yourself a diet culture drop out.
I will be with you when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you. Isaiah 43:2
True Wellness transformation has nothing to do with the size of your body my friend. I know you might not believe that yet, and that’s okay. Please accept God’s grace in this area and then set your mind on receiving freedom from the bondage of food and body anxiety. And if you’re ready to wage war on the diet culture strongholds the enemy has created in your mind, check out my free video about Wellness Transformation through Christian Mindfulness.
