For the past two days I've been doing something absolutely crazy to me. Yesterday, I went twenty hours without eating and then when I finally did eat I did not gorge myself. This morning, for one of the first times I can truly remember, I felt hunger. I ate a small amount and then went to work. When I was at work, I felt pangs of hunger!
For a country with one of the highest and fastest growing obesity rates, I think it has become an all too often problem to forget what it is like to be hungry. How can we truly help those who are hungry if we have no idea what they are going through?
I believe that fasting should be done purely for spiritual reasons and so here I am explaining the my answered prayers and hoping to encourage others to take a step back from your plate. When's the last time you were hungry? Don't think about your weight, what others will think, or anything except for how God can use your hunger.
Enough on that!
Today I was reading a food journal at Raw Delight, owner of Walk Slowly, Live Wildly and I was delighted to find a piece where she spoke on this issue. She didn't necessarily bring up fasting, but she said what I felt differently I think:
I’ve found that if I can keep busy during the day with activity, I am much less likely to feel like I “need” to snack snack snack. When I am in the RV doing whatever I am doing for longer periods of time….it’s like the fridge just calls my name. I’m never eating non-raw snacks, but I’m usually eating when I already feel hungry. Just eating out of habit.
There have been a few days this week where I’ve out and about for a good chunk of the day, and I purposely didn’t bring any extra snacks along. I felt really good and didn’t even feel like I needed to snack. On those days, I enjoyed my meal so much more because I was truly hungry for it.
I want to focus on learning when my body is truly hungry and also when it is truly full. It’s such a foreign concept in our society where everything is supersized. We dutifully eat “everything on our plate”. We don’t even know what normal portion sizes are anymore. Even the fact that some days I wake up without the typical hunger pangs…feels odd to me. I could probably go until 10:00 a.m. and not eat, but many days I have my smoothie earlier just out of habit.
I love eating raw food because I feel so much more in touch with my body’s signals. I’m able to discern what is ailing me so much easier and it’s wonderful!
1 comments:
oh wow. that's really great! It's good that we can learn about perhaps how other countries feel with hunger when we fast. I am sure it's much harder on them, but you're right that here we are fat and content in our country as others are wasting away hoping to survive each day out.
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