Warning: I’m baring my soul here, and feel extremely vulnerable! I’m only doing it in case it resonates with someone else and is in some way helpful for them, otherwise, this would be going into my private journal!
Day 1
I started 7 today. I’m going with almost identical foods that Jen Hatmaker did in her book "7" 'an experimental mutiny against excess' , mostly because they are all foods I like, and since she did all the nutritional legwork to see that they were good picks to eat for 28 days, I figured, why re-invent the wheel. My one trade was instead of spinach, I’m having broccoli. So my seven foods are as follows:
Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli
Whole Wheat Bread
Apples
Avocados
Chicken
Eggs
*I am seasoning the above foods with salt and pepper, and I am also using Olive oil for cooking. Additionally, I did not give up coffee w/ half and half in the mornings. My kids need a slightly sane mother (notice I said slightly!) and I fear that eliminating coffee at the same time I start eating these 7 foods, could bring out some sort of Hulk/mom mutant.
I had been pondering doing this for a couple weeks, but didn’t know if/when I should start, were my motives wrong, etc.
I’ve struggled with food having too much significance in my life for a long time. Several months ago, I finally called it for what it is, a sin (gluttony) and started to embark on a journey of breaking that bondage (sad I know, how dumb is it to have food as a “sin”??) But the bible actually has a lot to say about gluttony. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. Phillipians 3:19. I found myself conveniently ignoring those parts. I just needed to do something drastic, but I struggled with how that would look practically. Enter the book 7. I found it because I went to amazon to pin the book “anything” on my favorite reads on a pinterest board, and 7 was down on the lineup of recommended reads for me. The only time I had heard/seen anything about the book was that someone I barely know posted a picture of it on instagram. But I was intrigued, and looking for a good read, so I ordered it.
I had no idea what the heck I was getting myself into. It rocked me. Big time.
Okay I need to pause and write more about all of that later.
Now I need to just jot down some thoughts about my first day of eating those 7 foods. The morning was easy. Eggs for breakfast, something I would usually eat anyway. By about 10 I was hungry, and eating some dried apples that I made the previous weekend. By noon I was hungry enough that I was irritable with the boys and seriously wondering if I was going to make it. (See? I’m addicted to the instant gratification of eating whatever/whenever. ) Got home, put a sweet potato in the microwave and made the boys leftover taco casserole from the night before. So I had my salted sweet potato for lunch. I was hungry about 50 minutes later (seriously?!@) so I devoured two pieces of whole wheat bread.
At that point I needed to get out of the kitchen and do something else. Nick went down for a nap, Milo started watching a movie, and I went and spent some time doing my Beth Moore study on the life of Jesus. Totally felt better after that. Jesus is much bigger than food, why does my small mind forget that ALL THE TIME.
The rest of the afternoon went smooth, felt like I was over the hump. Dinner for me was roasted broccoli in olive oil (yes I am having that) and a chicken breast.
By about 8 o’clock I was pretty hungry and I have a habit of snacking at night. Also, the election results were on all night, and I was so disillusioned with all of it, that I couldn’t watch it, so I figured I better just go read in bed and go to sleep early, so I could “skip” some of the evening hours where I would normally be having a healthy dose of ice cream or some equal nutritional gold mine.
Day 17
Well, I had intended to write about this whole deal much more frequently, but I guess life happened.
In the meantime, 7 foods has been going pretty good! Physically, I feel, as close to awesome as I have in a long time. I think it was around Day 6 when I had some non-sanctioned 7 food. Kevin and I went on a date and ended up missing the first showing of the new Bond movie, so we went to Wok About in the meantime. I ate broccoli and chicken (both part of my 7 foods) but then some onions, bok-choy, cabbage, water chestnuts, and I had ginger, garlic, and sesame oil for sauce. All topped off with peanut sauce and cilantro. So yes, it was non-7, but I felt like it was a semi healthy, whole foods-ish meal, so I was okay with it.
Fast forward another week, and we had our last class of Financial Peace U at church, and we all came early and had a big barbecue-potluck dinner. Not wanting to look like a weirdo with my plate of sweet potato and chicken from home, I decided to eat the celebratory dinner. It tasted good at the time, but holy heartburn, I was in pain for the rest of the night.
Today is Thanksgiving, and I will not be bringing my own dinner and explaining this whole thing while celebrating with Kevin’s family. To bring a little flavor of 7 to the gathering though, I did make a sweet potato pie with whole wheat crust to bring along! (which turned out terrible, wheat flour makes a crust that is only slightly less tough than a new Firestone tire)
I had meant to get right back to it on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but that didn’t happen. As it turns out, we had scheduled a date with Kevin’s brother and sister in law, long before I started this whole food gig. So, we went to Fujiyama and I had a delicious Japanese hibachi dinner, and then we topped off the night at Blue Spoon frozen yogurt.
One other thing we have been doing since I started this a few weeks ago, is Friday night at our house is rice and beans night. The family is doing their best to be supportive, but I know it’s a stretch for Kevin and Milo. Nick loves rice and beans, and would eat it all the time. I talked with Milo about how we can eat this to just taste for one meal, what our little sponsored boy in Haiti, Michael, eats probably every day, and usually only once. It’s a work in progress. He’s not really thrilled with eating rice and beans, and I’m pretty sure he ended up not eating it last week, and had a yogurt right before bed. Oh well. I don’t want him to feel guilted into it for sure. I don’t think guilt is a great motivator for empathy.
Some things I have learned so far:
- Being hungry is not an emergency. I do not need to proceed to the nearest drive through (and I really can’t since they don’t tend to serve anything that’s on my list of 7)
- I can be in the presence of food, even food that I want really badly, and I don’t have to eat it. I think God has helped me out in a big way in this regard because I LOVE TO EAT. I’ve never had enough “will-power” to diet well, but somehow these past few weeks, I’ve had some sort of super-natural strength to forget about whatever it is that I’m craving (and I know if food is not your thing, you’re probably like “What? She talks about food like its drugs or something”. ) Well in all honesty sometimes it does seem to have that effect on me. It’s humbling to admit that it’s a huge weakness of mine.
- We save a lot of money when the primary grocery shopper is not buying things based on her foodie whims and desires. Basically we have been buying of course a lot of the 7 foods, but then since I’m still making regular food for everyone else, I’ve just been getting into the habit of using what we have in the cupboards, or making more things from scratch. I still buy them other produce, milk, yogurt, and those kinds of fresh things, but I really haven’t bought much processed food at all this month. I’ve actually noticed a subtle shift towards healthier eating habits in both boys. Curiously enough, they seem to always want to have some of what I’m having, so that’s great! I’m all about my kids eating more broccoli, sweet potatoes, and avocados!
- My body does so much better on a diet of simple foods. I just feel way better. I’ve also lost 7 pounds, and that is awesome!
I did not set out on this as a weight loss venture. Now, of course I had in mind that weight loss could be a side effect, one that I would happily accept, but if that were my motivation, it would be too easy to get frustrated. My motivation was to free my thinking from being obsessed with food. When to eat, what to eat, how much to eat, guilt from eating too much, too often, guilt from eating the wrong thing……I was just OVER IT. I needed something practical, and this was it.
I’ll report back at the end, and see how I finished up.
DONE!
I had my last day of 7 foods last Friday. I ended up doing it for 25 days, and over the course of that 25 days, I had 4 times where I had a “non 7” dinner. These were times where we were eating away from home, and I didn’t want to make a scene and have to explain this weirdness in my eating habits.
All in all, this was an awesome exercise for me. I would like to believe that I will be doing something similar at some sort of interval throughout my upcoming months, but we’ll see.
I’m finding out that self-deprivation can actually be satisfying. It’s a weird sense of contentment to be okay with not having what I want when I want it. I find it curious that I even have to do a self-denial project like this, while a mother across the world is doing the exact opposite. Trying to figure out how she can feed her kids on less than a dollar a day. It really puts into perspective just how excessive, and quite frankly disgusting, some aspects of my life are. Will this zeal for reformation be ever present for me? I hope so, but I know that it’s not by my own will that it will happen. Jesus is the one who came up with crazy ideas like this: “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. “ Luke 12:33. “Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”’ Seems like he nailed the whole concept of selflessness and it’s only by His power and presence that I can hope to even have a smidgen of the heart of generosity that He has so lovingly poured out for all of mankind.
The ultimate pursuit here, cannot be to glorify myself by doing some different spiritual exercise every month as some sort of torturous form of “25 days to a more self-righteous me”. The whole point is that by getting less of my appetites fed by worldly things, I would chase Jesus to have my appetites fulfilled by Him. The result of that would be that I would be devoted to Him, in need of Him, ever thankful for the grace He’s given me, and as a result, I could not help but to pass that on to the people around me. That’s what it’s all about right? We are not to be only receivers of the gospel, but communicators of it as well. That’s hard to do when we forget we even need the gospel of Christ, because we are getting most of our desires fed by temporal things, or worse, we feel we don’t need the gospel of Christ because we feel pretty darn righteous because of how awesome we are at keeping tabs on our own life. I have repeatedly fallen prey to both of these, and it’s only by God’s grace that I can hope to continue trying to dig out from under both of those temptations.
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