My girls and I, after long and scenic trips on the road to health are trying a novel approach. Brace yourself: rather than seeking advice and trying to pick from the latest fad diets on the interweb, we went to scripture. I know, right? Mind. Blown.
Turns out our God has quite a lot to say about food and eating. Not the least of which is: no food is bad. No food is good for that matter. It’s just food. It’s neutral. Not evil. Not maniacal. Not righteous. As I navigate this course and attempt to help my daughters develop a lifelong habit of eating well and honoring God by respecting their bodies, I am quickly realizing how difficult this course, and subsequent course correction may be. Although there are the usual suspects when it comes to the stumbling blocks we face when trying to balance a healthy body image and healthy lifestyle choices, namely media and peer pressure, one culprit caught me off guard.
The first step I took in helping my daughters take ownership of their nutrition and health was to have them keep food journals. The initial response, particularly from my 13-year-old, when I announced that for the next three days there would be no food rules, no boundaries, no limits, was pure joy and unbridled excitement. That lasted until it was time for lunch.
“What’s for lunch?” my youngest daughter inquired.
“Whatever you want,” I replied. Admittedly this was difficult for a recovering food control freak.
“I know, but like what should we choose from?” My 16-year-old prodded.
“Seriously, whatever you want,” I insisted.
They were dumbstruck. For a solid 10 minutes they stood in front of the fridge unable to make a decision about what to eat for lunch. Hear this, friend, it was not from a lack of options. They could choose anything from a sandwich, to a smoothie, to a burrito, to a salad, to ramen, to a wrap, to mini pizzas, to a quesadilla or nachos, leftover pasta, a corndog, a hotpocket, a hotdog, protein bar and some yogurt or even eggs. They could choose anything. So, what was the problem?
The choice was the problem. There were too many options. My children were experiencing what many of us experience in modern society: our inability to make a choice for fear that one choice means we are missing out on something else (FOMO.)
We had a crisis of option overload.
Consider this commentary from Janice Harayda on the book The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz:
“Barry Schwartz, a social scientist at Swarthmore, makes the case in his book The Paradox of Choice that unlimited choice produces genuine suffering. The more choices we have to make, the less certainty we seem to have. When we have 285 kinds of cookies to choose from in the grocery store, how can we be sure we’ve picked the right one? And that’s just cookies. When faced with seemingly unlimited choices that have significant consequences like which stocks to invest in, which career to pursue or even which person to marry, many people become what Professor Schwartz calls ‘maximizers’: people who relentlessly search for the best option. These people spend a great deal of time and energy on choices that will never satisfy them.”
Mind. Blown. It seems our attempt to exercise our freedom to choose is really a deceptive form of slavery.
"I have the right to do anything," you say--but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything"--but not everything is constructive. 1 Corinthians 10:23
It turns out unlimited choices are really another form of bondage, enslaving us to the notion that there is indeed one perfect choice and making the choice wrong will have long lasting, dire consequences. True, sometimes our choices are irreversible and of major consequence. But, honestly, probably 99.9% of the choices we agonize over are minor and of very little consequence. Case in point, I shamefully present to you my pantry:
Right now, my family has their choice of no less than 11 crackers, 6 kinds of chips, 11 varieties of cereal and oatmeal, 3 kinds of waffles, 2 lunch meats, 3 breads, 3 tortillas, 3 muffins & biscuits, 9 cheeses, approximately 10 flavors of yogurt, bacon or sausage, frozen fried chicken and frozen grilled chicken, brown or white rice, quinoa or couscous and, counting ramen, 5 pastas. I think the only thing I left out was the partridge in the pear tree.
Is it any wonder we can’t decide what to eat? And that’s just food. An examination of our closets would reveal endless clothing options and don’t even get me started on our DVD & Blu-Ray collection and the gritty Netflix and Hulu debates that erupt when we attempt to watch television together as a family. Thankfully, we eliminated cable last year and put an end to the “There’s nothing on tv” comments as we trolled through nearly 200 channels.
I find this most played out in my own life in the areas of fitness and nutrition. I commit to one kind of workout, say Barre or pilates, for maybe a week and then fear that I’ve chosen wrong and am not lifting heavy enough. Okay, onto a heavy lifting, weight training program and no cardio to develop muscle I don’t even want and, by the way, muscle my husband doesn’t find particularly attractive. All the while, I really miss my morning walks and bike rides and occasional pilates routine. I’m afraid to choose what I really want for fear I’ll get it wrong and be judged. I’m still not sure judged by whom, but I know they’re out there. And food? I know I feel best eating relatively low carb 5 or 6 days a week and feel really happy baking the indulgent treat on the weekend. But, I just read that one article on that one site by that one doctor that said I should count my macros, or no, reduce my meat consumption or maybe it was eliminate all sugar, in any form for the rest of my ever lovin’ life. Never mind listening to my body and doing what feels good for me. I must maximize my choices by doing endless amounts of research and doing what the experts say is the right thing. Yeah, that’s living, baby. That’s freedom! Ugh.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. Galatians 5:13
So, today is my form of a personal Independence Day. This day I declare freedom from option overload and from following rules of so called experts. And, like all good revolutionaries, I’m channeling my inner Hamilton and making a plan. Lin Manuel Miranda should be proud.
So, today is my form of a personal Independence Day. This day I declare freedom from option overload and from following rules of so called experts. And, like all good revolutionaries, I’m channeling my inner Hamilton and making a plan. Lin Manuel Miranda should be proud.
First, because stewardship is a biblical principle we try to apply to our daily lives, I am not going to throw out all of our food choices in a self righteous attempt to eliminate choice. However, also in the interest in stewardship, we will eat every morsel of food in this house before I step foot in a grocery store. I will make allowance here for the staples only: fruit and veggies, milk, butter, eggs, etc. I will note, however, that even in the “staples” we have too many choices that result in sour milk and rotten produce. As such, we will pick three fruits and three veggies per week and limit ourselves to 1% milk and almond milk (my daughter doesn’t tolerate much dairy.)
After we have exhausted all of our options, and I mean ALL (we may be eating peanut butter and jelly for dinner with a side of quinoa), we will make a simple, weekly meal plan and stick to it. Simple as in, Cheerios or eggs for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and yes, grilled chicken, again, for dinner. I get way too caught up in Pinterest and fancy dinner recipes requiring weird ingredients. We will make more of our food from scratch, including… , oh man, I didn’t even mention our bar collection. No, not that kind of bar. I mean these bars:
Oh, the shame.
Oh, the dollars.
Exercise? For the entire month of September, (and yes I already started,) I am doing nothing other than walking and riding my bike. Between surgeries for the hubs, a driver’s license test and a new job for my oldest, soccer coaching and golf for my youngest, volunteering, church, youth and small groups, oh and homeschool, our schedule is a little ( a lot!!) full. As sort of a mental detox and a period of much needed rest for my body, I am checking out of gym trips and workout schedules. No choice to make, no options to consider. Just a walk if I have the time and maybe a bike ride with my girlies.
Simple. This seems like a nice way to kick off fall. After that, we’ll see. It could just be a nice way to live. I am excited to discover other areas we can eliminate choice and maybe, just maybe, free up some mental real estate to think about things that really matter.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Philippians 4:8
