Counting Freedom Finding Slavery

I’ve been on a health journey for the past couple of years.  It's been amazing. God has allowed me to be within all proper health regulations (or at least getting there!) in this walk. The major thing that has gotten me to this place is counting calories.  I look at the nutritional labels of most everything I eat.  I weigh the food.  Then I calculate what I eat based on those facts.  A simple way to put it is calories in calories out.  

As I’ve been losing weight using this method to do so, I've noticed a change in my relationship towards food.  Some good and some bad.  Previously, I would not go on “diets” because this would restrict me from eating the foods that frankly, I wanted to eat.  Some people say “carbs are bad!” Others “don’t eat all that fat!” Then there’s people that say “You can’t eat meat!” While others “Don’t touch that sugar!” I hated that.  I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me what I could and couldn’t eat.  With the way that I eat now, I can eat whatever I choose.  I only need to ask myself, “Is it worth eating that?” Sometimes it's a yes.  Sometimes it's a no.  To me, this is so easy. I know it's not the same with others. Each of us must do what is best and what works in our own health journeys (within reason of course). So now when I eat I enjoy the food, then I put it down.  I taste the great flavor, whether savory or sweet, salty or tangy, bitter or herbaceous.  Then I put it away. It has really been a freeing experience.  I eat more volume and stay more full than I ever have. But with this freedom still comes responsibility.

With my (limited) understanding of this calories in calories out idea I try to cheat the system.  Sometimes with this new outlook and mindset I have with food, I manipulate the game.  I do things I shouldn’t do just because I know I can do them.

I was out the other day eating and started to get that satieted feeling.  I was getting full.  But me, being such a meticulous person, had all my calories, protein, carbs, and fat entered for my entire day and knew what I needed to and was allowed to intake.  What I was eating was so delicious, and I wanted to continue to revel in the culinary blessing. But I knew my stomach's tolerance was coming to a close.  Grace saved me though (like she always does).  I was going to keep eating but she told me, “I’m getting full. I’m just going to take the rest of this to go.” With that, I decided to follow suit. I put my leftovers in a box and took them with me. The Holy Spirit (through the instrument of my wife) saved me from the sin of gluttony. 

With my new found freedom in food, knowing that I can still lose fat, gain muscle, and regulate my mood and energy while over indulging in the food I was eating made me want to do just that. I wanted to be insatiable. I let what had given me power over food, to then become the power over me. This is the power of sin in all of humanity. Isn’t that insane!

But this isn’t nothing new. Paul in various letters talks about this.  We let our freedom in Christ enslave us to other sins.  We sometimes take for granted the grace and sacrifice that God the Father, in his Son Jesus, gave us. This we cannot allow. We are all a work in progress. We are all still in the process. But as we grow closer to him may the King show you as he has shown me where freedom has become slavery.  And may you turn those things over to him as I am trying, so that we might walk unbound and forever free by the power of Jesus.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

“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