Weight Loss Scripture Day 11: Eliminate Food Triggers

Day 11: Christian Weight Loss Scripture

Every day in the month of April, I will post an encouraging scripture on my website that I hope will instruct and inspire you on your weight loss journey.

Today’s focus scripture is taken from 1 Corinthians 6:12:

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

Boy did food once have power over me! Back when I was 240 pounds, if you asked me if I wanted some chocolate chip cookies, warm from the oven, my eyes would gleam, my heart would race, and my mouth would water. I’d practically be rubbing my hands with glee.

In hindsight, it is the anticipation a drug addict would probably have who was about to get a fix. And it wasn’t just chocolate chip cookies that caused that reaction…it was any food that had sugar in it. One big discovery I made in my weight loss efforts is that I am extremely sugar sensitive.

Sugar is my trigger food. When I eat or drink a lot of it, it makes me not only want more sugar, but also want to eat more of everything else!

Whether the sugar comes from fruit juice, soda, white flour products, or dessert, it causes a specific physical response within me if I eat or drink too much of it. It’s like being tipsy from alcohol – mellow, brain fogged, slightly out of it. I also feel lazy, like I don’t want to do anything but sit, lie down, or nap. This makes sense when you know that alcohol itself is nothing but fermented sugar!

I spent most of my adult life living in that state, cycling between sugar hits and crashes. Everything seemed fine as long as I was in the sugar haze. But when the sugar wore off, life was too real, vivid, painful, and overwhelming. Sugar at first was my treat, but then it became my crutch to get through life.

I couldn’t even imagine my life without sugar in it.

When a substance has such a hold on you that you can’t even imagine life without it, then it has power over you. It hurt me to admit that sugar had power over me but as long as I refused to admit it, I continued to give it power to wreck havoc on my brain chemistry and my body in the excess weight gain.

So I had to put aside my pride and admit the truth and seek God’s help to stop “pulling the trigger” and destroying my health with sugar.

If you have a weight problem that is behavior based, then you have food triggers too. Just think about which foods that you eat regularly and which ones cause you to break out in a cold sweat at the thought of never having them again. That is your food trigger. That is the one that has power over you.

The bible says that you are not to be brought under the power of any thing. Food is a thing. So you will need Godly wisdom and empowerment to get free, which is yours for the asking.

You may get wisdom on how to eliminate the trigger or make a substitution that doesn’t cause such a strong physical reaction within you. For example, I can tolerate high-fiber fruits just fine because the fiber within the fruits slows the release of sugar, so I don’t have the loopy feelings. But if I drink a large glass of fruit juice (which has no fiber), then I get loopy and ravenously hungry after the sugar wears off.

I always advise keeping a food journal for a while and write down how certain foods make you feel so that you can begin to shift your diet to those foods that make you feel and do your best. It will make it easier to succeed with your Christian weight loss efforts in the long run too!

Be blessed in health, healing, and wholeness,

Kimberly Floyd, C.W.C.
Certified Wellness Coach
Author of the ‘Take Back Your Temple’ ebook
http://www.takebackyourtemple.com/book