Creating a Healthy Relationship with Food

In this episode, we are discussing how to create a relationship with food that feels empowering, stress free, and positive

If you have ever struggled with food, body image, eating disorders, restricting/binging, or feeling controlled by food, this episode is especially for you

Bringing Jesus and the Word of God into navigating this relationship for ultimate healing

Have a beautiful and blessed week!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello! Welcome into the Fruitful Feminine. I am Alexis and I'm so excited to have you here. We are talking about food today. How to have a healthy relationship with food, how to get unstuck if you feel that food controls you or you feel scared of food or you just feel I don't have the best relationship with it. I want to improve it, you're gonna walk away from this episode knowing how to do that. If this is your first episode, welcome in. I'm really excited to have you here. I'm Alexis, I am a feminine energy coach, and I love Jesus. And this is the space where we talk about both. Whether you are Christian or not, you are so welcome here. My goal with the podcast is to remind you who you are, to remind you that your self-worth and your identity, they are rooted in God. They are not rooted in the world, and to help you feel that you are the most powerful, worthy, secure woman that is deep down inside to help pull that version out. If you've been here on the podcast for a while, welcome back. I love, love, love having you here. I love all of your comments. This last week, especially, I've received a lot of comments saying, Alexis, you have no idea how much I just cry on this podcast, how safe I feel here. And that means the absolute world to me. Thank you. Thank you for sharing these things with me. And I'm just so happy that this helps you. This is my favorite part of the week besides going on YouTube. And so I'm just so happy to get into this topic. All right. Today's gonna be more of a girly chat style. I think for the type of topic, we're gonna we're gonna take it slow. It's not going to be as um story or scripture heavy as the previous episodes. Um, by the way, last week's episode was How to Feel Safe with God. That, according to your comments, has been one of the favorite episodes that we've done. Thank you so much for that feedback, and I'm so happy that you loved it. Honestly, it was one of my favorite episodes. Just to see God as the loving father that he is and see yourself as the daughter of a king, to run to him, to be so rooted in God that anything can happen in the world, anything can happen in your life, and you still remain full of peace and joy. So please, if you have not listened to that episode, go and listen to that one immediately after this. Okay, creating a healthy relationship with food. Yesterday on YouTube, I got a question about how to not overeat anymore. And we had a whole discussion in the live stream about it. And I thought, you know what, let's talk about it today because this has been such a journey for me. My relationship with food is something that I have really struggled with. Now I feel thank you, God, for the healing that you have given me here. I used to always have what I just learned on TikTok, the term is called food noise, where you feel almost as if food controls you. You're always thinking, okay, what am I gonna have for my next meal? Um, is this restaurant gonna have food that I can eat? Just you're always consumed by food. And there's a very specific reason why this is happening, which we will get into. Now I feel at the point where I am free. I'm free from no longer restricting food, free from no longer binging food. I love food, and I see food as a tool and as a medicine, and it no longer controls me the way that it used to, but it was a journey. When I was a kid growing up, my very first uh, I would say, turning point with food was when food became comfort for my younger siblings and I. So I'm the oldest of four kids, and I always remember this pattern that when my siblings and I were stressed, we would be given food. Sometimes there were really chaotic, um, scary moments growing up in my childhood. And not that my mom was at fault for this, my mom's wonderful, but she always gave my siblings and I food to kind of distract us, like, here's some snacks, or let's just go get in and out. We always escaped emotions with food. And so growing up, I was taught that if I'm feeling anxious, if I'm feeling stressed, food will comfort me. Well, you can see how that would become a problem, and I think many, many of you listening to this will relate. Because then when you get older, you do not know how to self-soothe without food. Food starts to control you almost. And um then what happened for me was when I had started getting more into modeling, I thought that's gonna be my dream career. My teenage self was so cute for that. Um, when I had first signed with an agency, I was 16 or 17 at this time. And the very first comment that was said to me by the agents after I signed was, Alexis, waist measurements great, hip measurements, mmm, not so much. You're gonna need to get smaller here. And so my very first seed, which I cannot believe my precious 16, 17-year-old self, a seed was planted in her of not small enough. This seed is planted into us constantly in the world that we live in. We look at magazines, we look at runways, we look at brands telling us this is what the ideal woman looks like. And then we look at ourselves, we look at our measurements sometimes and go, we're not small enough. Or there can also be the case where you feel I'm not big enough. You feel too skinny, too thin. My sister and I, when we were younger, we were super, super thin. And especially my sister, people would always always make comments to her, like, oh, you're a twig, you need to get some meat on those bones, you need to eat some peanut butter. And I saw how devastating that was to her. All these comments about what a woman's body should be like, they are actually thorns and seeds that the enemy uses to make you feel that you are not enough as a woman. And the second part of this episode here, we'll talk about why that is, because food is not just a physical battle. It is absolutely a spiritual battle that is going on. And the difficult part is we try to, if we feel we have an unhealthy relationship with food, we go, okay, I'm going to fix it with physical tools. I'm gonna read this book, I'm gonna um diet, I'm gonna only eat healthy foods. You try the worldly ways, it will never work because your relationship with food is a spiritual relationship. So then fast forward a little bit. When I'm about 19, 20, 21, my skin, I had a lot of acne when I was a teenager, and I would always research about gut health and food, and I started to just learn so much about how processed foods cause your body inflammation. Inflammation turns your body on into survival mode. When you're in survival mode, your body can't digest food and it cannot rest. And so I saw my skin was so inflamed because of a physical problem with my gut. And so I became obsessed with gut health. I became obsessed with probiotics, vitamins, whole foods, um, healthy proteins. I went vegan for a long time, super obsessed with plant-based uh foods, all of that. And that took food from me from okay, I I use food to help soothe my emotions to I feel so out of control with my life that I'm going to find something I can control, which was my gut health. And in that, food ended up controlling me. If you feel that you control food, you monitor every bite that you put into your mouth. You're always thinking, if maybe you already know what you're going to have for lunch and for dinner, if you're very strict with food, food is controlling you. That is what it was doing for me. And I thought I was controlling it. That's why I love the power of inner work because when you can go back to those moments and see, oh, this trauma happened and it caused me to feel out of control. That's why I seek control so desperately now. And the easiest way that we can feel a sense of control, even though it's a false sense, is by the food that we put in our body. So if you've ever lost control in your life, or if someone took control for you, from you, when you did not give them permission, there's a usually direct connection to a struggle with food. I think, especially when it comes to our weight, we can try to control our weight to control how we are seen. An example of this would be gaining a lot of weight so that you can hide. It's not that you want to hide physically, it's that you want to hide spiritually, you want to hide energetically. You don't want men to see you, you don't want friends to see you, you you just want to be hidden. And so food that can become a way to control how you are perceived in the world. So, going back to my own personal journey for a minute, after I started to see, okay, I'm way too strict with food and with nutrition, and now I I I still love nutrition, I still love health, wellness, all of this. But I went from being strict to being at peace, not being controlled by it anymore. Because I started to see my body is my temple. And food, it's not a method of control. Food is a nourishment. God is in control, and my body is the temple for him. So if I'm too strict with food, my body is stressed and I'm not a very good temple for him. For the longest time, I thought this is how I'm always going to be. I'm always going to struggle with food. I'm always never going to be satisfied. I'm going to want to overeat, oversnack, restrict, binge-eat. I always thought that I would be stuck in these cycles. I would have moments where I would feel free for a little bit, but then I would get triggered with something and fall right back into those habits. I want you to know it is so possible to be free. It is possible to feel that food noise doesn't exist, to turn the volume down on always thinking about your weight, your body, eating food. It is possible to see that as just a cherry on top to life rather than the whole picture of life, and everything else revolves around that. So that's a bit of a backstory into my relationship with food. This world that we live in, why it's so important to have a healthy relationship with food, is trends are always, always changing. This is what I love about the Word of God is everything that is in the Bible is still consistent and still true to this day. Trends of being stick thin is the trend, being curvy is the thin, or is a see, I'm already getting confused because the trends change so much. You cannot change with the trends because you will always be conforming to the world. And what does the Bible say? Do not be conformed by the world. God literally commands us not to be conformed by trends. Let the word renew your mind. And there's some scripture that we'll talk about to see what God says about food. How do we use food as a tool? You know who else uses food as a tool is the enemy. And I think food has become such a tool for the enemy. It actually always has been. Because if we go back, we look at the very first sin that ever happened. What was it centered around? Food. The very first thing that Satan did was tempt Eve with an with food, with a piece of fruit. That tells me that there's something very powerful about food that the enemy knows that he wants to take that power from us. So he will use it, he will distort food so that it can distort this power that God has given us when it comes to food. And a side note, too, I think it's so intentional how this played out. Notice when Satan, so if we go back to Genesis, what is the serpent? What is Satan telling Eve? He's saying, Did God really say that you cannot eat all of the fruit in this garden? And Eve goes, No, but God told us you cannot eat any fruit from this tree of good and evil, this tree of knowledge. And what does the serpent say to her? He starts to play on scarcity with her. He starts to almost pick at her worth. And he presents the fruit in a way to Eve that God doesn't want you to know everything. He knows that if you eat this fruit, the veil will be lifted off your eyes, and you will have as much knowledge as he has. God doesn't want you to have that knowledge. He starts picking at Eve's self-worth and he puts her in a position where you're not already worthy because you don't know everything yet. You haven't tasted and seen everything in the world yet. So go ahead, eat this fruit, even though God told you not to. Because until then, you're not enough. You're not fully worthy yet. That's the message that he's sending to Eve. And I never saw this until getting ready to prepare this episode. So subconsciously, Satan was telling Eve, you're not enough. And what does the enemy do with food for us today when we have an unhealthy relationship with it? Deep down, you're not enough. Use food to fix it. Either starve yourself or overindulge yourself because you're not enough. He's very, very clever, but his tactics are old and not so smart once you can start to catch on to them. So again, there must be something so powerful about food that being mastered by it is what the enemy will try to do to us. I'm gonna read part of Matthew here. This is in Matthew 4. And when Jesus is fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he's amazing. And no food, no water, because Jesus is getting ready to go and teach the Word of God. He is getting ready to fully uh follow the will that God has given him. He's preparing to go to the cross, he's preparing for this huge battle that he has. And so he fasts and prays to get ready for it and to draw closer to God. Well, while he is fasting and praying, Satan comes to him and does something very similar to what he just did to Eve in Genesis. So this is in Matthew 4, and it's called the temptation of Jesus. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry. During that time the devil came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, aka picking at his worth, if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread. But Jesus told him, No. The scriptures say people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So remember when in, I think this was last week's episode, I was talking about why you must know scripture. Because guess who else knows scripture? The enemy. If you believe and you say that you are the Son of God, turn these stones into pieces of bread. And he knows that Jesus is hungry. Okay, if you've ever fasted, things start looking delicious that did not look delicious before. Like I've had these apples sitting here for a week. I have not wanted to eat them until today when I'm fasting. So he's tempting Jesus with food first. That's the very first way that he tries to break Jesus. He's trying to break Jesus in this moment because he knows that Jesus, his flesh is is uh not as actually it is strong because the spirit is strong, but his flesh is starving, he's hungry, he's not able to probably think and stand as strong as he usually can. And so the enemy attacks with food. Then I'm starting to think about how when he says, prove to me who you are, if you say that you are the Son of God, what the enemy is setting up Jesus to do is he's placing doubt in Jesus' mind and saying, in order to prove that you are worthy, in order for me to believe who you are, you must prove that you can turn these stones into bread. And he's also playing on Jesus' hunger. He's so messed up for this. But this is what the enemy does to us is he turns your chair around. I'm thinking of what is that show? The voice, where the judges are all sitting in the chairs and there's a singer on stage, and if the judge likes the singer, they'll press the button and their chair will turn around. They don't get to see the singer until they press the button. So when you are focused on your relationship with God and you're living according to God's will, you're living in your purpose, your eyes are locked on God. You it's like God is the singer on stage. You can see God. What the enemy is trying to get you to do is turn around so that you do not see God. He's trying to say, hey, I'm over here in the audience, and in order for me to prove of your singing, or in order of me to approve of what you're saying, I need you to do something for me, to prove who you are, so that I can accept you. And that's the thing. If you think about the show, The Voice, is the singer trying to impress the audience? No, they're trying to impress the judge in the chair. But the enemy is trying to get the chair to turn around in the opposite direction and trying to get you to start pleasing him and proving who you are to him. He is worthless. You have no reason to prove yourself to him. And he'll also deceive you by trying to get you to prove yourself to the world. Validation likes explaining who you are, justifying the way that you show up. This is why you almost have to work backwards. You have to be rooted in your self-worth first. Because if your self-worth is shaky, the enemy will use something like food to try to get you to say, prove your worth to me here. Show me that you're enough by having the perfect body. Um, so again, there's something about food that Satan tried to attempt to use to break Jesus. Could it be possible that he knew Jesus' spirit was so strong because he was fasting? When you fast and pray, there's something that I always say here that when you fast and pray, your flesh is starved and your spirit is strengthened. Not starved as in your starving your body from food. It's that you are denying your body pleasure, indulgence, and worldly consuming for a whole day to say, God, you are my bread. I get my life, I get my fill from you, not from the world. And when your flesh, like I was telling my mom, when I'm fasting, I hear God so clearly. I feel my emotion stronger. I can journal and I can just pour out more clarity, more vulnerability, because my spirit is so strong. I feel so close to the Holy Spirit. Because if you actually imagine a body and it's filled so much with food, your body is focused on digesting that food and processing that food that it's not as light, it's not as able to hold God's voice. That is why the Bible says fast and pray, especially when you need direction, especially when you're in a challenge in life. You must have your spirit strengthened. And so with food, when we place our strength, when we place our comfort, when we place our peace in food over God, that is when our relationship with food becomes unhealthy. It is not food itself that is bad. It's the placing our peace, our strength, and our comfort in food that is bad. Because when we place those things in food, food has become our master. It has become that idol that we say, as long as as we have our comfort and peace from you, we feel okay. That breaks God's heart. Because just like we talked about in last week's episode, how to feel safe with God, God hates unfaithfulness, especially our unfaithfulness to Him. He tells us, I am a jealous God. You will put no other God before me, you will put no other idol before me. He tells us because he has made a covenant with us. It's like entering into a marriage with a partner. Why it hurts so badly when a partner is unfaithful is because that covenant is broken, that spiritual bond is broken. When we place anything above God, when we get our peace and our strength in anything above God, it breaks God's heart. Because we've put something else as an idol, and food can very easily become an idol when we do not feel okay or do not feel satisfied until we have food or until we're using food a certain way. Eating disorders, whether it's restricting food, overindulging in food, food is an idol. Food is a master. And I know this is a very sensitive topic. God does He did not design food to rule over us. That is why it breaks his heart so much when we let it. And our daily bread is the Word of God. This is what Jesus says back to Satan. He says, Yes, the scriptures do say that I have authority and power over all things, but the scriptures also say man does not live by bread alone. So you're telling me to turn these stones into bread, but I don't live by bread. I live by every word that comes from God. Food nourishes the flesh, but the word of God nourishes the spirit. All right, next we'll talk about gluttony a little bit, the actual sin of overindulgence. And I actually think on the other side of this, there's overindulgence and then there's restriction, not eating. That also I would say can fall a bit under gluttony because it's indulging in starvation, it's indulging in control. So gluttony. Gluttony is a sin. In Philippians 3, let me go to it real quick. Uh, there's a part here where it talks about gluttony and how it is a sin. So this is Philippians 3, verse 18. It says, For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. Scary. And this is Paul writing. He goes, They're headed for destruction, their God is their appetite. They brag about shameful things and they think only about this life here on earth. Going back to that part, their God is their appetite, their God is food, is what other translations will say. So when our God is food and it's become an idol, when we are so controlled by food, when we have food noise, remember in the beginning we're talking about that concept food noise? Food is constantly consuming the thoughts in our mind. Well, when that is the case, what Paul is saying is that we are enemies of the cross because we're only thinking about life here on earth. And I love this part. There's another part in Matthew. This is Matthew 6, uh, what verse is it? 625. It says, This is Jesus speaking. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. Whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear, isn't life more than food? In your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly father feeds them. And aren't you more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? I love this part because I think anxiousness with food is what causes us to have that unhealthy relationship. But Jesus is telling us how you can heal out of this anxiety is to stop being so focused on life on earth. Focus on eternal life, focus on the purpose that God has given you, focus on that spiritual relationship that you have with the Lord. I was listening to a sermon one day and I loved this illustration. And the pastor was saying that anything horizontal is of this world. And when we're so focused on horizontal things, we are blocked from being focused on God. When we are thinking about vertical things, things above, things that the Word of God talks about, things beyond yourself, serving the world, living in the purpose God's given you, building that intimacy with God, bringing others to Jesus. When you're focused on that vertical relationship up and down, that's when it starts to cancel out everything horizontal. That is why I've talked about the deeper I've grown in my relationship with God, the less materialism consumes my mind, the less, the less food consumes my mind, the less validation consumes my mind. It's the strangest thing how for years and years I tried to face all of these things head-on, like let's say validation. I want to be able to post on Instagram, but post for me, not for other people. I don't want to care about if other people like this or not. I would try to fix that through like exposure therapy and all of these things. Nothing worked better than saying, okay, God, you are my focus, and everything else is just the cherry on top. All of the pleasure that I got from worldly things doled down so much when I found pleasure in my relationship with Jesus. And maybe right now you're feeling, but I want to get that pleasure. I don't know how to get that pleasure. It's simply just seeking Jesus. It's opening up the Bible, reading his words. Jesus says, if you seek me, you will find me. I think a great, great tool can be watching a show like The Chosen, just understanding Jesus, reading the story of Him, reading His words. I love reading parts like Proverbs. We're going to read Proverbs in a bit when we talk about how to rebuild your healthy relationship with food. Reading God's word, that is your bread. That is what fills you and nourishes you. And then when you go, it's almost like when you've been eating really clean for a long time. When I'm eating really healthy, dates taste amazing to me. I love dates with almond butter, cacao nibs. When I'm not eating so healthy, dates taste like that gross, healthy, wannabe dessert food. It doesn't taste so good. When I'm eating healthy and then I eat really greasy food, it hurts me. I don't feel good. I feel sick after. And it doesn't even taste as good. When I'm not eating healthy, junk food tastes amazing because of what I've been consuming before that. So when you're consuming God, when you're literally eating his words and you're being filled by him, the junk food, aka, everything that the world can give you, including the pleasure that comes from food, does not feel the same. And you stop feeling pleasure from it. Why food is also so dangerous and why God warns us so much against gluttony, which let's talk about the word gluttony for a second. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. So the deadly sins are gluttony, lust, pride, laziness, wrath, or anger, greed, and envy. Why is gluttony a deadly sin? Because it hurts your flesh so much. It weighs your body down so much. When you are weighed down, when you are controlled by food, when you're filled with food noise rather than God's voice, you cannot live in your purpose. And you start to feel numb and dull and out of control and it stresses your body out. How can you be the powerful feminine woman that God has created you to be when your body is stressed, when your body is malnourished, when your body is overweight because you've overindulged. So gluttony is a sin because it feeds our flesh where we are controlled by overindulgence. And food is our master and our idol, and we've put it above God. And that's when it becomes a problem. Anytime we make anything else an idol besides God, we are living a life that is dead. We are living a life that has no life in it. That is why God calls it a deadly sin. So food, it can why I think it's so dangerous is because it can be a tool to numb. Like I talked about when I was growing up, food was such a tool that my siblings and I had to numb ourselves. Because, okay, if I'm scared, I'll just eat, and for a second I can feel the release of dopamine and endorphins, and I'm okay. But the problem with that is if I'm feeling that my sympathetic nervous system is going off, meaning my nervous system is super dysregulated because I'm scared with whatever's going on at home, but then I eat a piece of chocolate and endorphins are going off, dopamine's going off. How can my body have both endorphins and stress hormones at once? It causes chaos in the body. When you have both adrenaline spiked, you have cortisol spiked, and you have this dopamine coming in, it causes your brain to associate food with extreme emotions. And now the problem is you need more and more of those extreme emotions to feel anything the next time. That is why people become addicts so easily. Sugar addicts, alcohol addicts, drug addicts, because your body feels these extreme emotions of adrenaline and dopamine at once. And then you get stuck feeling that I don't feel anything unless I feel more emotions than I felt before. So you need more and more. Why gluttony is a sin is because God did not design us to be stuck in the cycle of addiction. God didn't He did not design our bodies to be stuck in these stress hormones. And I truly believe everything God has commanded us not to do, it is for our own good because he is a loving, disciplined father or disciplinary father. He's not telling us don't overindulge because I'm strict. He's saying don't overindulge because it's going to hurt you. You are going to lose control of your brain. You are going to lose control of your uh basic ability to feel pleasure from small things. You're going to feel so numb. Because you need more and more of that, of that weaker source that caused you the stress before. He tells you things like, I don't want your body to be for every man to hook up with. Your body is for the man that I have created to be your husband. Not because I'm a strict, uh, conservative father, but because your body is special to me. I did not design you to have these soul ties with these men who are not going to treat you the way that you deserve to be treated. When he tells us things like, uh, do not lie, do not murder, it's not because he's the strict judge, it's for our own good. So that we don't live weighed down by things that we were never supposed to carry. And again, with food numbing ourselves, why this is so dangerous is because I'm starting to think about something. When we are numb and we cannot feel our senses, what is that almost similar to? It's almost similar to being dead. When we are full of life, we are full of life force energy, how God created us to be. We feel that we can do anything. We feel light, we feel energized, we feel excited. When we are weighed down and we're heavy, whether it's weighed down with stress of food, weighed down from physical weight that we are not supposed to be carrying, that starts to dull our life force. And the problem is when we don't have life in our body, when our senses and our mind and our body is so numb and so dull, how can we be the best temple for God? I'm reading the Old Testament right now, and this is going to be a strange connection, but I promise that the two connect. So I'm thinking about how specific God is, telling the Israelites after they've left Egypt as slaves and now they're free. He gives them all these instructions about the tabernacle. The tabernacle is where God physically dwelled with the Israelites. His presence was in the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant, it was a sacred chest. It was a wooden chest that the Israelites carried from place to place as they're out in the wilderness. No person, no animal, no thing that was considered ceremonially unclean was allowed in the tabernacle. The tabernacle, only the priests were allowed in, the Levites were then allowed in. But God was so strict. If anyone had, for example, leprosy, they were considered ceremonially unclean, they could not be near God's presence because unholiness could not mix with holiness. Not that a person with a skin disease was unholy, but the skin disease itself represented death. It represented sickness. That is the opposite of God. God represents health, he represents life, he represents holiness. Anything that did not match life and holiness was not allowed near the tabernacle, not allowed near God's presence. For example, um, let's say that someone had touched a dead body. They were also not allowed in the tabernacle. They had to be ceremonially clean, they had to go through all these rituals of bathing and cleansing themselves to be near God's presence again. Unholiness and holiness could not mix. So why I'm saying all of this is because I'm thinking about something. And no lack of life force was allowed in. I'm gonna get a little bit graphic. If you have little ears around, please cover them. There's a part in, I think it's Leviticus, where God says, He's speaking to men, if your seed is spilled, okay, and you can reference what I'm talking about. If your seed is spilled, for that day you are considered ceremonially unclean. I'm thinking, but isn't this natural? Like this is a natural part of life. Um God designed sex for marriage, all of this. But once life force left, like the seed of a man, once life force left that man's body, God said he is considered ceremonially unclean for that day, even if he is intimate with his wife. And I'm starting to think about why would that be considered ceremonially unclean? And again, ceremonially unclean does not mean bad, shameful, sinful. It means it is not the direct connection to life and holiness that God represents. So when the seed is spilled from a man, what God is saying is he has lost life force. A loss of life force means it's more close to death than to life. The life has exited his body. Another example, God says you can eat animals, but do not consume the blood of animals. Blood, aka loss of life force, cannot mix with life, cannot mix with holiness. So when people are eating the animals as a sacrifice, they could not consume death while they were pursuing life. So why I brought that up is because when we're talking about using food to overindulge, that begins to numb our senses, it begins to dull us. And when we are dull, when we are numb, like our body is physically numb, that's a loss of life force. Our body is not alive, it is dead. We cannot feel anything, we cannot think our best. Even if I'm trying to release an emotion, like if I'm trying to cry, but I've just overindulged my body so much, I cannot cry. I cannot even feel the emotions. And we'll talk about fasting and praying because there's nothing that has shown me this more than fasting and praying. How much my joy and ability to feel is reset. Because I'm not always swimming in these dopamine releases and adrenaline and cortisol spikes. So, anyways, uh, we're only halfway through, so I'm gonna move on to the next part now. Um, but one more part here about gluttony is when the flesh is leading, we or what did I write here? Oh, okay, one more very important thing. When the flesh is leading, we are being filled more with the flesh than the spirit. And why this is so dangerous is when we're filling the flesh more than the spirit, is we are starting to become our own God when we do this. And that gets very dangerous. Because now when we are serving our flesh, let's say we're feeling just so stressed, and instead of turning to God, we turn to food. When we say, Okay, flesh, we're going to satisfy you first, we know that our spirit is saying, pray about this, go for a walk, talk to God about this, cry it out. When our spirit is saying to release, and our flesh goes fill, and we choose to fill, we are led by our flesh. Meaning we are led by ourselves, meaning God has become number two and we have become number one. And that is the most dangerous way to live, is being your own God. It will always lead to destruction. And the Bible says you cannot serve two masters. And this really hit me hard because I thought, but I feel out of control with food. Like I feel it's such a struggle with food. And then I realized, wait a second, why am I giving food this much power to act like my master? It is not my master. It is a wonderful, powerful tool that I am going to number one, put God back as my master, and number two, rebuild my relationship with food so that it is serving me, I am not serving it. Okay, let's go on to how to how to heal, how to do this now. I think one of the most powerful things that you can do to heal your relationship with food is to share the struggle with it. The moment that I started to heal this was when I had shared with one of my best friends. She, her and I met when we were 16. We were both in the same modeling industry, which it's ironic because if only we knew to talk about these problems back then. Um, but we talked about this maybe two years ago now. We were just going for a walk one day, and I had brought up something to her about food. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I I had never shared with anyone before that I struggled with food. Like I felt sometimes I would be so strict, sometimes I would overeat, and I just felt that I couldn't stop. And I felt shameful about it. And so I gently said something like, ah, sometimes I binge eat and I don't like it. And she looks at me and she goes, Me too, Alexis. But she like seriously looked at me and I thought, oh, okay, I was just gonna kind of slide this topic out there, but here we go. And uh we started talking about this, and she goes, Well, where do you think this comes from? How long have you struggled with it? And we both just sat and were so open and honest with each other and talked about how at first it felt it didn't feel bad. It just felt that um, okay, I'm just enjoying food, like there's nothing wrong with enjoying food. And then other times I'm strict with food because we want to be in the best shape for our jobs, but that slowly turned into food began controlling us, and we did not feel worthy until we were eating healthy or until we were no longer overindulging. But because we were already stuck in that cycle, our self worth was stuck in a downward spiral with it. So I shared with her, and then I shared with another friend, and every single woman that I've shared it with, she would always say, Yeah, me too, me too. And I started to think, Whoa, we all go through the same thing as women. Then I made a vlog on YouTube, I think it was What I Eat in a Day video, and I had shared in there a bit about my struggle with food in the past, and it was so scary for me to share because that was the first time that I talked about it online. And it's it's hard because once it's out there, it's out there and it it makes me face the inner work even more. So I shared about it, and I just remember that felt so free. I felt, okay, if I can have the power to share, food doesn't have the power over me anymore. And it started to lift that weight off of me. A great way to share is with journaling, praying. Like God wants you to come and run to him with this. Every night that I pray, I just imagine God is sitting at a table. I literally imagine that I'm just like a little kid running, and Jesus comes and he's like, Yay, we've been waiting for you all day. Come and talk with us. We want to talk with you. And I just imagine God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and me, we're just all at a table talking. And God says to approach the kingdom of heaven with childlike faith. Just be a child and talk to your father. This is how your relationship should be. Do not let your earthly relationships with your parents dictate your relationship with God. That's why last week's episode is so important, especially. God wants you to come and share your experiences and your problems with Him. He will never ever judge you. So just share it with Him. Journal about it, pray about it. Maybe find groups where you can discuss it. Watch YouTube channels that discuss eating disorders if you've had one, or how to build a healthier relationship with food. One of the best episodes I've ever watched and didn't even know that I needed was it was the Girls Gone Bible Eating Disorders episode. Actually, they have two. And I think Angela was so brave to share about her eating disorder that she had. I had never ever heard someone talk about it as freely as she did, and she's extremely vulnerable. It was it was life-changing for me. And I I didn't feel that I struggled to that extreme, but it still shifted something in me and just gave me a lot of freedom with food because that's where I realized it's a spiritual battle, actually. So I really recommend that episode. Okay, so one, share, two, trace back the origin of when your relationship became unhealthy with food. It can be so many things. For example, if food was really scarce growing up, if your family didn't have a lot of money, if you didn't know where your next meal was coming from, you might notice a pattern of maybe you overeat now so that you can make sure you're not starving later. Or maybe if you ever had to fight with your siblings over food, you eat really, really fast. There's a scarcity mindset there. Um, or maybe, like I had shared, where if there's trauma and food was a comfort, anytime you feel triggered, you run to food instead of running to God. So trace back the relationship of when it became toxic. Number three. Sorry, guys, if you just heard me take a drink. That was so loud. Number three is fasting. Fasting equals detoxing and resetting from anything that controls you. I love fasting and praying. There's nothing that has changed my relationship with God more than fasting and praying. I think I talk about it every single episode. I have a whole episode on fasting, by the way. If you just type the fruitful feminine fasting, it'll come up. Why fasting has changed my relationship with food? I was actually very scared to fast because I had struggled with restricting and binging for so long, I thought, no way am I gonna fast because that's going to be like extreme restriction with food. First of all, you should pray with God and ask, is it the time for me to fast and pray? Because if you've ever struggled with something like anorexia, especially go to God and pray about this first. But I will say, fasting has broken off food from controlling me. Because for a whole day, when I'm normally eating and instead I pray in those times, for a whole day I'm getting triggered and stressed about things, and normally I would run to a snack, but I don't have a snack to run to because I've determined myself to fast. I have no other comfort to run to besides God and the Bible. I don't do any social media or TV or books when I fast either. So I strip pleasure, I strip the opportunity to overindulge for a whole day. And guess what has happened that I never expected to happen? Getting soothing from food stopped being desirable to me. I remember the next day after my first fast, I thought, wow, I don't feel that I need to eat a snack after dinner, or I have to have these chips to feel better or to feel comfortable. Our body will always run to, I was just listening to this in an episode, our body always runs to carb-heavy foods when we feel anxious because carb-heavy foods, they are known as a depressant, different from being depressed. Carb-heavy foods are a depressant, meaning that they bring you down and they will ground you. So when you're anxious, this is also why we have late-night snacks that we want to eat, when you are anxious or you're stressed or you're overwired, your body will know to look for carbs. And this is God's beautiful design for us because carbs will ground you. They will let your nervous system relax. And so when I didn't have that to allow my nervous system to relax for a whole day, and then I did a two-day fast and I was like, okay, whoa, I really, really don't have it. It changed my relationship with food completely because I saw there's something even better to soothe me and to give me pleasure and to give me comfort. It's God. It is just letting him hold me. It's journaling and just speaking with him, listening to worship music and feeling him. The difference in fasting versus restricting is restricting is I can't have this. Fasting is I will not have this. There's a huge difference because when you restrict food to try to get a certain body type or to try to reach a certain goal or to try to feel worthy enough, that's saying I can't have this food. It's off limits. I'm not allowed to have it. Fasting is food is great. I'll have it tomorrow. But today, my bread is the word of God. I will not have food. Not because I can't. I can if I wanted to, but I won't. Because food is not going to give me strength. Food is not going to give me what I'm seeking. God is going to give me what I'm seeking. And I crave that more than I crave food. There's a difference that your subconscious will feel in I can't versus I won't. And I won't will never make food um, what's the word that I'm looking for? It will never put food in a negative light for you because food stops being this object on a pedestal. You bring it down and you go, it's just food. Okay. Um, one more verse here is Jesus says in John 6, this is 625, I think. 25 or 35. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. And I think back to the story of the woman at the well. Oh, I love this story in the Bible. I think it's my favorite, favorite story. I believe this is in John 4. When Jesus meets a woman at the well, this woman, she has had five men that she's been with, which during this time was extremely rare and it was considered extremely shameful for a woman to be with this many men. And same way with men being with that many women. And so this woman, she had to go to the well at a certain time because if she went in the morning with the rest of the women, the women would be so cruel to her. They would look down upon her and say, You're so shameful, you're so sinful. So she would have to go at the hottest time of the day just to draw water from this well. Well, Jesus goes and meets her at the well. And by the way, this is the longest recorded conversation that Jesus had with someone in the Bible. And he chose to speak with a woman who all of the religious people at that time considered so sinful. I just, I love Jesus. He's he's the best. So he goes and speaks with her. And he goes, uh, why are you drawing this water? And then they start to talk a little bit, and she goes, or Jesus says to her, if you keep drinking this water, you're always going to be thirsty. And of course, Jesus is speaking in a metaphor, but she doesn't know it just yet. And she goes, What do you mean, sir? I have to drink water every day. I have to come and get this. And Jesus goes, anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But anyone who drinks the water I give will never become thirsty again. It becomes a fresh bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life. That's John 4, 13 through 14, I believe. When Jesus tells her this, he is saying, if you keep drinking the water you're drinking, of sleeping with these men, trying to get validation from them, you're always going to be thirsty. Come to me, and you will never thirst for that validation or worthiness again. And then Jesus says to her, Go home to your husband. And she goes, I don't have a husband. Jesus goes, That's right, you have five husbands. He is, he's real. And she goes, Sir, how do you know this? And she's so touched by it because he knows her. She realizes, how does this man he must be a prophet? I've never told him what I've done, but he knows who I am. And he's still talking to me. Like, I'm shameful. What is he doing talking to me? And she gets so happy getting this conversation and revelation from Jesus. Like, I'm done trying to get the water from these men. I'm done trying to get the validation. I love what Jesus said. I'm I'm worthy. I just have to run to him. And remember that he has called me to be his daughter. He said, You are worthy no matter what you do. You're worthy because I've chosen you to be my daughter. You're worthy because I love you. You're worthy because I've created you. God tells us in Psalm 139, I knitted you in the womb. I formed you in your mother's womb. Like I was excited. I knew every day of your life it's a chapter in my book. Every thought you'd have, every decision you'd make, I'm eagerly with you on your journey. This is what God tells us. And so that's why we're never going to be satisfied from the world. Because no part of the world, food, men, social media validation, money, none of that can look at us and say, I love you and accept you for exactly how you are. So, anyways, uh, we have that episode called Stop Chasing Your Already Chosen. And I go into the story of Jesus with the woman at the well even deeper. Because I talk about how we want to be picked because we're parched. We're thirsty. And that's why we're so desperate to get approval from the world. But it's never ever going to be enough. So fasting. That was number three. So we've got share, trace back the origin, and fast and pray. Number four, intuitively eat. This one is so, so important. It will change your relationship with food so much. Intuitively eat. Meaning, listen to your body and let your body pick what food you eat. Don't listen to your mind. Your mind is going to tell you to overindulge or restrict. Intuitively eating. One big revelation that I got is no food is bad because God created it. I'm talking about whole real foods. I was vegan for a long time and I just was so scared to eat animal animal meat and everything. I'm not saying being vegan is bad. I think it's so beautiful. People that are vegan and plant-based and want to protect the animals. For me, when I started reading the word of God and realized, oh, but God says everything that moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. I started to realize that God created food for humans. And it is okay to eat food. Food is not this uh this weapon unless my mind makes it a weapon. It's just like money. People say money is so bad. No, greed is bad. The love of money more than the love of God is bad. Money itself is not bad. Wealth itself is not bad. Just like food. Food is good. It depends on what we do with it, how we use it as a tool. It's just like a knife. A knife in the hands of a murderer, not a happy day. A knife in the hands of a chef who makes delicious food, a very happy day. Same tool, different hands. So food gets to be your tool, but you get to renew the way that you see it. And intuitively eating really helps here. Eat for how you want to feel and honor God's temple. This is what I mean by intuitively eating. I eat for how I want to feel. So, for example, if I'm low on energy, I'm going to eat something like beets, I'm going to eat something like uh or drink something like carrot juice. If I want to strengthen my body, I'm going to eat protein. If I'm feeling really, really tired, and maybe it's the week before my period, and my hormones are all over the place. I'm going to eat great carbs that can sustain me. I'm going to make popcorn. I'm going to eat some sweet potatoes, make sweet potato fries. I eat for what my body needs. And that changed my relationship with food so much because I used to be so scared. Am I eating too many carbs? But carbs, they're so nourishing. Like a sweet potato, popcorn, bread, it is so nourishing. Look at the way God designed us when we eat a piece of bread, how much our body is happy and excited. Like there's a reason why we why we crave it in our luteal phase. It's balancing our hormones. When I'm denying my body carbs, especially my luteal phase, I am destroying my hormones. Because I'm saying, hormones, I know you're telling me that you need more energy, but because I want my body to have these measurements, no. That is punishing your body to think that way. So instead, say, okay, body, you're needing some extra carbs this week, let's do it. What do you want? And then maybe the week after your period, you're thinking, okay, I'm feeling energized, I'm feeling good. We want to eat clean, let's do it. We want to eat maybe more vegetables and protein over carbs, let's do it. Start playing with food. Don't let food control you. You get to control it. And I also, I'm thinking about how when we're slow and the times that I felt I'm not at my best weight, I feel that I'm over my best weight. I always feel heavy and I feel sick. And that's the thing, when you're heavy and sick, and you're slow, you cannot live the purpose that God has given you. And also, same thing if you're malnourished, if you're not eating enough, you're gonna be slow, you're gonna be fatigued, you're gonna be sick. You cannot live the purpose that God has given you if your body is not healthy. Even when I, let's just say for example, getting ready for a retreat. I eat really, really clean, really, really good for getting ready to host a retreat because I know I need to be my best to show up for these three days and teach in person. It's a lot of energy. Same with YouTube. I want to eat a good meal the night before. I don't want to starve myself, I don't want to overindulge because I'm not gonna feel good the next day. And I want to feel good so that I can be the woman that God has created me to be and help other women do the same. Your purpose is connected to the way that you treat your body. If you don't nourish your body well, you're not going to be living in your purpose well. I also love the 80-20 rule. 80% of the time I eat mostly plant-based foods, super clean animal protein, really, really good foods. 20% of the time I will have maybe more sweets, more going out to eat. Because if I'm 100% eating super clean, that can quickly fall into restricting for me. And that doesn't feel good. I've decided I'm not available for restricting food. And the funniest thing is my body always becomes the best, in my opinion, when I'm when I'm no longer restricting. I'm like, how come when I'm on vacation and I'm just eating whatever I crave intuitively, how come my body is always the best? It's because I'm not stressed out. When you're stressed, it becomes this toxic loop and you can't digest food, and then you quickly fall into restricting and binging. You eliminate the restricting and binging by just enjoying food. There's a scripture that I love, and it says, so go ahead, eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this. This is Solomon, aka the wisest man that has ever lived, writing this. He says this in Ecclesiastes 9:7. So enjoy food. Food is meant to be enjoyed, not meant to be overindulged, but enjoyed. And another thing here, I'm thinking just about food and control. Something that I randomly did, the Holy Spirit whispered for me to stop doing this. I would always research the menu of restaurants that I was going to. Like if I knew I was gonna go out to a place with friends, I would always look up the menu. And I did this to, I have air quotations up, make sure there was food I could eat. Because that period that I told you when I was 20, 21, really researching about gut health and how to heal my body and my skin, I was so strict with food. I would not eat anything unless it was made with olive oil, avocado oil. I would not go out to eat. I would sit there and I would eat my own food when I got back. That was too extreme because food quickly became my master. I was not following Ecclesiastes 9-7. I was not enjoying food. I was controlling it way too much. And so I felt the Holy Spirit one day say, don't research the menu. Just go to the restaurant and intuitively decide what you want when you get there. You don't need to make sure that there's anything you can have. I will provide for you. It's a surrender and a trust in God. That is so essential to heal your relationship with food. It's to surrender control and trust God, to trust that He will provide for you. I also have this scarcity mindset, too, that this is the best meal I'm ever going to have, or the last meal I'm ever going to have, or this is going to affect every next part of my week. That control was, I'm in control, God, I don't want to surrender to you. When I said, God, I surrender, just let me go with the flow. Let me just go to the restaurant with friends and not, if there's something that I don't like, we'll go to another restaurant. It's as simple as that. So that healed a lot of anxiety for me because I stopped living in the future with food. And prioritize healthy foods with oh, actually, one more thing before this point. With the 80-20 rule, also remember lifestyle will always beat diets. I think diets are great if you have a certain goal, but for me, eating clean, eating lots of plant-based nutrient foods, that's my lifestyle. Meaning that I'm not restricting because it's not a short period of time. It's I eat healthy because I'm a healthy woman. My identity is someone who honors and nourishes the temple that the Holy Spirit lives in. So prioritize healthy foods with life. Foods with life means foods God created. McDonald's French fries don't have a lot of life force in them. In fact, they have zero. It was a potato, but all the life force was squeezed out. I love things like french fries. And now I think I think of French fries as Let's say French fries that I make in my air fryer from olive oil, sea salt, and a potato, that has so much life force in it versus Chick-fil-A waffle fries. Okay, I like those two, but when I'm thinking about both, I think, how do I want to feel the next day? What do I want to put in my body that would make me feel good? I'm not just thinking about instant gratification of the taste. I'm thinking, how do I want to feel? I love feeling good, I love feeling energized, I love feeling light. So I'm gonna choose what makes me feel that way. That also is a part of intuitively eating. Remember, the more life that you have, the more energy that you have to follow God's purpose. And step five is accept and love your body now. Just like we talked about in that story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well, you will always be thirsty if you do not accept your body now. Because what will happen is you might say, I want to get to 130 pounds. That's my goal weight. But then you get there and you go, I'm still not happy. Why is that? Well, the reason why you're always moving the goalp is because what your body is searching for is acceptance. And if you didn't accept yourself before, how would you accept yourself now? Your body is looking for a feeling, that's why it creates goals. Even with money, you could say, I want to make$100,000 this year. Well, when you get the$100,000 income or salary, you still feel the same. No amount of money changes that. There was actually a study done that said after$75,000 annually, your level of happiness and quality of life does not feel that much different. No matter if you're making$500k in a year, a million in a year,$20 million in a year, after$75,000, your happiness baseline is about the same for any amount above that. And it's so true. The times that I've made the most money in my life, I feel the exact same. It's a quick burst of, yay, this is great. Love the freedom, love the opportunities, so thankful for the blessing from God. But I do not feel a change in my happiness long term. It's the same with your body. That's why you can get your goal weight or goal body, but you don't feel happy because the formula is accept first, then you can make the changes if that's what you desire. But if you're doing the formula backwards, if you try to get the goal or the desire first and then expect the acceptance as a result, it's not gonna work. You must start with acceptance first. Because the problem is your body is just saying, we want you to accept us. And you're saying, okay, okay, let me lose weight so that I can make this happen. Then you lose the weight and your body goes, We want you to accept us. You didn't accept us. You said we must look the certain way first. And so the goal post keeps moving and it becomes this downward spiral. So um one of the best verses that you can memorize, it's the one that I said earlier, John 13 through 4, John 4, 13 through 14. Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life. And I love that he ends that with life. Jesus gives you life. And the more life you have from him, the less life you're trying to look for from food. The healthier your relationship comes with food. And remember that your body is a temple, that your body is the house of God, of the Holy Spirit. And it is our job, it's our duty to protect that temple. Having a healthy relationship with God protects that temple. And I think what's really beautiful is the more you fall in love with God, the more that you seek God and grow intimately with Him, the more you go, Oh God, your temple, I will do everything I can to honor it and protect it. It's like when you have a baby or a pet, you become very protective of it. If you have a baby, maybe you seal the corners of tables or couches where the baby can walk and hit its head, or the toddler, I should say. It's clear I don't have kids yet. Um, but you baby proof your house to protect it because you love your baby so much. Same thing with God. When you know God has said, I'm sending my son Jesus, and when Jesus dies on the cross, he is leaving the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit becomes your comforter, he becomes your counselor, he becomes your advocate, and the Holy Spirit lives in you when you accept Jesus into your life. And when you fall so in love with Jesus, you go, I am going to protect you and the temple that you have given me with every way that I can. So these five points to recap how to heal is share, trace back the origin of when your relationship with food changed, fast and pray, intuitively eat, and accept and love your body now. There was a day I remember I just looked in the mirror and I was naked and I was just staring at my body and I said, Body, I love you. I accept you. We can get more lean and toned if we want. We'll have some fun in the gym. We might gain a bit of weight here and there. We might have some serious water retention. Thank you, luteal phase. No matter what, I love you and I accept you. You're so perfect already right now, how you are. Why? Because God created you. And this is what I was saying to my body. How disrespectful is it to look at our body and go, Not enough? That's looking at God and going, Your artwork? Eh. Actually, two nights ago, I was praying and I was just talking with God. And whenever I pray, I also ask God, can you speak to me? Like, what do you want to tell me? And you know what I heard him say? He said two things, but one of those was, When you criticize my work, it hurts me. And I thought, oh my gosh. And I knew what he was referencing. He was referencing if I if I say, Oh, I need to fix this part about myself, or my hair is not good enough here, or this part of my body isn't good. He was saying, when you criticize my work, it hurts me. And I love this Bible verse. I'm blanking on which verse it is, but it says, um, what does it say? Oh, I'm totally blanking right now. It's one of my favorite verses. It says something about, oh, okay, here we go. Honestly, I had to pause and look up the verse. It's Romans 9.20, and it says, Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Does the thing that was created say to the one who created it, Why have you made me like this? I love that verse because God is the creator of everything. God is the creator of the universe, He is the creator of every human being walking on this earth. Every human God had like clay in his hands and formed perfectly for his vision for that person. Imagine an artist working in a workshop, molding a piece of clay, and that piece of clay dries, it's finished, God paints it, and the clay is sitting on the shelf and goes, Why have you made me like this, God? I want to be curvier like that cup over there. I want to be taller and leaner like that cup over there. God, why did you make me with these colors? I want to be like that mug over there or that bowl over there. Can you imagine a piece of clay growing lips and saying to the artist who just spent a whole time making it and forming it and loving on it? Can you imagine a piece of clay saying, the way that you made me is not good enough? Anytime you criticize your body or yourself, that is what you are doing to God. And Romans 9 20, when I read this, I thought, oh my gosh, I love it. I think Paul wrote Romans. If Paul is honest, who are you, a mere human being? Okay, Paul puts us in our place to argue with God. By arguing with God, he's referencing all of the parts in scripture where God told us that we are his special treasure, where we are perfectly and wonderfully made, where we are a workmanship of his art. Who are we to argue with that? So just remember this. If you feel that you criticize your body, or if you feel that you are not good enough, you are more than good enough because you are the daughter of the King of Kings. And I really hope that this has helped you create a healthier relationship with food. It's always a journey. There's always little parts of my own relationship with food where I notice, okay, I've got some work to do here. This has improved, this is where I want to improve. It's a constant relationship that you get to work on. But the important part is that you bring God into that relationship with you because you're never doing anything alone. So this is the end of our episode. I love you so much. This has been so much fun to talk about, and I'm already missing you and can't wait to see you next week. Have a beautiful and a blessed rest of your week. Remember that Girls Gone Bible episode that I mentioned. I think the title is Eating Disorders, something like that. That's a great episode to watch. Also, how to stop chasing. You're already chosen. That's an episode I made a couple months ago. Excellent to watch as well. And yeah, I just love you so much. And I'm always praying for you. So enjoy your week and I will see you soon.