Who is that person?

For the soul:  

I have a favorite restaurant.  Do you?  When I go in there, I just don't recognize myself. Somebody else has just jumped into my skin!  But that person is ordering foods that I do recognize. It's a lot easier to stick with a life-giving diet as long as I stay out of that restaurant.


Does this sound familiar?  As a lifelong overeater, this is where Romans 7:15 speaks to me.  Paul's disclosure that he is actively doing exactly what he doesn't want to be doing is the main problem we humans have.  Our last overeaters' group began with that verse.  Every retreat deals with that verse as well. We care, but we don't care.


We know better than to eat too much of too fat foods, but just cannot help ourselves.     In the Do I Eat This? D.I.E.T? plan my patients' favorite "rule" is the 3 bite rule - 3 bites of anything at all 3 times a day.  So that would be 9 bites of Hilda's cheese enchiladas? Right?  Some ask me, "How big is a bite?" 

One of the most helpfully disturbing things I ever saw was a person resisting the temptation of food. It was at a Lamb's Tale retreat in 2002 where John Eldredge was the speaker.  After the retreat, we were all in the kitchen at the Haven enjoying left-over wonderful treats, and he poked his head in to say good-bye.  We offered him marvelous food, and he paused only a second and said, "Thanks, I'm not hungry."  That registered with me.  I wasn't hungry either. 

So if it helps, I avoid going into Hilda's very often now.  And when I go, I manage to have only one of the two cheese enchiladas. 

For the body:

A word about cheese.  Full dairy is hard on the body, I believe.  There are two main proteins in milk products, caseine and whey.  The caseine is a bulky, globular protein that digests slowly.  It forms the curds in cottage cheese.  Whey is a very good "high quality" protein similar to that found in meats.  Whey is widely available in many protein shake supplements.  I use one often.  But I minimize caseine consumption.  In Dr. T. Colin Campbell's The China Study, caseine correlates with cancer occurrence.  How much is too much?  No one knows.  I hope that once a month at Hilda's is not too much.