Episode 4 Transcript
Welcome to your daily bread with co hosts, Abbie Stasior and Hannah Calhoun. We're here to be your weekly source of spiritual nourishment, guiding you to find food freedom in a deeper connection with Christ. As we explore the intersection of faith and nutrition, these bite sized episodes will help you heal your relationship with food and your body through practical advice, biblical wisdom, and heartfelt encouragement.
And as a disclaimer, we are not pastors, but passionate registered dietitians and sisters in Christ, offering our insights to support you on this faith filled journey to a healthier, more fulfilling life. Join us by taking a seat at our table as we break bread and allow God in to break the chains of diet culture.
Hannah: Right, so I'm going to be reading right now from Proverbs 16 verse 18, and it says pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. We're going to be talking about pursuit of thinness and how it has become a modern day idol. And I'm not. You know, talking about people who necessarily just want to improve , their overall health and, and maybe are just associating that with a thinner body because that's honestly what is, what is taught to us a lot in society.
Um, there is a pursuit of thinness going on in our culture that honestly has, it's not a new thing. It has been going on for decades and decades and generations and generations. And it is the pursuit of thinness at any cost and at all cost. So, whether that means you are heavily restricting your intake to, you know, less than 1, 200 calories.
Which, by the way, is what a toddler needs. Um, so, you know, grown adults need a little bit more than that. Ha ha ha. Yup. Just a little bit. How about maybe like, you know, double? Um, ha ha ha. For real. For real. Um, and it, and it might not be that number or less than that. Maybe it's, you know, everybody's needs are different and maybe it's just you're restricting to a point that's just not enough for you.
So you're, you're heavily restricting your intake, you're vigorously exercising in a way to where it's no longer joyful, it's no longer enjoyable, and it's no longer beneficial for your body because your intake is low, your movement is slow. Is high, your insecurity levels are through the roof, your body checking, looking at yourself in the mirror, pinching, pulling, uh, you know, grabbing, jiggling, like every, everything that you're doing in front of the mirror to try and hyper focus on all the different parts of your body that you hate and that you judge and that you, you know, wish you could just remove.
That is a big part of your day. Um, you compare your plate to other people's plates.
Abbie: Yeah,
Hannah: that's real. You associate yourself with being a better... person when you eat less or when you eat things that you don't enjoy too much. You know, you don't want to experience pleasure with food. Um, you often think about maybe the phrase that I despise, which says, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.
Ah. You find power in hunger. You find pride in hunger.
Abbie: Yes. Oh, that's real.
Hannah: You're proud to not get a piece of cake when all the other ladies are. Oh, I don't need that. I don't really like cake anyway. Um, when really deep down you do. And you know that a slice of cake wouldn't hurt you anyway. You are on the pursuit of thinness at all costs.
At any cost, you are dying to be thin, literally and figuratively speaking. There is an epidemic, and that is dying to be thin.
And it really, truly has become an all consuming, modern day idol. You know, I don't think we make golden statues and things these days in 2023, but we believe that we are the gods of our bodies. We believe that we can evade disease and death. If we eat perfectly, whatever that means, we believe that we can control our intake and our movement so extremely and severely to the point that we can make our body fit into the box that we want it to fit into.
Mmm. And that, my friends, is trying to play God.
Abbie: Oh, I have so many thoughts. I'm like taking vigorous notes down here because I want to hit on everything that you said. So good. This is so real. You said that we're not, you know, doing gold statues. Maybe that's not our modern day thing. But in a sense, I feel like we are.
So many people I know are making vision boards and they have You know, maybe a picture of a dream body on their vision board or an influencer that they follow. Oh, I wish I could look like that. And if I watch their, what I eat in a day video and I eat like them, maybe I'll look like them. And so that's another way that we are almost like trying to manifest like what we want versus think about what does God want and how do I honor God with, with my body?
It's all about us and our pride and our ego. So, and I've heard it. said so many times that our ego means that we are edging God out. So when you talk about the piece of cake, I think it is so much healthier in that case to just eat the piece of cake versus having the pride in not eating the piece of cake, thinking that you are more superior for saying no, when all the other ladies are having it, because in that case.
You have so much pride over not making that food choice, that that pride is sinful and edging God out. That's getting you further away from God. And that's actually unhealthier for us. Number one, having so much food anxiety and anxiousness and fear around food or any guilt and shame around food. That is so much more unhealthier to us physically.
Then if we just ate the cake and then moved on also spiritually it's unhealthy, it's better to just eat the cake fully, enjoy it and savor it, not, you know, be gluttonous about it, but have that piece of cake and move on with that experience versus being prideful about it. And that gets us further away from God and hurts us spiritually.
Hannah: Yes, there's the, the pride that happens in our heart, and then there's also putting other people, other believers, other sisters in Christ, down, putting them down. Yes. And shaming them, and so suddenly it's like, I'm holier than thou. I brought carrots and hummus instead of carrots and ranch, you know, like, cause I don't eat ranch, , it starts to become so, so, so far and separated from the attitude that Christ demonstrated here on earth and from the attitude that God wants us to have.
He wants us to be humble and have humility and. This is such a pride thing.
Abbie: Yes, and we shouldn't be judging other people for what they're eating or how they're stewarding their bodies. There's so much judgment
Hannah: there. Judging other people for how their body reacts to maybe the same dietary patterns that you have.
I have seen so many people who have very comparable levels of intake. And one person is like within the quote unquote normal weight range and the other person is categorized as obese. And you might be looking at that person and being like, Oh, I bet they sit on their couch, on their butt, gluttonous, eating tubs of ice cream all day, and family sized bags of chips.
How dare they not honor the temple of God that is their body? First of all, do you live with them? Do you see what they do all the time? Because you could be way off. So, are you looking at someone else, judging them? With... No basis at all and then taking that and elevating yourself and be like, I'm so glad I don't do that.
I wake up. I, I walk a mile or I run a mile. I use my Peloton. I'm, you know, I eat organic. I eat non GMO. I shop at Whole Foods. I wear yoga pants. Like, I'm never going to get above a size six. Like, you know, what is that guys? Like we are daughters Of the king of kings and the lord of lords. We are in temporary human bodies that are going to die whether we like it or not because of sin because of sin.
There's disease because of sin. There is death. And unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about that. You know, speaking more specifically, like, yes, there is like some level of prevention and management of diseases and disease symptoms. With nutrition and, you know, different behaviors. Okay. So I don't want to say, like, we're all going to die, do whatever we want.
But it's... It's stating that we are in a sinful world where disease and death exist so we can take the stress off of trying to be our own God and skirt away and evade disease and death as if we are God. We are not God and I don't care if you never let your kids have candy or birthday cake, like, They're still gonna grow up and maybe when they're 80, they still might get diabetes because they're genetically predisposed to it And maybe they have to take steroids for another condition that they have and maybe their pancreas becomes fatigued And maybe they end up with diabetes anyway, and you could have just let them have birthday cake every other weekend at their friends birthday parties So it's like, it's the, it's the trying to control everything that have all outcomes of our body and our health.
That's where the problem lies.
Abbie: Yeah, . And I feel like I hear this, , line used all the time. Like, oh, my body is a temple. My body is a temple. My body is a temple. But they use that as an excuse to then take disordered action towards themselves and then also have judgment.
for how other people are or are not stewarding their bodies if they're not doing it and how that person perceives that they should be doing that. Um, yeah, it's like, yes, we want to steward our bodies well, but if we're doing it in a way that causes harm to the body, so definitely go back and listen to our episode where we talked about how breaking away from diet culture is biblical because it talks about how all of those food rules are actually what's leading to the and we are not called to Treat our bodies harshly.
So some people are doing, you know, different diets or eating a certain way in the name of health, because they're trying to treat their body like a temple and treat it well, but it's actually causing a lot more harm and stress internally and getting you farther from God because you are making those foods or that lifestyle an idol.
Hannah: Truly. Yes, yes. I just want to read, um, a little snippet from Isaiah 45 20. Just, uh, the last part of it that says, ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save. Sisters, when you get to your last breath, when you are standing before the Lord. He will not say, what is your waist size?
He will not say, are you, are you a size four? Are you a size six? Are you a size eight? Whatever it may be. He hopefully will say, well done, good and faithful servant. When our minds are set on things above not on earthly things, right? So I encourage you to really allow yourself if you're feeling convicted Allow yourself to sit in that discomfort and give it to God and be like, you know God This has become my idol.
Thinness has become my idol and I am sorry please remove this from the top of my list of priorities in this finite world and Allow me to set my eyes on things above and not waver so that I can live a life that's pleasing to you
So good.
Abbie:. Thank you for joining us on this episode of your daily bread. We hope you found inspiration and practical guidance to nourish your body and soul. Remember the journey to a healthier relationship with food and a deeper connection with Christ is ongoing and we're here to support you every step of the way.
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As we conclude today's episode, we encourage you to take what resonated with you into your quiet time with God, allow God to reveal to you any changes that you can make for his glory, trusting that you are fearfully and wonderfully made in his image. Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll continue to explore how God's word helps us heal our relationship with food in our bodies Until then may you find both physical and spiritual nourishment and may you be filled with his peace and joy.
God bless
