Want to lose weight? Eat less.

A little bit on diet. I have been obsessed with diet and nutrition for a couple of decades now. My interest began in bodybuilding, to achieve a certain look. Occassionally I'll find a bit of paper with calculation on it for macronutrient ratios or for the correct number of grams or servings of carbs or protein. This was quite an obsession with me, though I didn't recognize it. I would eat every 2.5 hours to ensure I wouldn't canabalize muscle. This routine became quite binding. I would bring my food with me in a cooler to ensure I had enough when I needed it. My wife and brother in law still joke about how on a trip from Philadelphia down to South Carolina how at 4:00 am I pulled out a small tupperware container of lima beans and tuna to eat.
I read Gwen Schamblin's The Weigh Down Diet at some point. I had realized I was in a bondage to food prior to this. It used to concern me that I would not consider doing a fast for religious reasons out of fear of shrinking or losing muscle mass due to lack of food intake. After reading Gwen's book, I realized I was making an idol out of appearance. I was not serving the Lord, I was serving myself and bowing down to an image in hopes of what it could give me. In short, men would fear me and women would want me. The eating plan was just a means to an end, or the fruit of my desire to look a certain way. It was caring more about what kind of person I was and wanting to be devoted to the Lord that began to break the obsession. I wanted my heart to be committed to God and not to any thing. I wanted to serve Him, not me. I was equally enslaved to food as the most obese person; we just approached it differently for different reasons but both the obese' obsession with food and mine are equally self focused and equally binding.
1 Corinthians 10: 31 says, "Therefore, whether you eat r drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." I began to contemplate what it means to eat unto the glory of God. I believe, obviously, that we are created and that God gives us food to sustain us, to give us pleasure, and to celebrate with. It's not for nothin' that when God and man are reunited for eternity that God throws a party and a feast. Yet, this is not how I was approaching food. After reflecting, I figured that God put signals within our bodies to clue us in to when to eat, and when to stop. I began eating only when hungry, feeding my body when it was asking for food. I would trust that God would give me what I needed. I also stopped fearing all processed foods. I went on a burger binge it seemed like. Every time I went out to eat and was really hungry, a burger and fries just sounded RIGHT, and they tasted oh so good. Eating began to become an art. It's fairly easy to wait till you're hungry to eat. It's harder to know when you are full, or, rather, to STOP when your belly begins to tell you you have had enough instead of ignoring it and eating more because it tastes good. I have realized that I tend to overeat because I enjoy the taste of the food. In that, I am no differnt than the children of Israel in the desert when they were craving the garlic and leeks of Egypt. Their desire was enough to distort their perception of reality, to forget God, and to long to return to Egypt. Think about that. They were SLAVES, mistreated slaves at that. Their desire for tasty food warped their perception, literally turning them into fools, leading them to forget the redemption they had experienced and the God who had saved them and to long to return to circumstances that were oppressive and life stultifying. I am the same. Just one more bite, it won't hurt me. Yet, that bite is in service of me and my appetites, and definitely not to God's glory.
What about that phrase, to God's glory? I think it means when we live unto God, for his pleasure, follwing His will and not our own, we look different, attractive (not just physically but primarily in our character) and people notice, and they are drawn to God. We can then point to HIm as the source. We are to make Him look good in how we live. Following our hunger and satiety does that. It balances our weight and leads us away from the dangers of obesity and overindulgence. Exercise shoud be added to the equation as well as we were created in the garden to DO something, to move about. When we follow our hunger and satiety and exercise, our bodies will look good, we will be healthy, and God will look good through us for His wisdom in how we were created.
Weight loss can be accelerated as well with intermittent fasting. Our bodies are meant to store excess energy in times of abundance, or overindulgence, and to access that energy and burn it for energy when none is taken in in the form of food (God's wisdom on display once more). Through brief (24 hours) intermittent (1-2 times per week) fasting, our bodies are given the opportunity to access the excess and use some (burn off body fat) If we are doing resistance training a few times per week our muscle mass will be retained. In addition, research is showing that calorie restriction and fasting in particular offers many health benefits. Of course it does, it brings glory to God pointing out his wisdom in how we are made.
So, I have found some serious freedom in regards to food. The change began in my heart with wanting something else more than to look good, but instead to honor and serve God. It then worked it's way out into my behaviors and emotions. Of course, as we are all like trees according to Jesus ( Mt 7:15-21). What begins on the inside is inevitably displayed on the outside. Praise be to God for his Wisdom and for sharing it with us. I love to get very hungry, then try to find the best possible food to eat, indulging my tastebuds and praising God for his goodness. I hate feeling overfull, semi-stuffed. Eat relatively whole foods as this is what God made, and enjoy your food, but serve the Lord first in your heart and you can regain a healthy relationship with food.