Perhaps bringing God into the equation is what we are really all looking for.  All diets have us too focused on food choices; and deep down, I believe, we all know what good nutrition is. 

I discovered Suzanne Fowler, a Catholic mom of seven who created The Light Weigh.  (She’s been on EWTN.) It’s an entirely different approach to our bodies by having us focus on overcoming temptation by deepening our relationship with God. 

The goal is to make peace with food and our bodies, which is something no diet plan has ever offered me. 

Here’s the site: http://www.lightweigh.com

Thank you Danielle. I am now twenty weeks along with my third and have so far gained no weight despite eating very well but the baby is growing well I guess off the “reserves” I had before getting pregnant. My doctor asked me last month to have seconds at Christmas dinner and gain 1 pound this month not something like five or six pounds which would be “normal” at this point but for me, unattainable without making myself sick.

She didn’t make me feel as though I was a bad mother for not gaining, but at the same time wants me to spend a little more time on me and my health for the baby. The LAST thing I want is to be on bedrest in my last trimester with two toddlers!

I have always hated diets, so thhis year my husband and I have decided to change our eating habits. Just control portions and limit sweets and no more pop. The most important thing is that we are working out. I think the key is not to make drastic changes in eating or exercise, the more extreme the lifestyle changes the more likely to fail. I am just looking to get back to my normal weight before I have another baby!

Very well said Danielle.  I am again resolving to drop a bit of weight (I mean, the last baby IS 3 years old , and I have always resigned myself to the fact that this means less in and more out.  I don’t obsess…I like food too much to do that!  And I am faithful about vigorous exercise five days a week for an hour - just me and the news in my basement.  I have greater resolve this time…just need to not put so many goodies in my mouth.

Complicating things though are comments like this from my six year old at mass yesterday: “Sigh.  One thing I love about you mom is that your arms are so nice and squishy” he says as he leans against me in the pew.  I NEVER wanted squishy arms - I do plenty of tricep/bicep weight work for that!  But if a six year old loves them…...what’s a woman to do?!?

3 pounds??

Before children I’d expect to experience that much change in weight in a month simply due to hormonal changes (the most annoying part was that I’d go up and down by half a cup size as well).

Since then I’ve been regularly gaining weight (due to pregnancy) and losing weight postpartum.  As long as the change is in the right direction I’m happy, regardless of the numbers.

Hi Danielle -

I’m with you on all the reasons you hate diets. But two things to think about:

1.  For people who are carrying around 100 extra pounds - as I was in 2005 - a drastic diet dies not threaten health as much as keeping the weight on.  My blood pressure was 180/130.  The faster it came down, the better.

2.  Many women who are drastically overweight get discouraged when weight comes off slowly.  For me, a highly-restrictive diet worked because it kept me motivated to continue until I had lost 80 pounds.  I have kept off 70 for almost three years and am going back now to lost the final 30.

3. We always need to be led by the Holy Spirit.  God didn’t make us from a cookie cutter.  While we can read lots of wise women saying wise things, every woman must - must! - listen for the still small voice and go with that regardless of the criticism she faces from outside.  God works in mysterious ways.  How could I possibly tell you the spiritual work that God did in me when I went on the drastic diet in 2006 which allowed God to speak to my heart about so many things that were wrong with me????  My sense of entitlement because I was such a good Christian woman working so hard, my denial, how I had harmed my family.  For me, a drastic diet was like being put on a desert island with only God to reckon with.  And I began to hear him more clearly. 

In fact in 2007, I came back to the Catholic Church after 20 years of being an evangelical with all the prejudice that implies.

I know you are trying for something light here, but for some of us, this is a life-and-death matter.  And a spiritual life-and-death matter.  We are struggling to make things right with our Heavenly Father and we need encouragement.  We really do.  Some of us are not as strong as others and the slightest judgment from a sister in Christ we admire might make the difference between perseverance and moral failure.

By the way, I understand what you mean about exchanging one type of food obsession with another.  Which is why what worked for me was eating a couple eggs or a can of tuna or a vegetable without dreaming up recipes or spending any time at all thinking about food - just learning to eat to survive. 

Also btw, during the nine months I lost 80 pounds I cooked my family’s meals and never touched them.  I did not make a big deal of my diet and did not obsess.  I simply tried to please my Father by allowing Him to help me put food in its proper perspective.

Again, I know you meant to be light, but there is so much at stake here, I felt it needed to be said.

Love, grace, and peace to you
Barbara Curtis

The last 3 pounds. Hmmmmmmmmm. I’m on the last 10 to my first goal weight. It seems like it is going in the opposite direction right now, but that is because the holidays have taken their toll.  I’m finding it a little more difficult to “get back on the wagon” this year.  Maybe it is because I have lost 70 pounds already.  I just need to get back to the old routine.  The fact that I am being featured in F&F;for my weight loss story is enough to motivate me big time!  The other motivation is knowing how good I feel when I am back on the wagon. My “diet” is more a lifestyle change.  Right now I’m still on a sugar high. Once I detox myself of that I’ll be OK.  I never once ate gluten or dairy or soy on purpose during the holidays though!  If I did I am positively sure I would be sick sick sick!  Just like Barbara, I need to restrict what I eat, and a small portion is “normal” to me now.  I have lost consistently over the past year and 4 months, and have never been hungry.  Eating healthy snacks like nuts always keeps me full. 
Here’s to a healthy 2009 !

Oh gosh.  Three pounds?  That sounds like…more than three pounds are the issue.  We all do that, don’t we?  If I just…then I can…

That reasoning is so easy to have and that way if thinking is so destructive because it makes us postpone really living.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.

Barbara, I am not sure why you think I am trying to be light. I am not at all. I mean every word of what I wrote and was motivated to write it by real life people I know and love who HATE themselves for carrying extra weight. I don’t think that anything I have said contradicts what what you have done/are doing to control your weight.

Maybe you took my link to your site as a chastisement of sorts? If so, I apologize as I did not mean it that way at all. Sometimes we do get drastically off track and drastic measures might be necessary to put us back in the direction of good health. I applaud you for recognizing a problem in yourself and taking on the responsibility of fixing it.

I just hate to see our cultural obsession with food and bodies that makes beautiful women hate themselves. I hate that our culture makes mothers feel bad for looking like mothers instead of adolescents.

I want every woman to have a healthy body and mind. It might very well take a diet to get some of us there—but I want to be sure that in our earnest to lose weight, we don’t head too far in the opposite direction in a way that is harmful to our souls.

Danielle,
For some reason, I cannot read your article in it’s entirety?  It simply says, “(Our own) Lisa Hendey is contemplating the meaning of being….” then it says “comments”.....

please help when you have a moment

“Diets can be good things. They can help us break life-long habits of gluttony and sloth and put us on a path toward physical health and fitness. But they can be dangerous things too. When we find ourselves fretting over 3 pounds, I think things have gone too far.”

I agree but I would say that I think the 3 pounds example is more the exception than the norm—at least it is in my experience.

As one of those women on a new weight loss regime I can say for certain that I don’t hate myself. 

I don’t hate my body and I don’t feel like I am a failure for being overweight. 

But I am not healthy and because of it I cannot serve my family or the body of Christ as well as I should be able to. 

My overweight body and poor food choices affect my mood, my energy level and my ability to concentrate and even pray.  I know this because changing my eating habits has already brought improvement in these areas of my life and I’m losing weight to boot! 

I don’t expect to look like a runway model—I don’t even want to! —but I do believe that God expects me to take better care of this body He gave me. And I do know I need to be a much better steward of it.

I have researched my weight loss regime choice and made certain that it is both safe and healthy.  My doctor is fine with it and we have discussed it at length.  Since I am neither pregnant or nursing we both feel that this is a good time to make a serious and long lasting change. 

But for me it’s about a whole lot more than losing weight.  It’s about becoming the woman God has created me to be and facing the things that can be hard to face on that path.

It’s about being a witness to the world and my family.  About being authentic and finding my true beauty —the beauty within.

Am I the only one who understands the 3 pounds comment?

It’s not that I don’t expect my weight to fluctuate up and down from day to day whether I am dieting or not. It does - by more than 3 pounds - and that is fine.

But when I set a weight loss goal for myself of weighing, say, 140 pounds, I want to SEE 140 on the scale, at least once, during the day-to-day fluctuations before I declare my diet over. As long as I have seen it once it’s fine if the next day is 142 and then 143 and then 141, but it’s frustrating to have set the goal as 140 and day after day never see the numbers go lower than 143 because then I don’t feel like I can really say that I am done.

I don’t think there’s anything unhealthy or obsessive about wanting to achieve a reasonable weight loss goal in a concrete way. Think of it this way, if you set a goal to save up $1000 in the next six months, wouldn’t you feel a little bit frustrated if at the end of that time you had saved $975 instead? And maybe you might keep saving just a little bit longer to make it all the way to $1000?

I agree with you. In my teens and 20’s I had a bad relationship to food, a complicated system of rewards and indulgences. Over time (20 years) I’ve gradually walked away from that. I refuse to diet, unless it simply consists of a few items that I’m happy to do without indefinitely, provided I don’t agonize over or miss them.
I’m probably “heavy” by our cultural standards - heavier than some, lighter than others.  I’m me. My husband loves me as I am, and God does.  I don’t ever gorge myself on anything. I don’t think about food and I can leave one bite of each dish on my plate if I prefer. I stop when I’m full. A bag of my favorite chocolates can last by my bedside for 2 months.

I love to read about other countries, France or Italy, where people enjoy their food, in moderate amounts, and don’t think about their weight. They are active but don’t “exercise.” I wish Americans could be that way. IMO, when a person is obsessed with dieting, she’s still obsessed with food.

I agree with all of your reasons for not liking diets and was originally opposed to them.  But when I was gaining weight, not able to lose it, and started getting knee problems, I joined Weight Watchers as a last resort.  I actually have found it to be a lot better than anticipated. After a few months I have an idea of what and how much is good to eat and how to incorporate “treats” into my diet so that I don’t have to look everything up all the time. I also like the fact that I only weigh myself once a week (it takes away a lot of previous obsessing). 

Also, WW says that you should make a personal plan with your doctor for pregnancy and receive permission to start counting points again while breast feeding because your baby’s nutrition comes first. When you do start counting again, they allow plenty of extra points for breast feeding. I like this system because it is realistic and healthy for pregnancy.

Overall, controlling what I eat has made me realize my personal struggle with gluttony. I am very humbled to realize that I am sinful in this way. Prayer has been the most important part of my getting back in shape.

Danielle is totally right about eating healthy foods and exercising being the most important thing and I commend her for being able to do that without help. I tried to do it on my own but couldn’t and have much appreciated the help of WW. I do not have children yet but my hope is by the time they come, I will have formed good habits that they can take after.

Thank you for addressing this very important subject. I feel very encouraged by the conversation!

Thanks for posting on this.  I’ve been feeling particularly sluggish carrying around the post-partum weight from my last pregnancy; and especially bitter about it because our son passed away during delivery.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the “it was all worth it to get the baby in the end” attitude that I usually do after gaining the same 45 pounds during pregnancy.  (Obviously, I’ve been a whirlwind of emotions given the situation, but carrying around extra weight is difficult both physically and emotionally.)  And not having the added benefit of loosing the first pounds with the help of breastfeeding (although I agree that the body hangs on in the end to whatever extra fat it can get to produce milk) it seems that the weight couldn’t come off any slower.  So, as of now, I will try to change my attitude in this regard and try not to obsess about the pounds and focus on a healthy me—physically and spiritually.

As someone who struggled with a clinically diagnosed eating disorder, I’m very, very passionate about this topic. Diets are destructive. Lifestyle changes are not. I despise the word “diet.” I despise when people (including myself, I’m afraid) label food as good or bad. I hate it that I still struggle with body image problems, even after being clinically “recovered.” I hate it that women who will never be diagnosed with an eating disorder don’t see that they still have a problem when they think about their weight/appearance constantly.

I do think health must be a priority, but when women start confusing good health with squeezing into size 2 jeans (or losing that last three pounds), there’s a problem.

It’s time all women – mothers, sisters, grandmothers, wives, girlfriends – take it upon themselves to stop the self-loathing and the “lookism” permeating in our culture. It’s time we remember we are made in the image of God and that our bodies truly are temples that deserve our respect. It’s time we help our children develop positive body images and not support media that perpetuate unhealthy and unnatural bodies. What’s important is being healthy and knowing our worth is much deeper than our dress size.

As a woman who once was at war with her body, trust me on this one. A fixation with weight only robs you of your inner peace and health. And even when the scale is cheering you on to lose more weight - it is only a hollow, ephemeral espousal that knows nothing of true happiness.

(The last two paragraphs are an excerpt from a post I wrote at In God’s Image, a blog devoted to exploring the intersection between faith and fitness. I also wrote a piece for Canticle that was later reprinted at Catholic Exchange that explains how my Catholic faith has helped me make peace with my body. If anyone is interested, you can find it here: http://catholicexchange.com/2008/07/12/113113/.)

God bless you all.

Danielle,

Thank you for reposting the rest of the article!

I agree with many of the concerns you, and the other commenters had to say.

How about an article about which way is best, using all of us?  Kind of a “Consumer Reports” version of “Holistic, Catholic weight loss”?

God bless all on this journey.

Final thoughts:

My only caution to all the women reading and thinking about this issue is to avoid judging other women and sabotaging their efforts at self-improvement.  We simply cannot judge whether their motivations are “pure” or “correct.”

Some women are in crisis with obesity.  They need encouragement and prayer.  One of the beautiful things I’ve enjoyed learning as a Catholic revert is to judge less and trust more.  If a woman wants to lose weight and she needs to, I will give her all the help and support and encouragement I can.  The last thing she needs is excuses to maintain an unhealthy lifestyle - I know from experience because I listened to all those lies.

For whatever reason overweight women decide to lose weight, God will probably be revealing the true spiritual reasons through the journey.  That is the way it happened for me. 

Those of you who are approaching this from a different perspective ARE ASSUMING AN AWFUL LOT about the private thoughts and motivations of other women.  If you are concerned, why not pray for them instead of projecting your own issues on to others?

I really like to give other women the benefit of a doubt.  We all need to be careful to be kinder and more compassionate to one another - less harsh and judgmental.

Barbara and others, I agree with you that we should never project our own feelings and history on others (I do have a tendency to do that). Likewise, I truly admire women who make healthy lifestyle changes and lose weight the healthy way without becoming obsessed. The word “diet” is not inherently bad. Nor is losing weight and improving our health in other ways. On the contrary. Our bodies are temples and God wants us to take care of them (they’re on loan from Him, after all!) - to not pollute them with unhealthy things and to treat them with respect. However, I see far too many women berate themselves for not looking a certain way. Many of my friends are constantly on a diet - depriving themselves or exercising to extremes or hyper-analyzing the image they see in the mirror. As I’ve written before, God does not see what we see. He sees our souls, and we must be concerned with the health of our souls above all.

In my own personal experience, I’ve found that when I was constantly trying to weigh a certain amount, I was not spiritually at peace. It’s still a constant struggle for me (to be at peace with my body), but turning to God and my faith has really helped.

Again, I commend all women who make healthy changes and find the balance to love themselves while still making room for self-improvement. I’ve learned that food is neither my friend or my foe. It’s simply fuel. So many of us have forgotten HOW to eat. It’s a matter of listening to our bodies and determining if we’re really hungry (or starving) for food or something else. (I realize that might sound a little high-minded, but I do think eating or not eating can become a vehicle for expressing other feelings.)

I am sorry if my original comments might have offended anyone or if I seemed to suggest that anyone looking to “diet” is obsessed.  In fact, I’m actually always looking for positive and life-affirming health and weight loss success stories as the health writer for F&F;(email me your story at kmwicker [at] gmail [dot] com).

Here’s to healthy bodies, minds, and most of all, souls in 2009!

i think the fact that this post has the post comments,says it all!