# Weight Loss PART 2 A Word From A Doctor Language: en Author: Vincent “John” Waldron MD Gladys, VA Original issue: The Heartbeat of the Remnant, Fall 2021, Number 3 Source pages: 26–28 Read article: Original PDF: Fall\-2021\-Remnant\(1\)\.pdf [The Heartbeat of the Remnant, Fall 2021]() There are around 70 million Americans who are considered obese\. Obesity is not a derogatory term, but simply the term that doctors use to indicate people whose Body Mass Index \(BMI\) is over 30\. \(The BMI is calculated based on height and weight\.\) No one wants to be overweight\. Americans spend an estimated 33 billion dollars annually on weight loss products and yet their weights remain uncontrolled\. In the last issue we went over some myths about weight loss\. This time we will focus more on important things we can do to help control our weight and to discipline our appetites\. ## Know Yourself The first step of weight loss is doing an honest inventory of yourself\. When do you eat? What foods/meals do you struggle with? How many calories are in each meal and snack you eat? *The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? –Jeremiah 17:9\.* There is a real tendency for us to underestimate how much we eat, the size of our portions, and how often we snack\. The key here is to write down everything we eat for a few days\. If it goes in our mouth, it needs an entry in a food journal\. Making a list of these things will let us know what our weaknesses are\. It is important to remember that it isn’t enough to write down just what things we eat, but also the portion size\. There is quite a difference between the caloric content of a half cup of mashed potatoes \(107 calories\) and a cup and a half of mashed potatoes with 5 tablespoons of gravy \(400 calories\)\. ## Shop with a Purpose You shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you are hungry\. Once we’ve identified the edibles that are our weaknesses, it is important that we don’t buy those things\. If we struggle with cookies or potato chips, it is better to not buy them in the first place than it is to get a package of them and hope that we have the self\-control not to eat them all after we bring them home\. *There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it –1 Corinthians 10:13\.* Many verses in the Bible put more of a focus on us fleeing temptation instead of overcoming it\. ## Make Yourself Accountable *Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour\. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up –Ecclesiastes 4:9\-10\.* Too often when we are struggling with something, we try to fight the battle by ourselves\. Gaining control of our appetites is best accomplished with help from other brothers and sisters in the Lord\. It helps to have someone else you can discuss your plans with\. If it is an exercise regimen or a diet plan, we all do better when we are travelling the same journey as someone else\. Whether it is encouragement or prodding to do better, we need someone who will help us on our way\. ## Don’t Drink Calories We all need to drink\. Drinking an excessive amount of water won’t make you lose weight, unless it is replacing drinks that have calories\. Black coffee, unsweetened tea, and water are all good choices that naturally have no calories\. Artificial sweeteners are options for people who desire some sweetening in their drinks\. However, as time goes by, we find more things that aren’t healthy about artificial sweeteners, but they certainly are low calorie\. ## Avoid Eating in the Evenings There are a number of problems with eating in the evenings\. First of all, the quality of the food tends to drop with evening snacking\. Most of us don’t sit down with a bag of carrot sticks or celery, but rather we reach for snacks that aren’t as healthy\. A second issue is that our metabolism slows down when we are sleeping\. This is a good thing, because it leads to restful sleep, but if we eat too close to bedtime, our body is not going to digest that food very well and it will end up being put into fat stores rather than being burned for energy\. ## Cut Out Sugar and Refined Grains Everybody eats carbohydrates \(sugar\), but the type of carbohydrate does make a big difference how our body deals with them\. White flour and granulated sugar are heavily refined, so much so that they have little nutritional value, other than the calories that they hold\. When we eat refined grains and sugars, our bodies release large amounts of insulin to take care of them\. We have sugars spikes, followed by low sugars, then we feel hungry again quite quickly\. This leads us to begin the cycle all over again\. Eating grains that are not refined, like whole wheat flour, gives our bodies something that is digested more slowly and in a healthier manner\. Cutting back on processed products will not only get off this roller coaster ride of sugar spikes and sugar lows but will also make us feel better in the long run\. ## Choose a Diet There are a lot of different options out there when it comes to diets\. There are Keto Diets \(low carbohydrate\), low calorie, plus many others\. Most diets will work, but they can be quite difficult to endure, since they require the person following them to eat a very limited number of foods\. A number of studies have looked at low fat and low carbohydrate diets and found that they perform similarly in terms of weight loss\.1 From a medical standpoint, the key is to choose a diet plan that we can stick with for more than a week or two\. Too often, diets are short\-term fixes for long\-term problems\. It is crucial as well to consider our personal struggles and weaknesses\. It is even helpful to consider underlying health issues\. Someone with heart issues needs to be careful of the salt they take in, while someone with diabetes should choose a diet that is low in carbohydrate intake\. ## Think about Fasting Fasting is something that has been a Christian discipline for many years\. *Moreover **when** ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance… –Matthew 6:16\-18\.* Jesus had an expectation that His followers would fast\. The word used here is ‘when’ not ‘if\.’ Clearly there was an expectation from Jesus that they would have times of abstinence from eating\. Jesus responded to a question about why His disciples weren’t fasting: *…Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days –Luke 5:34\-35\.* Even though His followers did not fast while He was on earth, they certainly did following His ascension\. It is important to remember that fasting is not about impressing other people \(this seemed to be a big reason why the Pharisees fasted\)\. It is also not intended to be a magic potion that makes our Heavenly Father listen to our prayers and do what we ask\. ## Spiritual Benefits of Fasting There are benefits to times of abstinence from food\. Some of these are physical \(we’ll touch on them later\), but Scripture tells us that there are spiritual benefits, particularly when fasting is combined with prayer\. To begin with, fasting is a time when we learn to deny ourselves our desires\. Jesus said *…If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me –Luke 9:23\.* Our desire for God must be greater than our desire for anything else—even more than our need for food\. Fasting is a way of focusing our hearts on what is truly important\. The words of Job, *…I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food –Job 23:12,* speaks of just this attitude\. Another thing that fasting leads us to is appreciating our blessings more\. We’ve all probably heard the adage —“Hunger is the best seasoning\.” Our society is blessed with an abundance of food as well as many material things\. Fasting for a period of time will lead us to appreciate that abundance rather than take it for granted\. Times of feasting are of greater enjoyment if we also have times of fasting\. Fasting also seems to bring some special power for Christians\. In Mark 9:28,29 the disciples asked Jesus *…Why could not we cast him \[the evil spirit\] out? –Mark 9:28\.* His response was that *…This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting –Mark 9:29\.* God’s power does not wax and wane\. It is always strong to save\. But somehow, when we deny ourselves, it gives the Spirit a more free course to work His perfect will in our lives\. Maybe the reason that God’s Spirit does not move in the American church in the 21st century the way we would like is simply that His people don’t deny themselves and focus on their Lord enough\. I am sure there are many other reasons to think about fasting\. The early church had times of feasting and times of fasting\. We should as well\. ## Physical Benefits of Fasting There are a number of benefits to what researchers call “Intermittent Fasting\.” Even if there was no spiritual benefit to fasting, it still would be worth considering\. Typically, when researchers look at it, they have people fast for 24 hours at least one day a week\. The studies show a number of things that improve with fasting\. ### Weight Loss First, when people fast on a regular basis they find that they are able to control their weight more easily\. Many studies show significant weight loss for people who fast on a regular basis\.2 Obviously, this is not going to be true if fasting is only done once or twice a year, but it does seem to help when done regularly\. ### Blood Pressure Reduction Another thing that we see with intermittent fasting is blood pressure reductions\. A study showed a reduction in systolic blood pressure of about seven points for people who were doing regular fasting\.3 ### Healthy Cholesterol It also seems that fasting done regularly reduces the level of fats in our blood stream—both cholesterol and triglycerides\. Over time, this, combined with reductions in blood pressure should lead to reductions in vascular disease, such as strokes and heart attacks\. ### Healthier Insulin Levels Fasting also seems to help significantly with insulin resistance\. This is one of the core issues with adult\-onset diabetes\. Studies show that when people fast regularly, their insulin levels drop\.4 Reduction of insulin resistance and insulin levels could slow someone’s progress to developing diabetes or help those who have diabetes to get control with less medication\. ### Better Sleep Patterns One final benefit seems to be better sleep patterns\. People who fast in the evenings seem to sleep better than those who eat a big evening meal\.5 Fasting isn’t the solution for all of our health problems, but it certainly does have significant health benefits\. ## Intermittent Fasting in Practice There are a number of different fasting plans that are popular\. One is simply to alternate normal eating days and “fasting” days\. A fasting day is typically not a total fast, but a day where the number of calories are limited to 25 percent of what is normally required to maintain weight \(typically around 400 to 500 calories\)\. Another option is a 5:2 plan where there are 2 days of fasting per week and 5 normal eating days\. One final thing, which isn’t really fasting, is time\-restricted eating\. In this timed eating, people only eat or drink calories for an eight\-hour window each day\. People will only drink water, black coffee, or unsweet tea for the time from 6 pm to 10 am and they can then eat between 10 am and 6 pm\. ## Conclusion There are many different diet plans from which we can choose\. It is important to choose a plan that we can stick with for the long run\. I like the term “lifestyle changes” rather than “diet” because most people treat diets as a short\-term fix\. It is more important to decide on a pattern of eating and stick with that\. Even more importantly, we need to commit to denying ourselves and focusing ourselves on God\. Regardless of our weight, we need to have a God\-controlled life\. Regular fasting can \(and should\) be a part of that\. Taking time away from food and filling it with prayer will lead us to a closer walk with God and opens the door to His Spirit moving in our lives, which is what we really need most of all\. ### Endnotes 1. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673150/ 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/ 3. https://content.iospress.com/articles/nutrition-and-healthy-aging/nha170036 4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6521152/ 5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6292409/