Alexandra MacKillop

Poor form during exercise (in everything from walking, to running, to lifting weights) increases the risk of injury, both acute injury like from twisting an ankle as well as from chronic injury and the development of arthritis. When we use the “wrong” muscles for a movement (like what happens with chest breathing) we end up putting abnormal stresses on joints which can wear down the cartilage and lead to that “bone on bone” type of arthritis which leads to joint replacement surgery. The diet industry likes to blame body weight for things like joint pain and arthritis, but a person’s body weight has very little to do with it. When we aren’t using the proper balance of muscles because we use incorrect training methods, or because we don’t take the time to warm up our muscles before exercise (and cool down afterwards), it creates tightness and “pulling” that disrupts the alignment or “tracking” of our joints, leading to injury.

But even if someone doesn’t like dessert foods (in general), they still enjoy things like barbecue sauce, fruit, or balsamic vinegar, for example, all of which have sweetness as the predominant flavor. I’ve shared before that I started this journey by eating ice cream at every meal, and was pleasantly surprised that after a few days, the idea of ice cream for breakfast no longer sounded good. How to Eat Intuitively by Eating Dessert Besides the fact that I now give myself permission to eat dessert on a daily basis, eating dessert actually helps me eat other types of foods more intuitively. However, the syrup in combination with the cinnamon sugar coating on the french toast sticks was quickly making me feel a little over-sugared, more than the protein in the french toast seemed to be able to balance out.

However, we recently made a batch of lentil curry simply because we did not have any other food (i.e. animal protein) in the house, and I found myself eating about twice as much food as I normally do for my given hunger level. As I noted in this post, I’ve been realizing more and more lately that I still have a tendency to try to latch on to food or my body for a sense of stability, clinging to the fact that these parts of my life are often predictable. I have decided that it is important to me to get comfortable eating all kinds of different foods because I don’t want to be averse to certain meals because of the amount of food I will need to eat to feel satisfied. Whether that means exploring the woods with my sister and her kids, trying new foods with my best friend, or traveling to a new city with my husband, everything is more enjoyable when it’s shared with the people I love.

When I was struggling with dieting and disordered eating, I had a lot of fear surrounding the relationship between food, exercise, hunger, fullness, and the size and shape of my body. Rather than trusting my body cues in hopes that it will allow me to avoid body changes (this would be rooted in fear of my body changing, which is still putting a greater emphasis on my appearance than I would like to have), freedom comes from trusting that the way God made my body is good. Body trust in the righteous sense is an expression of faith that there’s more to life than the physical, and that my outward appearance does not matter because I have such a deep sense of conviction and purpose in my life that stretches deeper than what the eye can see. Trusting that God equipped my body with the ability to regulate my eating and exercise sets me free from the pressure to diet in the name of ‘health,’ to define my identity, or to earn affection from God and others.