Intermittent Fasting
One habit that we can incorporate to improve our eating habits is the practice of intermittent fasting. Unlike other forms of diet, intermittent fasting does not just focus on the food and when we eat it. This means intermittent fasting intends to allow us to eat anything in moderation, but only for a specific timeframe within a given day.
The premise behind intermittent fasting is that the body can survive hours without food. This coincides with the eating habits of our prehistoric ancestors. As hunter-gatherers, they ate only after they had already hunted and gathered. They had no food to consume other than that they would track and gather. There was no instant food back then. Hunting and gathering took time. This also meant that they did not eat every time and got hungry. They ate when it was time to eat.
This is how intermittent fasting works. On a given day, a person only eats for about eight hours; for the rest of the sixteen hours of the day, the person fasts. This is contrary to the eating habits of many people today. Many of us are more used to eating throughout the day—for most of our waking hours. Such an eating habit has evidently led to non-communicable diseases and obesity. On the other hand, during the time of hunter-gatherers, because of their intermittent fasting, they were very much healthy; they had enough energy to do what they needed.
Intermittent fasting does wonders not just for our physical body but also for our self-discipline. This is a way to train our bodies to take only what they need rather than what they crave. Remember, excesses and indulgences are not part of God’s plan and design for our bodies.
Food is the Medicine for your Future
Hippocrates once said: “Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
In today’s modern world, which is true for us—do we eat food as if it were medicine, or do we consume so much medication as if it were our food? It appears it is the latter.
Did you know that certain foods trigger certain health conditions? On the other hand, certain foods have potent healing properties. The invitation for us today is to make sure that we know which food to choose and to be disciplined enough to choose them.
The gospel of John reminds us this: we ought to pursue food that endures eternal life, not the one that spoils. Remember, God created food for us to consume; we were not created to be consumed by food.lv The question for us today is this: With the kind of food that we eat, are we spoiling and wasting away our bodies? Or are we choosing to consume food that glorifies God and enables us to live longer and serve God better?
THE WISDOM OF THE PROVERBS ABOUT SELF-DISCIPLINE
At this point, let us go back to the passages in the book of Proverbs that pertain to discipline. However, this time, let us replace the words “son” and “child” with ourselves. This is how it will look like:
“If I love myself, I will discipline myself diligently.”
“I will not withhold discipline from myself… I will not die.”
“If I discipline myself, it will bring me rest and delight.”
There are a few things we must highlight here. First, these biblical self-affirmations about discipline tell us that self-discipline involves love for the self—the kind of self-love that is glorifying God. Next, discipline does not and will not deprive us of the good things in life. On the contrary, discipline enables us to live a full life with God. Lastly, though discipline can be painful at the start, it will enable us to reap an entire harvest of rest and delight.
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