Last Saturday I began a diet that I would like to call the "diet where you no longer eat anything you usually do, except vegetables and begin to eat things like soy and gluten free bread". It could also be called the "diet where Sarah gets really hungry and starts losing weight because all the food she is allowed to eat tastes strange".I have not lost weight in years. Years! And today I realized that I've lost about 4 lbs since Saturday. Probably not helping is that I've not eaten since last evenings supper, due to the fact I'm on a clear liquid diet for my scope tomorrow. I'm very hungry. I'm imagining things like shrimp fettuccine and steak and bread. BREAD! I miss bread so much. You wouldn't think that a phrase like "gluten free" would mean that much, but does it ever. Gluten is in SO much of our NA food.
Let me relate to you a little story about what being on this diet is like.
Imagine a young woman, much like me, but her name's withheld for anonymity of course. She is walking around her kitchen, which is fully stocked with food, looking for her next meal. She is (as the 'hunters and gatherers' would call it) scavenging. She picks up one of her favourite comfort foods. Campbells Tomato Soup - and is just about to open it, when she notices that the ingredients include wheat flour. So, "no more soup for you!" She goes on to make a casserole, which contains milk. That idea also gets nixed. Then she thinks of a plan, spaghetti! Too bad it has wheat in the noodles. At least she can have her weird sprouted (gluten free of course) bread toasted. But what to put on it? No butter, no margarine, no peanut butter, no jam of any kind. Sigh... - salad it is.
This whole experience has left me thinking, however. I've never realized how much I think about food. I was more upset than I would have expected about starting this diet. Eating food, and making food, and planning meals is apparently something that I didn't even know I cared about so much. I really love food. And I'm glad that I've had the chance to do this diet. Not just that I might find out more about why I'm ill, but also for revealing a hidden idol.
And the not eating today thing. Well, like the 30 hour famines I've done in the past, this is teaching me again how fortunate I am. We are. Food is such a blessing, and having a full stomach such a clear example of God's common grace. I think about children in this world who live like I'm living right now, hungry. And I wonder if I can even come close to understanding what they feel like, because I know that at 1:00pm tomorrow, I'll be eating.
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