Until the last year, I pretty much always struggled with my weight. Even when I was a baby my mum said she couldn’t fill me. I was as round and happy as a round and happy baby can be. I look at pictures now and wonder quite how the camera managed to capture the whole of me without the use of a wide angle lens. I was cute, but I was a right heffer.

I was put on my first diet at the age of 2 I think. Serious stuff. As a teenager I was under the doctor for my weight issues, having to go fortnightly for embarrassing weigh ins. Shudder. I have suffered the shame and shared stories of many a weight-watchers meeting, some of which would make a good stand-up routine.

For me, a lot of my struggles began as I tried to deliberately make myself unattractive so that I would not be a target for those predatory males that seemed to find me. But it did not work. Then, when I wanted to lose weight, I seemed unable to, and yo-yoed up and down the scales for years. I weighed myself every day. Sometimes morning and evening! I thought about every meal. I starved myself if I’d overeaten or pigged out if I’d starved. I was, in fact, a serial dieter (and sometime a cereal dieter!) with a serious problem. But because I was never annorexic, no-one really noticed. To be honest, most young females I knew had such a poor relationship with food that I fitted right in. Bulemia or just poor diet patterns are easy to hide.

It was only when I tackled the fat on the inside (the why and the how) that I started to feel comfortable about my bodyshape and weight loss became incidental.

In the past two years or so God has really drawn me close to Him concerning this issue. He spoke to me about the sin of calling myself ‘fat’ (a word which I am no longer permitted to let come out of my mouth, or into my head regarding myself) and the sin of gluttony. This is not preached about enough. Or in fact, ever. When was the last time you sat in any church anywhere and the preacher got up and shared a message on what you fill your body, your shopping list and your fridge with? I bet its a big -and I hesitate to say the F word again- FAT never too?

What is it that you feed yourself when no-one is looking? Do you stuff half a packet of biscuits into your mouth when no-one is around, feeling that twin-edge of guilt and glee? Do you ‘hungry shop’ and buy things you know are bad for you? Do you eat when you are upset or angry? Do you starve yourself before a big event hoping you’ll squeeze yourself into that impossibly tight dress that you can’t breathe in, let alone sit down in? How do you feel about your body right now? Is your body a temple? Or is it a temple of doom?

God seems to send me many people who have eating problems of one sort or another. Many of those struggles are deeply rooted in self-image (or lack of same.) Some food problems stem from a bad experience or traumatic memory and others from learnt behaviour. But a great deal of us have a very unhealthy view of the stuff we put in our trolleys.

I found this article on the CNN website recently and it made me think. Its written by a young woman who was obese for many years, but who was then able to lose many excess stones and keep her weight off. I quote part of what she wrote here:

“Finding yourself suddenly thin after a being fat is a bit like stepping into a “Saturday Night Live” sketch where Eddie Murphy goes undercover as a white guy and discovers that white people act completely differently when there are no black people around.
With no outward sign of my former body type, I have become a renegade spy for Team F.A.T.
Of course, I didn’t discover that thin people drink cocktails and dance when fat people get off the bus. But when I lost weight, I was rewarded with membership in a club I never knew existed, where the benefits included better treatment, greater professional success and, above all, a new status as qualified participant in the social world, including romantic relationships.
Of course, I lost weight to reap these benefits. But it doesn’t stop me from being angry that I had to lose weight to reap these benefits. Of those who are nice to me now, who would have been rude to me before? Which ones made the cruel jokes? Who can be trusted?
As the years pass, it is easy to forget. I have even, on a few occasions, found myself looking at an overweight person with faint disdain, forgetting those years I struggled with the very same issue. I hope never to gain back the weight I lost. But I have seen another side of people that I cannot forget. And with any luck, I never will.
I hope I always stay fat on the inside.”

So much of me agrees. I too resented the fact that people treated me differently when I was larger. I was still me… just more generously so! I certainly get much more attention from men AND women now I am thinner. It makes me sad. And happy. But then, I’m weird.

I do not allow my children to call people who eat between snacks FAT. Searching for a kinder word, we have hit upon the word ‘Strong’. Which is a tad ironic in that this is often the exact opposite of what they are.

Perhaps, like me you need to go to God and search your own heart to see whether you are eating when and what you should. Its something He cares about deeply. Know why? Because He knows how much time we waste worrying about what we look like after we’ve downed that fifth fry up. He would much prefer us to be totally focussed on stuff that really matters to Him. And, my friend, you and the enemy of your soul and your scales, know it too. Perfect is not ‘thin’ or ‘fat’. Perfect is being what God made you and I to be.

Don’t waste another second of your life filling your mouth with things that do not satisfy. Take it from one who knows. I’ve been there. I’ve eaten the T shirt.