Freedom Track
As a float clinical dietitian, I bounce around different facilities and cover for different specialties. Occasionally, I cover for our eating disorders outpatient program. While I was there, one of our previous patients had readmitted to our program. Let’s call her Lucy. I had seen her at the hospital a few months before: despite being a growing adolescent, her weight had dropped to below 80 lb, a dangerously low BMI of 14, and she had come to complete denial of any problem with eating. Two hospital admissions and a residential facility later, she returned to our program, now at a safe weight, normal vitals signs, and with greater insight into her own health.
During Nutrition class, we discussed normal versus disordered eating behaviors, and the ways our emotions or stresses sometime tie into our relationship with food. At some point, I asked the class, “How does our eating disorder affect our sense of control?” Previously in denial, Lucy now thoughtfully tilted her head and said, “I used to restrict because I wanted control over my life. I felt like it was the one thing I could control. I always thought that I could stop whenever I wanted, but I realized I couldn’t…”, she tapered off. It’s a sobering and vulnerable moment to realize we actually don’t have as much control as we thought we did, and even more sobering to realize, that which you thought you had control over now has control over you.
Meanwhile, it’s Stacy’s first time in a place like this. She is a professional dancer, so the standards have been set high, especially when it comes to her figure. Yet, despite some sacrifices she’s had to make, her greater love for dancing, had made it worth skipping her meals. Her BMI was 16 when she visited the doctor’s office. After being told about some health conditions specifically related to inadequate nutrition, she realized she may not be able to continue dancing if she doesn’t take care of her physical health. During her first week in the program, Stacy expressed wanting to get better. She wanted to restore her physical health and be free from worrying about how many calories are in her food, thinking so much about food, and measuring her worth and success by the cup. At the same time, Stacy expected to return to professional dance (with all of it’s physical standards) after completing the eating disorder program. The unrealized truth is that she’ll have to choose one or the other: a healthy weight and normal relationship with food, or a career which she loves, but risks her physical health.
Coming away from that day, I was reminded of how as human beings, we often find ourselves feeling trapped with two options—a controversy, per say—with no easy way out. The right choice seems daunting and unfamiliar, yet the familiar choice is an uncomfortably vicious cycle. Normally I am able to separate work from home pretty well, but I couldn’t help but think on the spiritual applications that God gave me that day. One, we’re led to believe we’re in control over sin, but sin ends up controlling us. And two, we’re easily fooled into believing we can find freedom and healing from the damages of sin in our lives, and then go back to it with immunity from the damages it had once caused us.
The Enemy wants us to believe that we have control over how much something affect us. We’re led to believe that we can stop whenever we want, and even return back to a habit, lifestyle, or addiction without getting bitten. We’re granted a false sense of control over how much sin can damage us. Whether in the form of watching, reading, listening, thinking, and speaking, we’re made to believe that enough is enough, only as we determine it. How many times have this logic and reasoning worked for us? It’s something I relate to in many ways, and God is not unaware of the cycles we trap ourselves in.
“For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me… But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. ” (Romans 7:19-20, 23). This fight of controlling and being controlled is not unique to our time in Earth’s history; Paul wanted out of this vicious cycle, too. We often exhaust ourselves fighting a battle that isn’t ours. “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 23-25). To need help isn’t a weakness, it’s part of being a human being. It’s a part of God’s plan to restore us back to freedom from sin. To need Christ, is a part of being human.
Our eating disorder program is actually called Freedom track. Of many things, one concept we teach is intuitive eating: listening to the stomachs cues for hunger, appetite, and fullness to determine when to eat and when to stop eating. When practicing intuitive eating, patients are able determine honest feelings of hunger and fullness, without the temptation to binge due to feelings of emptiness (for example), and without the temptation to restrict out of a need for control or for weight loss. Sometimes patients are not ready for the freedom intuitive eating offers because of unhealthy relationship they have with food; therefore, the dietitian will create a meal plan to create structure in eating: this helps the stomach get used to regular eating and hunger cycles. In these cases of forced structure, the road to freedom feels like bondage. Interestingly though, before graduating from the program, patients shared that they were all thankful for the tough love, the unwanted structure, and for a team of people who would look ahead and wrestle with them to give them what they wanted in the long term, instead of what was in the moment. Sometimes we need that tough love. God’s love is not only safe, available, and full of grace and mercy: it’s strong as well.
“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses…” (Romans 8:26). “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1), and how many more promises we have in His word of truth! “And you shall know he truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32).
Tatiana Kim is a full time clinical dietitian at Loma Linda University Medical Center, as well as at the Inland Grace Adult Daycare Center.