For years (I'm 63), I've agonized over the reality that I have been unable to shed weight gained over time that amounts to over double my young adult weight. I have felt that, in heralding sexual morality regarding fertility and sex, I myself have been obviously not in tune with nutritional purity. In short, I have been a hypocrite, one not facing the log in her own eye.
It has bothered me much that while I am committed to warning others about the widely-used contraceptive hormonal Pill and the comeback in popularity, the IUD, as abortion-causing, not merely ovulation/conception preventative birth control options, I have not heeded sound advice regarding healthy eating for my own body. That itself has seemed to me to be against life: MY life! Nevertheless, I have continued, but God in His wisdom has seen fit to change all that.
In the past month or so, I haven't written on my blog. There is a reason. On August 9, I learned that I have breast cancer. As I've struggled with reasons this could have happened, one glaring possibility that I had dimly heard but largely ignored as a risk factor is that one cause of breast cancer is obesity. Wham! Guilty as charged!
I've written about how the Pill and abortion are known to cause cervical, breast, and ovarian cancer, but now I, by personal experience again, must also include that OBESITY also causes cancer, especially breast cancer after menopause, that feeds on estrogen. That is the kind that I have.
So, you might wonder, where is the blessing in this kind of "getting caught"? As I see it, getting caught going the wrong way is always God's mercy because it gives us a chance to take a good hard look when we otherwise have not been all that interested. It's a new chance to cease going down the wrong path. It's the simple truth that sets us free, after all.
I was a true rebel about changing my eating patterns. Once a dear friend subscribed to Prevention magazine for me, had it sent to my address, and when I received them, what did I do? Without opening a single cover, I dumped them promptly in the trash. How dare my friend, just because she had changed her eating habits, force her knowledge and opinions on me! Unfortunately and to my bad health, I let pride and ego prevail over truth, a truth that could have saved my health and possibly my life.
Now that cancer is a reality in my own personal life, similar to the reality of the lingering effects of using the IUD (ie. causing "silent" abortion/s that screamed inside my tuition) all those many years ago, I'm forced to do research to see the whole truth about eating right. And what have I learned are the chief cancer-causing foods so far? SUGAR is chief, because cancer cells get and feed upon five times the sugar (glucose) of healthy cells. SUGAR keeps them alive and helps them to grow and spread. There's a whole list of foods that create and acidic environment in which cancer cells develop and thrive: red meat, dairy, white flour, coffee, chocolate, soda, and aspertame (Sweet and Low, etc.) to name a few. All of these were favs of mine for a life time! Nuttin' better (or faster) than a PBJ foldover or two with a tall glass of milk around 3 or 4 o'clock on a boring afternoon.
Not any more! I'm learning to make healthier choices, choices that alkalinize the innards: raw or slightly steamed broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, kale, turnip and collard greens, spinach, parsley, and many other really good ORGANIC foods. Green juice never interested me before, but now it's the new OJ to me! I love it! I'm also drinking pure, alkalinized (not bottled) water and I'm taking whole food supplement formulas. As of today, I've dropped 16 pounds in a month without feeling deprived, but truly fed, nourished as a person of value, a person whose life is worth good nutrition.
And as I eat healthier foods, I find I crave them in favor of the acidic, cancer-promoting choices I use to crave. One good decision invites another! I also have learned that I was obese, in no small part, because I was under-hydrated and under-nourished. Mal-nourished, if you will. Who'd a thunk, to look at me!
Hallelujah! I've been caught. I don't know the final outcome, but I'm free at last from the bondage that bad food was. I feel like the woman in Scripture caught in adultery. Others wanted to stone her for her "badness," but Jesus told her, "Who is there to condemn you?" as the crowd turned away under his challenge, one by one.
"No one, Sir!" she replied.
"Then go and sin no more," he told her.
I felt similarly on my Rachel's Vineyard retreat a few years ago, when I finally face the source of a continuous nagging inexplicable depression: unresolved, unforgiven (because I hadn't known to ask for it) abortion caused by use of hormonal Pill and IUD in my early marriage, thirty plus years after the fact.
No matter what the future holds, I am at last free to go and sin no more if I choose truth once again. This time, regarding treating my own body as one worthy of respect for life.
Blessed be God forever!
To God be the glory!!!
It has bothered me much that while I am committed to warning others about the widely-used contraceptive hormonal Pill and the comeback in popularity, the IUD, as abortion-causing, not merely ovulation/conception preventative birth control options, I have not heeded sound advice regarding healthy eating for my own body. That itself has seemed to me to be against life: MY life! Nevertheless, I have continued, but God in His wisdom has seen fit to change all that.
In the past month or so, I haven't written on my blog. There is a reason. On August 9, I learned that I have breast cancer. As I've struggled with reasons this could have happened, one glaring possibility that I had dimly heard but largely ignored as a risk factor is that one cause of breast cancer is obesity. Wham! Guilty as charged!
I've written about how the Pill and abortion are known to cause cervical, breast, and ovarian cancer, but now I, by personal experience again, must also include that OBESITY also causes cancer, especially breast cancer after menopause, that feeds on estrogen. That is the kind that I have.
So, you might wonder, where is the blessing in this kind of "getting caught"? As I see it, getting caught going the wrong way is always God's mercy because it gives us a chance to take a good hard look when we otherwise have not been all that interested. It's a new chance to cease going down the wrong path. It's the simple truth that sets us free, after all.
I was a true rebel about changing my eating patterns. Once a dear friend subscribed to Prevention magazine for me, had it sent to my address, and when I received them, what did I do? Without opening a single cover, I dumped them promptly in the trash. How dare my friend, just because she had changed her eating habits, force her knowledge and opinions on me! Unfortunately and to my bad health, I let pride and ego prevail over truth, a truth that could have saved my health and possibly my life.
Now that cancer is a reality in my own personal life, similar to the reality of the lingering effects of using the IUD (ie. causing "silent" abortion/s that screamed inside my tuition) all those many years ago, I'm forced to do research to see the whole truth about eating right. And what have I learned are the chief cancer-causing foods so far? SUGAR is chief, because cancer cells get and feed upon five times the sugar (glucose) of healthy cells. SUGAR keeps them alive and helps them to grow and spread. There's a whole list of foods that create and acidic environment in which cancer cells develop and thrive: red meat, dairy, white flour, coffee, chocolate, soda, and aspertame (Sweet and Low, etc.) to name a few. All of these were favs of mine for a life time! Nuttin' better (or faster) than a PBJ foldover or two with a tall glass of milk around 3 or 4 o'clock on a boring afternoon.
Not any more! I'm learning to make healthier choices, choices that alkalinize the innards: raw or slightly steamed broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, kale, turnip and collard greens, spinach, parsley, and many other really good ORGANIC foods. Green juice never interested me before, but now it's the new OJ to me! I love it! I'm also drinking pure, alkalinized (not bottled) water and I'm taking whole food supplement formulas. As of today, I've dropped 16 pounds in a month without feeling deprived, but truly fed, nourished as a person of value, a person whose life is worth good nutrition.
And as I eat healthier foods, I find I crave them in favor of the acidic, cancer-promoting choices I use to crave. One good decision invites another! I also have learned that I was obese, in no small part, because I was under-hydrated and under-nourished. Mal-nourished, if you will. Who'd a thunk, to look at me!
Hallelujah! I've been caught. I don't know the final outcome, but I'm free at last from the bondage that bad food was. I feel like the woman in Scripture caught in adultery. Others wanted to stone her for her "badness," but Jesus told her, "Who is there to condemn you?" as the crowd turned away under his challenge, one by one.
"No one, Sir!" she replied.
"Then go and sin no more," he told her.
I felt similarly on my Rachel's Vineyard retreat a few years ago, when I finally face the source of a continuous nagging inexplicable depression: unresolved, unforgiven (because I hadn't known to ask for it) abortion caused by use of hormonal Pill and IUD in my early marriage, thirty plus years after the fact.
No matter what the future holds, I am at last free to go and sin no more if I choose truth once again. This time, regarding treating my own body as one worthy of respect for life.
Blessed be God forever!
To God be the glory!!!
Hi, Julie. I found your blog by using ask.com. Turns out it's theleaven.blogspot.com. ;-) I'll follow you now! I found Nathan's blog too. Nice talking to you today.
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