Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi and welcome to Revelation Within On the Go. I'm Heidi Biles-Mapperson, one of your hosts and the owner and lead coach of the Revelation Within ministry.

Speaker 2: 0:10

And I'm Christina Motley, your other host, also a Revelation Within coach and Heidi's partner in all things Revelation Within. We are so happy to invite you to join us for this episode of Revelation Within.

Speaker 1: 0:25

We are so glad you're here with us today, definitely, and we're going to continue our series where we unpack each of the five intentions of spirit led eating. This is a series we started a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks back, and we're just going to keep going as we address intention number three today. But before we do this, we're going to do what we love to do and that is read through all of the five intentions and you know, if you ever wanted to memorize this, just keep listening to these. We're going to have a down pat. But if you want a copy of the intentions to print out, you can get that by visiting teamlifeisgoodcom forward slash five intentions. And that's the number five, not the word written out teamlifeisgoodcom forward slash five intentions. And you can just print it out and have it, put it on your fridge, put it on your phone, you can do anything you want with it.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Put it on a mug oh, you already did that. I have it right here, and I love my mug with my five intentions, yay, all right. So I'll read that first little paragraph that we have in front of the intentions, which kind of just sets the stage for us here. It's full of such good truth. My body is a gift from God to me and is fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image and by his careful and loving design. I am his beautiful masterpiece, his poetry in motion, one of a kind. I look to the Holy Spirit for his wisdom and loving leadership. Therefore, I will honor my God-given body with these intentions.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Intention number one. I will busy myself as the Spirit leads until I prayerfully sense a physical hunger signal.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Okay, and we did a podcast just on that one just a few weeks ago. And also on number two, I will invite the spirit of God into my meal with a heart of gratitude and praise. Doesn't that sound amazing?

Speaker 1: 2:38

Number three we're going to unpack today, and here it is. I will choose food in a just right sized portion that delights my taste buds and causes my body to feel energized and strong.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Okay, and number four I will create a peaceful eating experience by being present with the food and reducing distractions.

Speaker 1: 3:02

And number five. I will stop eating before my stomach is full, at the peaceful place, of just enough.

Speaker 2: 3:10

All right, fantastic. So we're going to be taking one intention at a time, and today we're focusing on number three, which I'll read one more time. I will choose food in a just right size portion that delights my taste buds and causes my body to feel energized and strong.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Yay. And the scripture that we have for this is Psalm 145, verse 15 and 16, which says the eyes of all look to you and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Speaker 2: 3:48

Okay.

Speaker 2: 3:49

So let's talk a little bit about this intention. Why did we choose it? Why did we include the words that we did? What does it mean? What's important about it? So we'll kind of walk through from the beginning to the end and we'll start with the first three words. I will choose Okay.

Speaker 2: 4:10

And so I love beginning with this because I love to be reminded, and I need to be reminded, that I have a choice. Every time I get ready to eat, when my stomach says, hey, christina, I need some fuel, and I get that really good, strong, wonderful hunger signal. I get to choose. I have that choice and I think that's just so important to me because for so many years I was looking to someone else to tell me what to choose. I didn't own that. I didn't realize. I thought, well, I can't choose, you know, because I'm not good at this, I don't know how to do this, I mess it up every time. So I'm going to ask someone else, someone who is a diet guru or whatever tell me what to choose, yeah or a book or a magazine article?

Speaker 2: 5:02

Well, of course nobody reads magazines anymore.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Well, some people do. I'll find it on Facebook. That's a reliable place to be told Exactly, or?

Speaker 2: 5:11

Instagram or TikTok, or tell me what to do, tell me what to choose and when and how much, and just tell me and I'll do it. But then somehow I was never able to do it for more than a few days or hours. So I love that this begins with I will choose. We have a choice, and the best way to make a choice is to invite God in. So, that's why we use the word prayerfully. I want to choose what God wants for me, and I love that we begin with that.

Speaker 1: 5:50

You know, this part of the intention really resonates for me, because I did the whole diet thing too. You know, with the good foods list, bad foods list, and you can't have this, you can't have that, but you must eat this. And I hated, I hated the foods that were on the you must eat this list anyway, but as a child growing up, I had no choices when it came to food.

Speaker 1: 6:14

My parents literally shoveled food into my mouth and, would you know, they would treat me badly based on my resistance to foods that they were trying to feed me and there was no choice. There really wasn't, and in other ways this showed up, but many of us have had experiences in our life where we didn't feel like we had a choice.

Speaker 1: 6:40

Chances are now we're grown adults who are probably listening to this, unless you're a very unique eight-year-old and you do have choices that you can make and, even better, you have the Holy Spirit of God in you who can give you wisdom to know what choice would be best, and that's just a beautiful place to be. Even as a young adult, I didn't understand that. I have volition, I have agency, I have choice, I have the ability to choose, and that means even choosing food. What food I eat, what food goes in my mouth, is totally on me and nobody else. It's kind of fascinating really it is else. It's kind of fascinating really it is Okay.

Speaker 1: 7:34

So the next part obviously, food is what we're choosing in this intention. But how are we going to go about doing that in a just right sized portion? Now, this is very different from our society's standards and this is a huge deal. It really is Just right sized portion. What really is just right sized portion? What does that even look like? What does that even mean? And how does a just right sized portion land when I eat it? I mean it has a feel in my stomach, you know, because my stomach will kind of indicate oh, that was a just right sized portion. Don't keep going right, right.

Speaker 2: 8:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:09

Good question. Yeah, our society standards are way different than I think what we really need in this regard. I think it's a huge deal. Christina, I encouraged her some time back Gosh, it was a long time ago, a couple years ago to create this group in our little RevWithinteam community called Eating With Joy. I think is what it's called Eating with Christina.

Speaker 1: 8:34

There we go, joyful Eating With Christina, and in this group she has taken pictures of all kinds of meals that she prepared for herself. I'm gonna let her tell you about that in just a minute. But this idea came in my life to me when my kids' dad we were still married and he said I don't think your clients have any idea how little food it takes to satisfy you and you're very active. This was what he said to me. And he said what would happen if you took pictures of what you're serving yourself and then how much is left at the end of your meal, since you don't eat at all, and just started sharing with your clients how little food it actually takes? And given that I had two kids, four horses, two dogs and a chinchilla, I know that chinchilla put me over the top.

Speaker 2: 9:30

Yeah, for sure. I don't even know what that would be like.

Speaker 1: 9:32

And then five acres that needed fence building and all kinds of other things that we did to it. I was active and it was even when I took the pictures. I was pretty impressed how remarkably efficient my body must be. Just one of these high portions is not even a fraction of those meal deals that we get when we go out to a restaurant or something. It's amazing. So anyway, christina, would you tell us a little bit about your group in our community? And no, it's not to sell the community, though we do want to have you in our community.

Speaker 2: 10:10

We really do.

Speaker 1: 10:11

But it's just because it's been a learning experience for us, hasn't it been?

Speaker 2: 10:16

Oh yeah, absolutely yeah. This was so much fun and it's still fun. We're not really adding to it very much right now, but it's a resource. It's there where you can kind of take a look. So of course, heidi was my coach and years ago well, 10, 10 and a half years ago I asked her the same question when we were coaching, because I thought you know what? I have no idea what a just right size portion is. I know that I've been eating too much for too long or too little, like I would be on that pendulum swing. You know where I would restrict, restrict, restrict and just have, like here's this little tiny grain of rice, that's your lunch, and then I'd be hungry half the day. And then you know, and then just go to the other end of it and eat way, way, way too much. I was not listening to my body, I didn't know what hunger signals were, or I was kind of just a mess anyway. So when I started with coaching with Heidi, I asked her a lot of questions.

Speaker 2: 11:24

I was asking her all the time, all the time what do you do, heidi? Well, tell me your experience. Well, show me your food. Well, what about this, what about that? And Heidi was trying to, like you know, coach me, and all I could do was ask her questions, which is good, yeah. But I remember just, I wanted to get into your head and like find out, you know, how do you do this? Because I was just so excited about it, excited about, of course, the renewing of the mind and changing my thought patterns I have to mention that because that's really the key here but also, what does it look like practically? And so Heidi would send pictures, and she sent before and after pictures, and I was amazed Food before and after, not body before and after, food before and after no, no, she would send.

Speaker 2: 12:17

And then I think it was only a month into our a different friend because we hardly even knew each other at the time and climbed some mountains and we actually had a meal together and so I I got to watch her and um, and that did involve chocolate cake at the end of the meal we had a great time.

Speaker 1: 12:41

We shared four ways.

Speaker 2: 12:43

We did. We had the four of us there, and so it was fascinating to me. I thought, wow, this is like I'm starting brand new, like a baby, like a little kid. So anyway, for years I coached with Heidi in groups and then, when it came time for me to coach one-on-one, I realized that people were going to ask me the same question. And they did.

Speaker 2: 13:10

And of course, when you're one-on-one, people get more bold and it's like okay, christina, what does this look like? What in the world are you eating and how much? And it's not like there's one right way as far as what you put on your plate Certainly not, but it is helpful sometimes just to see what other people are doing. And so it was Heidi's idea to start this group. We started taking pictures of our meals and a lot of people had fun with it. We all started going to thrift stores and buying beautiful little salad size plates, dessert size plates you know that size and just really enjoying a variety of food and foods that we really enjoy, and picking things that you know our taste buds love and the rest of our body loves as well. And we created kind of this whole lineup of pictures that you can go in and see, um, not just from me but from a lot, a lot of people who kind of joined in and we had fun with it for a time, but it's there now for a resource.

Speaker 2: 14:14

For sure, in case you haven't heard us say this before, which I'm pretty sure you have your stomach is not way down below where your digestion is. I just asked someone this the other day because they asked me about what I do and they had no idea. They had never heard of any of this or intuitive eating or any of it, and I asked her. I said where is your stomach? Do you know where it is? And she didn't know. She pointed to you know, like her area where you know, the area down low where her intestines are. Oh, wow, yeah, and I thought that was me. I didn't know where it was. So your actual physical stomach is up way up in the middle, kind of where your sternum is, and to the left a little bit.

Speaker 1: 15:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:02

And that's where you'll feel and kind of hear maybe but sense, I think, is the word I want to say your hunger signal and your stomach is about the size of your loosely held fist, and you can Google that, it's true.

Speaker 1: 15:22

Yeah, so that's kind of a way to begin, yes, and that fist size portion is likely to be close to your just right size portion. And that's amazing to me. Now when you go, if you do visit us at revwithinteam and go into Christina's group, you will see all different kinds of foods and whatnot on these beautiful plates and not everybody has the same needs. So, like Christina, at the stage of life she's in, I think it's remarkable how little food it takes. But somebody I mean it was not that long ago when it did take more food for you, I think Is that fair to say?

Speaker 2: 17:19

Well, yes, because I'm in menopause now, which seems to change quite a few things.

Speaker 1: 17:26

Right, but your hunger signal remains reliable, right? It's just telling you less food is needed and maybe the meals will come a little bit more frequently. Maybe, or maybe not.

Speaker 2: 17:38

And also since I was involved with that group, my body doesn't like dairy anymore, so there's a lot of pictures of me eating things with dairy and that's gone bye-bye.

Speaker 1: 17:50

Yeah, I know the feeling.

Speaker 2: 17:52

But it's yeah, and that happens sometimes in our lives, so and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 17:57

This intention that we're going over. I'm going to just reread it to give us a little more momentum again. I will choose food in a just right sized portion that delights my taste buds and causes my body to feel energized and strong.

Speaker 1: 18:12

So, a delight. My taste buds get to talk about that. This is the good part. Okay, so my taste buds do get a vote, which is great, that's great. We're not saying revelation within or with our intentions of spirit led eating that you need to jettison your taste buds and your discernment about what you actually like, the flavor and texture of no, no, no, no, no, which is what I felt I was being told whenever I went on a diet of any kind. It was like, oh, don't bother with taste ever again. And so, yes, my taste buds get a vote. Yes, and so I don't have to give up flavor, I don't have to give up texture. There is no good food list, no bad food list, and just right-sized portions of whatever delights my taste buds means I'm not going to have too much Foods that are denser, I'm going to not be hungry for as much of which is a really cool thing, if you ask me.

Speaker 2: 19:19

Yeah. So I think you know so many of us. When we begin looking at eating in a way that responds to our body's signals with, you know, looking at hunger and satisfaction, we think, oh my gosh, I'm going to throw all the rules out the window. And it's very exciting at first, because we feel this sense of freedom and the sense of like well, I'm just going to do whatever I want.

Speaker 1: 19:47

Abandoning all rational thought. Yes, right.

Speaker 2: 19:50

And it makes sense that we would feel that way after years and years and years of restricting.

Speaker 2: 19:58

You know it makes sense that we would think, oh my gosh, this is so exciting, I'm going to eat anything that I want. And then a lot of us are really drawn toward all the foods that were the no, no, no foods for all those years, and some of us end up eating too much of those Mm-hmm, as we kind of, you know, get used to the idea. We want to be careful with that because, of course, god calls us to take good care of what he has created in our amazing, fearfully and wonderfully made bodies, and so we need to take care. We need to, you know, practice, discernment. We need to start, walk carefully so that we're fueling up well, and for me, at this stage of life, that's different from 10 years ago. For me, right now, there's certain foods that my body just loves, and then there's others where there's not so much.

Speaker 2: 20:56

Yeah, and my body is making it very clear what it likes and doesn't like Mine too, yeah, and you know that changes in different seasons of our lives.

Speaker 1: 21:06

Should we approach the topic for just a moment, since this is where we are. What some of the symptoms are? That your body is telling you that this is not a food we should be eating.

Speaker 2: 21:18

Oh my goodness, Okay, you start should be eating.

Speaker 1: 21:26

Oh, my goodness, okay, you start Well. I mean, if you find yourself with a lot of gas, a lot of gas, and it's not just beans, it's like you've been eating bread or you've been eating dairy, yeah, that's a really good. A gas could be one thing. If you, if you have a gas problem, then maybe, maybe I don't, oh, no, no, no.

Speaker 2: 21:49

Oh my God, when.

Speaker 1: 21:50

I eat gluten when I eat dairy. Yes, that definitely is me. I have a gas. Can we say this on national TV? I think we just did.

Speaker 2: 22:00

Well, and for you, heidi, that's changed, that's gone up and down in the last few years.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Well, now it's in high drive, it is oh my gosh yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:10

And for me it's this hugely bloated belly Like I'm nine months pregnant, and it's uncomfortable, it hurts, my clothes don't fit and my, my actual stomach. There's pain there. Oh, my goodness, that's. I don't want to be there. I do not. That is not worth it at all.

Speaker 1: 22:30

Anything else. Yeah, there's definitely. Another thing can be changes in your skin. If you are getting like, if you have a bumps on your skin, we may call it adult acne, but it's not acne Like when we were kids. It really isn't.

Speaker 1: 22:45

And you can call it hormonal. I would check if you're concerned about your skin, If your skin gets really dry, if you have digestion issues, if you are in pain. Because here's the thing what happens when we are sensitive to foods we are eating and we keep eating them, Our bodies go into an inflammation response, and inflammation of course hurts. And and another thing is interesting to me is an inflammation response can also be weight gain. So if you're finding yourself struggling with inexplicable weight gain and you're not premenopausal or menopausal or whatever, then, yeah, consider it's possible, and none of us wants to hear this, None of us.

Speaker 1: 23:33

But if we are going to be faithful stewards of these bodies and operate to the best of our abilities to honor God and to do what he's called us to and not be hindered by our bodies letting out gas everywhere, being in pain, then we really do want to consider the possibility. You know, maybe it's one category of foods, but you know what? There's so many others. And these days, if you end up having to go gluten free, there are so many wonderful gluten free products that you don't have to be without foods that delight your taste buds and both flavor wise and texture wise. So that's all I'm going to say about that.

Speaker 2: 24:14

Yeah Well, and you might be, you who are listening, you might be a person that's not dealing with anything like that, and that's great too. One of the things that I've noticed recently is when I eat too much at a sitting, when I overeat, I really don't feel well. That is like really a problem right now, and it didn't used to be. I mean, I used to say, oh, I'm too full, I ate too much. Yeah, now, physically, I don't feel well when I have over-fueled my body. And that's a change for me recently.

Speaker 2: 24:48

Um you know, part of this intention, of course, is we want to eat foods that cause our bodies to feel energized and strong. And so if you're, you know, eating certain foods and then afterwards you don't feel energized, you're feeling like, oh, you know, I'm so tired, I just want to lay down, or maybe you're not actually not feeling well. You know, like you have a sense about you that it's just like I don't feel well.

Speaker 1: 25:18

Right.

Speaker 2: 25:19

And you're not having strength like you usually do.

Speaker 1: 25:22

Those are some pretty important clues.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Yeah, very much so. And the thing is, god has entrusted us with the care of our bodies and we want to be energized and strong. We want to be able to go when he calls. He has planned wonderful things in advance for us to do, like Ephesians 2.10 says. So we want to be able to do what he calls us to. It might be just in our home, it might be making a phone call, it might be driving errands for somebody else, it might be taking a casserole dinner to somebody.

Speaker 1: 25:54

But we won't feel our best if we're not sensitive to the idea that, especially as we age, there are some foods that we may have to let go of for a season. Now I will say this I had to go dairy-free and gluten-free and peanut butter-free. Oh, that was a sad moment About five years ago, and after about three years of that, I was able to enjoy those foods again without any ill consequence at all. Now it's returned. I'm not in pain as much as I was five years ago, but the digestive problems have come up with it since then, anyway. So, yeah, just ask God to show you and then ask him to give you what is true about those foods. Is there anything magical about them. Is it true that you really can't let go of them for a season if you can feel so much better by doing so? I mean that's the thing we want to think? God's thoughts about those foods that our bodies are sensitive to.

Speaker 2: 26:57

Yeah, definitely. And you know, I mean, when you think about it, there are thousands of foods out there for us, Right? No, I mean, we can get kind of bogged down by oh, but this one, but why can't I have this one, Right?

Speaker 1: 27:12

right.

Speaker 2: 27:13

Really, there are thousands of choices and maybe it's actually a great opportunity to try something different, yeah, to kind of create some new patterns and rhythms with what you choose for your body. That will be so much more beneficial. And then the only other thing I want to just mention, the one thing about, like, for example, being in menopause, because I hear so many people ask about this, hear so many people ask about this. It's like, well, is there any possible way to maintain or release weight in this season? Because it feels impossible. But yes, I'm here to say it's absolutely possible to maintain and even release weight when you're in menopause. But you do have to listen to your signals.

Speaker 2: 28:01

I have to admit absolutely I'm going to admit that when I first slid into menopause which you know took several months to kind of say okay, here I am. I was eating the same way that I was before and I did start to gain some weight and that's okay. I mean I, you know, I needed to kind of realize that, hmm, I think my body needs something different right now. And so I've done, I've had to do some experimenting and certainly inviting God in Like, okay, you said earlier, heidi, your hunger signal was still reliable.

Speaker 1: 28:41

Yes.

Speaker 2: 28:42

Yes, my body is still reliable, even though it's changing. Yes, it's just not what it used to be, and maybe a change for someone who's listening is some kind of a health change. You know, maybe you're dealing with something like that, or a change of season in life or or who knows what. Things are always changing. And so then we go back to the Lord, invite him in again and say, okay, what does my body need now, and how much will you help me to figure this out? And of course he will.

Speaker 2: 29:17

He loves you and he loves what he made in you, and he made your body with his own hands, fearfully and wonderfully, in his image actually yes yes, and so of course he wants us to come to him with questions about our bodies and what feels good and why and when and how much, and he would love to help us to walk that walk with him.

Speaker 1: 29:45

Definitely, definitely. So to wrap up, we'll just say this intention one more time I will choose food in a just right sized portion that delights my taste buds and causes my body to feel energized and strong.

Speaker 2: 30:02

You gotta love it, don't you? I love it. It sounds just right, it sounds delightful, it sounds so good and we're so glad that you've been here with us today and we hope that you will join us for our next episode, because we're gonna jump into number four, the fourth intention, next time. We hope you'll join us here at Revelation Within On the go. See you next time, see you next time, bye-bye, bye.