I need help in overcoming gluttony. I am obese and right now, I am trying to lose weight, but I need help in overcoming this issue. How big a sin is gluttony and can it be overcome? Is gluttony a big sin, or are all sins big sins? I guess this question is kind of like a question about lying, where some tell little white lies or big black lies. Lies are lies whatever color they are. Is it the same with gluttony? Can gluttony make one less of a Christian since I want to lose weight? I believe that because I want to lose weight He convicted me of gluttony, but it is hard to overcome. Is gluttony really about ethics or morality since this is supposed to go under ethics and morality? How should gluttons fat or thin be treated and should fat gluttons be viewed or treated any different than thin gluttons?
I have the same problem. I ascribe it generically to lust. I like flesh, and I always will. But it is not good for me to be so, so I have to resist. On the sexual side, that means fidelity in marriage. That's the biggest piece. But then there are the messy other ways that flesh tugs at us, and gluttony gets you and me.
Compared to adultery or fornication, gluttony is small beer. But assuming those things are in check, then the fact that you and I feel fat as boar hogs is unpleasant. We don't like the way we look, or the way we feel.
"L'homme gourmand creuse sa proper tombe avec sa fourchette" - The gluttonous man digs his own grave with his fork.
You do it. I do it.
So instead of philosophizing about it, let's be angels for one another and just fix it.
We're going to do that by eating right.
We're going to eat right by being sure we get all of the vitamins and minerals and macronutrients in what we eat.
We're not going to take vitamins, because we were not designed by God to take vitamins but to eat food.
So, we're going to eat the right foods, to get everything we need.
That's the start.
Just by doing that, every day, we're going to end up filling a hole that's there in our diet that drives us to eat more than we need to. Part of it is biological need. We're probably not getting enough Vitamin D, Zinc or Iodine in our diet, so our body expands the volume of what we eat to try to make up for that...and that means a lot of excess calories.
So by eating food that has Vitamin D, Zinc and Iodine in it, we're going to fill some crying biological needs, and that alone will very probably cause us to feel sated, and to eat less. The weight will start to come off naturally.
So let's start there.
You're a Baptist and I'm a Catholic, so God has said we CAN eat anything. I have no food allergies. Do you? If you have none, then the world is our oyster. (Oysters, by the way, are the best source of dietary zinc on earth. One wild oyster or two farmed is a whole day's zinc.)
Hebrews in Israel couldn't eat oysters: they are shellfish forbidden by God. Eating them made the Israelite ritually unclean and he could not participate in the Temple sacrifices. God tore down the Temple, and Jesus said that nothing a man eats makes him unclean. So we can eat oysters...unless we're allergic.
If you don't have a food allergy do you have scruples? For example, are you a vegetarian? Do you want to be?
In Eden, and after the Second Coming, the lion will eat straw and we won't kill the animals for food. So, do you WANT to live in that pure state now, or does the violence against animals not concern you sufficiently that you want to still eat them.
Nutritionally, if you're a vegetarian it is much harder to get Vitamin B-12 (you're only left with milk and eggs), and Vitamin D (you're left with sun-dried mushrooms or sun on skin).
Jesus fed people fish. So a compromise is to avoid meat and the killing of mammals, who care for their young, and confine one's self to certain short-lived fish (salmon swim upriver to die, are caught when they start that swim, and are the best source of Vitamin D), or animals that have no central nervous system (oysters and mussels), and who therefore do not feel pain in an organized or conscious way.
If we confine ourselves to dairy, eggs, fish and simple mollusks (salmon, oysters and mussels), we will get be eating some of the very healthiest foods known to man, and be pretty satisfied with it too.
So, how does that sound so far? We can walk together down this path and both shed a lot of weight, be healthier, and put the gluttony to bed by eating either like they did in Eden, or like they did with the liberty given us by Jesus of Galilee.
We are cousins, you and I (through Adam, Eve, Noah and Naamah), so it is right that we should help one another on our quest.
Agreed?
