Freshman 15

My freshman year in college I gained weight. Was it dorm food or the “Freshman 15”? I have no idea, but food became my best friend. We hung out when I was happy, sad, stressed or glad. On a visit to our family doctor, he handed me one bowling ball and then another, asking how it felt to lug those around. It was horrible, and he said that’s what I was asking my body to do. He also handed me some little pills to help me get started on weight loss. They worked like a charm and by the end of the next semester, I’d lost 40 pounds. I loved my new look and my newfound energy, so you’ll imagine my surprise when I ran out of pills the next semester and slept for almost two weeks straight. As it turns out, those pills were doing a lot more to my body than miraculously shedding the pounds…and the effects were so harmful that those pills are now illegal.

But even if they weren’t illegal now, I’d tell you there are still much healthier ways to manage our eating habits and our weight. With all of the talk today about obesity in kids and adults, we have to evaluate the right and wrong ways to approach the dilemma. To help out with that, this week on Woman to Woman®, we visit with Dr. Linda Mintle, who studies people’s relationships with food. She says that the emotional reward from food is so great that we don’t realize it’s controlling us. Dr. Mintle is convinced we can change our eating habits if we push Pause before we eat. Her interest in the topic goes beyond diet and weight loss, too – she says that our spiritual hunger can also be related to problematic eating. Dr. Mintle explains, “When craving meets Creator, fulfillment happens.” We need His intervention in our unhealthy attachment to and relationship with food. I hope you’ll tune in to pick up some healthy eating tips as we enter into spring!