Day Nine of the Daniel Fast - Did I Cheat?

 

 

 



         Uh-oh.  I may have cheated on the "Daniel Fast," but I'm not sure!

 

     That probably sounds rather odd, but I will explain.  Yesterday I went to the home of some of my Bhutanese friends because they were having a celebration due to the birth of their new son. 

 

     Later on, when I was at the celebration, all of the women kept urging me to eat the food that had been prepared.  Out of all of the women there, the hostess was the only one who had any grasp of the English language and she knows how much I enjoy eating their food.  It's such a treat to have something different and much of it was spicy, which I absolutely love!  Anyway, after trying to explain several times to the hostess why I was choosing not to eat, I finally gave up and ate small portions of a couple of the dishes, rather than risk offending them.  However, here's the catch: I have no idea what some of those dishes were made of.  I think that I chose pretty wisely, but I can't say for sure! 

 

     Another "situation" that I ran into this past weekend was playing our annual Saturday night trivia with friends.  I wasn't going to go because I didn't want my Fast to be the topic of conversation, especially with a few people in the group who are rather intolerant of anything "different."  But I went and to my surprise, there were no questions asked by anyone.  Even though I typically have no more than one to two drinks per week of any kind, I did miss having a cold beer.  The popcorn didn't taste quite the same eating it with water.  Plus, I made several extra trips to the bathroom that night.  (I can make a beer last for a long time, but those three large glasses of water were not such a good idea so late in the evening).

 

     I am still missing my coffee.  Sunday morning we woke up to the worst blizzard of the season so far.  I don't know if that was the fourth or fifth blizzard - I am already losing count. (The Grand Forks Herald newspaper gets cute and gives the blizzards human names in alphabetical order.  In '97  I remember getting to blizzard Hannah).  I really, really wanted to have some warm coffee to cuddle up to with a crossword puzzle that day...

 

     Anyway, that day of the last blizzard was one of those cold Minnesota days that seemed to last forever.  Normally, I am always looking for extra hours in the day, but that day, I couldn't motivate myself to do anything to stay busy.  I know that if I had not been on the Daniel Fast, that I would have "consoled" myself with some extra food and a big bowl of ice cream.

 

     One of the authors from "The Daniel Cure" says this about comfort food: "I've always been stymied by the term "comfort food."  I've yet to have a piece of chocolate cake hug me.  Nor has a plate of lasagna shared any helpful advice.  But when we're stressed or hurt or fearful...our emotions lead to actions." 

 

     In my case, it was just boredom that made me want the ice cream, but you get the gist.  This author also goes on to suggest that "when a sweet desert is offering to comfort us, God invites us to stay the course and seek what we truly need from him, our true Comforter."  He's right of course, but often times we go for the "quick fix,"  (such as that bowl of ice cream I was thinking about), which actually isn't a fix and actually doesn't comfort us!

 

     I am going to leave you with an interesting tidbit.  Did you know that as our weight goes up, the physical size and function of our brain goes down?  That not only affects the choices and decisions that we make, but the risk of getting particular diseases such as Dementia and Alzheimers also increases.  One of the three people who helped develop the "Daniel Cure" says that when he learned that fact, he had no problem eating healthy and losing weight because of how much he appreciated what our brains do for us.  I'm wondering if knowing this information (if you didn't before) changes anything for you. 

 

    I would be interested to hear. 

 

    Take care,

 

    Jayne

P.S. For those of you (on a totally irrelevant note) who have never been lucky enough to experience a ND or MN blizzard, below is a short clip of part of one that someone posted on YouTube.