Excerpt from Let Food be Thy Gift
Misinformation Overload
We are being crushed by information overload and by our own miserable experiences with diets. Diets have been so defeating that just the word “diet” makes most of us recoil with thoughts of skinless tasteless chicken breast, dry salads, green drinks, protein powders and hunger pains. There exists so much contradictory information about diets and food that we are more confused than ever about what we should and should not eat. At this point, who in their right mind wouldn’t be confused when the majority of information being dumped on us is not only wrong, but it prevents us from creating the space that we need to rest and remember the truth.
I think we can finally agree that diets may produce short-term weight loss but most diets do not prevent, treat or reverse diet-related disease and sickness and are so far 88% of all diets are not sustainable. How do I know? Because 88% of Americans have some form of diet-related disease and sickness and 75% of Americans are overweight or obese.
Think about your own dieting history. What were the results? If you have dieted, then you know how much time, money and energy went into thinking, planning, counting and measuring what you ate, when you ate and how much you ate? Was it fun? Did it set you free to enjoy the gift of food and the nourishment it provides or was it exhausting?
Listen to me…we are never going to reverse this epidemic of diet-related disease and sickness, until we start to tell the truth about our own stories with food, diets, failures, shame, guilt, pain and the apathy that pretty much dictates why we eat and what we eat. I am on a mission to help you purge yourself of this diet mentality by asking you some tough questions about who you are, who is telling you who you are, do you know how you are naturally designed to be healthy, whole, holy and human? Do you love yourself? Could I look at what you do everyday and determine that you are committed to loving yourself well?
We do not need more information. We need love and truth, and we need the courage to tell the truth that we have not loved ourselves well.
DeeAnn Dean 