Hi guys! Today I have the privilege of sharing a post from my friend and the founder of livinglikegolden, Sarah Johannesen. I asked Sarah to share her story with finding food and body freedom in Christ, and guys it’s so good— Enjoy!

Shifting your perspective on rest for better health

Nourish your body with food and water, move joyfully and appropriately, manage stress, and rest. These are the four basic tenets of any preventative health regimen or recovery plan.

Yet the majority of health professionals and mainstream media focus on the first two principles and neglects the last two, with the exception of sleep, of course.

But there’s a reason I didn’t name sleep as the fourth tenet of health and opted for “rest” instead.

New Journal

There’s nothing quite like a new journal to lift my spirits. On those blank lines, waiting to be filled, I see hope. I see new possibilities. I see adventures to be had, prayers to be written and answered, wisdom to be hashed out, and ideas to be birthed. And all of it fills me with excitement for the present and anticipation for the future.

Being Full is a Good Thing

we’re FINALLY continuing with the Intuitive Eating (IE) and Scripture Series picking up with the fifth principle of Intuitive Eating: Respect Your Fullness. Let’s jump right in.

The authors of Intuitive Eating write this about the fifth principle:

“ Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show you’re comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes and what is your current fullness level.

Sounds simple enough eh? Yet there are a lot of things that have to happen before this becomes easy or even possible to execute.

No more food shame

This is the fourth principle in the IE + Scripture Series and if you read Monday’s post, you’ll know this is one of my favorite Intuitive Eating principles. The gospel has SO much to say on the topic.

So without further ado, the fourth principle of Intuitive Eating is “Challenge the Food Police”

The authors of the book write this about the third principle:

Scream a loud “NO” to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating minimal calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor unreasonable rules that dieting has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.

All Foods Are Clean

Ever been around a toddler? Or better yet, tried telling them what they should or shouldn’t do?

We have a running joke in our house. It goes like this, If I tell my 2 year old to go to the bathroom he 100% of the time stubbornly tells me, “I don’t want to go to the bathroom.” Even if he clearly needs to pee. But then my husband or my father-in-law chime in, telling him “Judah can’t go Mom, but I’ll go.” Instantly my son rises up and runs with vengeance to the bathroom screaming, “No, I’ll go potty.”

We attribute this little happening to reverse psychology, but the same principle is also called a paradoxical injunction in psychology and restriction mindset in intuitive eating.

Hunger is God's good idea

Our bodies need food regularly in order to function at their best. Unfortunately, we as a culture have glorified restriction, fasting, and downplaying hunger, but how has it served us? We’re more distracted, fatigued, anxious, unhealthy and worried about food then ever before.

Principle number 2 of Intuitive Eating is to Honor Your Hunger, a concept that goes directly again the cultural trend towards food-restriction.

The False Hope of Dieting

This is the first post in a series of posts titled IE (intuitive eating) + scripture.

I asked what you guys needed/wanted on instagram and you voted first, for a series on the bible and eating, and a close second, for a series on the 10 intuitive eating principles—So I’m giving you both!

This series will look at each of the 10 principles of intuitive eating from a biblical view point. Where they don’t align perfectly, scripture will always take precedence!

Here’s principle number one: reject the diet mentality.

5 Things for Friday + some BIG News

So it's been a while (1 whole month to be exact) since I've written a blog post. I haven't forgotten about it, I promise. We've just been a little busy this summer between potty training, birthday parties and 3 trips back and forth to Indiana planning my sister's wedding.

On top of that, God's been teaching me through his word, but mainly through people, about the value of cutting away some good, but maybe unnecessary things in order to make room for the new thing he's doing in THIS season.

One Thing at a Time

Confession time, I find it incredibly hard to do nothing, to be bored. Even more, I find it difficult to just do one thing at a time.

I know I'm not the only one. Unless you've been hiding under a rock recently, you've probably noticed the surge of discussion around being present, mindful, and still. Why do we struggle with this so much?

Body Image: Why Connection Matters

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a body image workshop for clinicians in Chicago with Marci Evans and Fiona Sutherland (two complete all-stars in the world of dietetics and body image healing - yes I am fan girling). I learned so much from them over the two days, I'm still unpacking it all (and likely will be for next month or two!) BUT there was one takeaway message that hit me hard early on and has stuck with me since. This is it: Body image is extremely complex and very closely tied to our sense of connection.

No More Someday

Does anyone remember the "missed connections" category from Craigslist? I would read them occasionally when I was bored and always felt a sense of sadness for what could have been, but it was also exciting to think about the connection somehow being made if the right person just happened to read the post (I wonder if that ever happened!)