In one of my favorite books on emotional eating, the author describes a behavior she calls Indulgent Eating. The idea is basically that we say to ourselves, “I want it, so I’m going to have it. I don’t care about the consequences. I want to indulge, so I’m going to. And no one can convince me otherwise.”
I can’t count how many times I did that with chocolate. It’s not like I was saying those actual words out loud . . . but my behavior was manifesting that very attitude. It didn’t matter when, where, what, or why, if I wanted chocolate, I found a way to have it. And I didn’t even stop to think about the consequences.
However, to see this called this Indulgent Eating definitely shook things up a bit for me (and it’s been the same lately for many of my coaching clients). To indulge is to yield to instant gratification. To give in to our guilty little pleasures. It certainly was true of the way I chose to eat.
What struck me, though, was that I had many other areas in my life where I didn’t allow myself to indulge at all. Where I set boundaries for myself and kept them almost without even thinking about it. For instance, I never said to my husband, “I just really want to date other men, so I’m going to indulge that desire. I want to do it, so I’m going to. I don’t care about the consequences.” I know the idea sounds ridiculous, but think about it for a minute. Because I was serious about our relationship, I set a boundary and I kept it. No indulgence was even considered when it came to my marriage.
Or what about the way I chose to drive? I never said to myself, “I just want to drive 100 mph. It sounds fun, so I’m going to do it. Other people will just have to get out of my way.” Again, I know that sounds absurd. While most of us don’t drive perfectly, we still set boundaries for ourselves and do our best to keep them. We don’t let ourselves indulge in doing whatever we want to do when we’re driving on the road.
For a final example, what about the way we raise our kids? If one of my children had walked in and said something indulgent like that (“I want to do it, so I’m going to. I don’t care what anyone else says.”), I would have stopped right there and had a mom moment because I would have been very concerned about their attitude. I didn’t want to raise indulgent children. I wanted them to learn how to control themselves and not give in to every little whim or temptation that crossed their mind.
And yet here I was, acting exactly like that when it came to food.
I want chocolate, so I’m going to have it.
I don’t care about the consequences.
I want it. Lots of it. So that’s what I’m going to do.
Put that way, it suddenly sounded incredibly immature and selfish, like a child who needed to be put in time out.
I’d just never looked at my eating habits that way before.
Now, I’ll admit that often it was my sugar addiction talking, and I ate it even when I really didn’t want to. (That’s a blog post for another day.) But I could also think of countless times when I wholeheartedly embraced this particular indulgence. When I went out of my way to satisfy it. When I binged far beyond the point of comfort just because it was something I wanted to do.
And it made me want to make a very serious attitude adjustment when it came to food.
It reminds me of the story in Daniel chapter 1 where Daniel and his friends had been taken captive and brought to Babylon. The king was trying hard to assimilate them into his culture, so they were offered all kinds of rich wine and meat and food in an effort to prepare them for service to the king (see v. 3).
But Daniel chose not to indulge.
Instead, he asked to be given only vegetables and water to eat, and then to be compared 10 days later to the rest of those partaking of the king’s menu. And we all know what happened: “At the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king’s meat. . . . And for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in visions and dreams” (v. 15, 17).
In this instance, Daniel set a boundary. He knew the consequences of indulgence, and he even applied it here in the matter of his diet.
Could it be that we set boundaries only if the consequences are serious enough to warrant our concern? Perhaps that’s why I’ve been so careful in my marriage or when I drive. I don’t want to face the music of what my indulgence would cost.
But could it be that our Indulgent Eating is costing us much more than we even realize? What is it that Daniel understood that we may not? What could our lives look like (not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually) if we took the time to learn this lesson? What if we asked the Lord to help us set boundaries in our eating . . . and also give us the power to keep them?
Who and what would we become?
I think Daniel shows us just a hint of what is possible if we simply offer up our indulgent attitude on the altar before the Lord. Perhaps we too would gain new dreams and visions of what our life would truly look like. Perhaps we too would end up “ten times better” than the struggles in our old days when we continued to indulge (Daniel 1:20).
