It is a core truth of the healing journey that changes in your brain will cause changes in your body.
Some people understand this because when they feel stressed, they get knots in their tummy, or when they feel relaxed, they can sleep more deeply. Those are decent examples of the brain-body connection but it is even more connected than you think.
In my life, every time I have experienced a major psychological healing, I have also experienced a major physical change. Today, that change is affecting my metabolism in an unexpected way.
A Prophetic Word
It all started two years ago, when I began praying for God to heal my body. I was tired of yo-yo dieting and I just wanted what I put into my body to be directly related to what I got out of my body. If I needed fewer calories to live because I had sufficient fat stores, I wanted my body to reduce my hunger; and if I consumed fewer calories than I burned, I wanted my body to lose weight—but it wasn’t. Years of over-dieting had caused my metabolism to enter permanent survive-at-all-costs mode and I hadn’t been able to naturally lose weight in almost ten years.
My prayer was pretty specific: “God, please help my body get back to my pre-pregnancy weight before I get pregnant again. Please teach it to do it on its own. When I need to gain weight, let it gain weight; when I need to lose weight, let it lose weight. I’m tired of dieting.” As I prayed, I kept hearing the same response, “I will do so, and I will heal your body through your pregnancy.”
For a long time, I didn’t ask what about my body God was going to heal through my next pregnancy, but last month, curiosity got the better or me: “God, what is it that you will heal?” I asked. “You know when you feel fatigue after you eat? I will heal that.” Well, weirdly, I didn’t feel fatigue after I ate. I hadn’t felt that way since I reversed my prediabetes by eating a whole-foods, low-sugar diet eight years ago.
I decided to wait on God to see what God’s word meant.
The Conditions are Set
Meanwhile, about two months ago, God began to heal some trauma responses in my body related to taking military command. I had had a traumatic company command experience eight years ago, and even though this experience was much different, my body was still railing at the idea of taking battalion command.
For the last two battle assemblies (our one-weekend-a-month, also called drill), my body would start feeling extreme nausea or feel extremely drunk the day before even though I hadn’t eaten or drank anything that would account for it. One day, my husband and I prayed for my deliverance and healing, and after some initial relief—but not all—I heard God say, “This will take a little time to heal.”
Fortunately, the nausea went down every time I went to the airport to go to drill or come back home. This past weekend, my second drill in three months, I didn’t feel any nausea when I returned home! I knew the progressive healing God had mentioned was working.
The Prayer is Answered
Around the same time, two months ago, my body finally started losing weight on its own. My hunger and satiety signals started shifting and I began to eat much smaller meals without trying. That’s when I realized that my inability to lose weight was a symptom of the same PTSD that got me MEDEVAC’d out of Iraq in 2007 due to a toxic work environment in 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division.
Yet, an unexpected side effect began happening: most of the time, I began to experience extreme fatigue after my meals. I couldn’t figure it out, and it started getting worse. I knew it wasn’t related to prediabetes because it felt different, so I went back to God in prayer. “God, what’s going on with this fatigue?” “Remember when I mentioned fatigue after you eat? Your body is having a relatively small side-effect to all the healing it’s been doing. You are responding negatively to antioxidants. If you eat low-antioxidant foods, you won’t feel such fatigue after your meals.”
I had to Google it. I knew that antioxidants served the function of capturing free radicals in your body and, therefore, reducing potential tissue damage. (Thanks biology degree.) What I didn’t know was which foods were secretly high in antioxidants. I discovered that three types of foods I have been regularly eating have more than 3 mmol of antioxidants per 100g:
- Cocoa and coffee
- Dried fruits
- Pecans and walnuts
Therefore, today, I will begin abstaining from those foods until God heals this unexpected side effect through my next pregnancy.
If the temporary cost of healing is to avoid these foods until God heals me, it’s worth it.