One of the biggest challenges I’ve been facing on the race is my eating. I would say the year leading up to the race I started eating less. I didn’t even realize this was really a thing I was doing until I went back home between training camp and leaving for the race. My mom pointed out to me during that time because she had noticed the way I’d been acting with food for a while. At first, I kind of dismissed her and didn’t think much of it. But a few days after she pointed it out I had a meal and after I ate it I felt full and hated it.
A thought popped into my head, “Just make yourself throw up so you don’t feel full.”
When that thought popped into my head I knew something was very wrong. I brought it up with the world race leadership because I was worried mostly about losing more weight. (Most guys on the world race lose weight).
There have been times through these last four months of travel that things haven’t been much of a problem which I am super thankful for. Specifically, in Romania and Albania when I couldn’t control as much about what I could eat and how much. But even in those months, there have been some hard moments. But I would say so far when it comes to my eating problems Kosovo was the hardest month. For most of our time there we stayed at a hostel with the only thing we could use to cook was a panini press. So instead of buying groceries as a team, we were given $5 a day for food to eat out from the team budget. Which in Kosovo is actually enough to buy you lunch and dinner at most places. But that meant I was entirely responsible for eating again.
The difficult part for me was that in most of the places I ate at the portion sizes were smaller. Definitely smaller than what we’re used to in America. So even when I spent it all I was usually still hungry. So I had a hard time getting myself to spend my personal money on more food.
Thoughts like, “you can’t afford to keep spending money on yourself,” and “you’ll gain weight if you buy yourself extra food between meals” were on my mind often.
But near the end of our time in Kosovo, the Lord told me to trust Him with my eating habits. To invite Him into this part of my life. Also, He said He gave me all that personal money “I saved up” for the race so that I could use it for food. This was and still is a difficult concept for me to wrap my head around. Giving money to the church or those in need isn’t something I struggle to do but when He told me He wanted me to spend it on myself now that is hard for me to do. I am honestly still not doing great at letting Him into my finances in this way.
Here in Ukraine though I would say that it is better overall than it was in Kosovo. A few days ago I ate cereal for breakfast, two croissant sandwiches for lunch, and an entire personal pizza for dinner. That was probably the most I had eaten in a while. After dinner, I was fighting the idea of making myself throw up but I was also happy I ate all that because I knew I needed to be eating all that.
While eating has been a hard thing for me on the race, it has allowed me to depend on God in new and unexpected ways. To allow Him into new areas of my life I wouldn’t have thought of before like eating and finances.
If this is something you struggle with you should read my squadmate Gina’s blogs about this, pt. 1 and pt. 2. These blogs were really helpful for me and she has been supportive of me through this.
Even if this isn’t an area you struggle with, invite the Lord into areas of your that you haven’t invited Him into before.
