Observing Your Eating Habits During Lent

Perhaps less is not more?

Today was Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Christian tradition of Lent — an extended period of prayer, sacrifice and charity. There’s no Scriptural requirement to observe Lent—ultimately, it’s just the 40 days lead-up to Easter Sunday in the church calendar—but many Christians find it helpful and inspirational to observe the Lent season in some way. We often mainly think of Lent as a period when you refrain from something in your daily routines. It can be fasting from food, media or spending, but one Lent habit that isn’t mentioned very often is to let something into your life instead of refraining. It can be to do social work, to talk and act for justice and peace, to read and study the Bible, to pray more, or to care for both your body and soul.

I intend to continue with my 5 new habits as a way of observing Lent, as I think they all fall under the category of letting good things into your life. To sleep, eat and exercise is part of caring for my body, and to read, pray and write is part of caring for my soul. For me, eating too much isn’t really a problem, but rather to eat good and healthy food to keep my energy levels up. I have been eating mainly vegetarian food for about a year now, but since I think it’s quite boring to cook for myself and I work from home nowadays, I tend to get lazy and eat really simple things such as sandwiches and “filmjölk” (as I also mentioned in my first blog post about forming habits). Therefore, eating more and better food is probably a bigger challenge for me to take on during Lent than fasting would be.