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When I was in high school, my mom put me on a diet. I was supposed to drink  nasty tasting shakes for breakfast and lunch and then eat a full meal when I got home from school, which was a full course meal,  including things that I could never manage to stomach. I don’t know if my mom thought I *wanted* to diet or what. I know that, in my memory, I cooperated…even to the point of trying to stomach eating lettuce covered with oil and vinegar. Now, just the thought makes me gag. I can’t stand lettuce and I can actually smell it if it is in food that I order at a restaurant (always requesting NO lettuce).

I was an athlete, but would often cut school to go to my best friend’s–my “eating buddy’s”–house where we often made a pan of brownies and then ate the evidence that we had been home when we were supposed to be at school. Not one crumb of the brownies would be left.

What began in junior high as a response to molestation by a family member developed into a full-blown coping mechanism–a refuge, a comfort, a recreational activity, too! Because I was involved in sports, I often kept ahead of too much extra weight. I do remember weighing myself quite a bit. I remember the numbers, too. I also remember the numbers on the scale during all the diets I went on over the years. I charted my weight on a graph on the wall during one season. Then, there were the diet program weigh-ins. So, I would have NO problem pulling a number out of my mind that seems “reasonable” for what my “natural, God-given size” would be.

BUT…

that would miss the point…

GOD-given, means that it is God given.

It doesn’t mean that Heidi has to grab a hold of it and declare “HERE! This is it! When I reach this number I will  have arrived!”

In fact, I distinctly remember in 2007, after I lost all the extra weight I  carried having actually gone too far so that I could have the accolade of losing ONE HUNDRED pounds, I still hated my rear end…my hips. You see, even when I was really *thin*…I hated my body. Freedom clearly wasn’t in a number for me! There was something in my HEAD that needed to change. I needed to “drop the weight” of a mental image of the ideal body.

So now, I see that “natural, God-given size” means, God has in mind the way my body, fearfully and wonderfully made, hand-crafted by him, will look or be. And it definitely isn’t what this world uses as a standard for beauty. You know what? I think I am beginning (after all this time) not to care what the world says. I want what GOD wants for me. There is FREEDOM there!

And “Natural” means natural.

I don’t have to be fearful about it. It just is. Like naturally curly hair. Or a natural blond. Nothing added. It just is.

Notice Thin Within doesn’t promise you that you will be a “natural, God-given weight.”

In fact, what we really want to do–dare I be so bold–is get rid of the bathroom scale. Instead, focus on getting to know your body and the God-given hunger scale: hunger and satisfaction, 0 and 5. Let’s stand on God’s promises instead of the bathroom scale and the ever-elusive happiness that joy is found in a number. You are MORE than a number!

As you commit (and commit again and again) to eating 0 to 5 or between the parameters of hunger and satisfaction, you will not need any man-made device to tell you if you are succeeding. Success is not defined by the world or by your past. It is defined by God.

Your natural, God-given size is, by definition, the size you land on when you eat according to the way He made your body. Eating according to the cues of hunger and satisfaction will cause you to land on and maintain your God-given size.

This is GREAT news!!!

Aren’t we tired of pursuing a number on the bathroom scale?! Then, assuming we ever land on that number, we live in fear that we won’t *stay* at that number?! That is definitely NOT freedom!

Here is a sound file about this very thing. I hope it is helpful! Again, feel free to download it.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/94321872″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Would it be helpful to you to get off the bathroom scale–to give it away or at least to have a friend or family member hide it for a month (or two or three)? Can you recommit to obeying the God-given signals of the hunger scale–0 and 5–or physical hunger and satisfaction? Will you trust him that he will bring you to the size that you want to be?

What will you stand on? 🙂 Here is a bonus! Good ol’ country rendering of “Standing on the Promises of God!”