Hi, everyone. Something soooooo interesting to me has occurred to me, so I simply must share.

Prior to being involved with Thin Within, I had a year of involvement with a popular weightloss program and then another one…and lost 110 pounds and with all the compulsive working out I did, including training for marathons and intense strength training, my bodyfat percent got to 14.5% which is pretty low for a lady my age at the time with two kids. I was thrilled, but I was in such intense captivity from eating that way and working out…and any time I didn’t work out, I feared that I would gain. I truly exercised to lose weight. My husband calls those days my “bulimic” period as I would eat and then “purge” by exercising all the more. Some days, even when I wasn’t doing a long training run (which could be 18 miles long or longer, as Ellie and others probably know), I would still workout two times or for 3 or 4 hours! Captivity!

In November a few months ago, I began to try to add intentional exercise back into my life. Mind you, it has been over 10 years now since I have done the marathon thing and the body building (which was really what I was doing, if I can be honest…). Recently, a thought occurred to me…it was like God shone His light on a thought that may have been there since November that I just didn’t identify as NOT being from Christ! It was FEAR that “Oh no! If I don’t have time for my workout, I will gain weight!”

It hit me like a lightening bolt that I had this thought that was totally, 100% a lie!

I was able to say to God, “What IS this? What do I DO with it?”

I have been carving into my life time for exercise now because I am enjoying it so much. I never want to return to compulsively exercising again. I have always loved being active–even when I did all of that 10 years ago, but I distinctly remember that it had begun to be motivated by fear…

Anyhow, God’s Holy Spirit quietly but definitively told me, “Don’t worry, Child. If you don’t have time to exercise, your body will just cue you that you need less food less often.”

Well, DUH! When I exercise, I find 0 much more frequently! When I don’t, the only difference for me in the day really is that I won’t get to zero as fast! So just don’t eat…until…zero! DUH! LOL!

0 to 5 eating works!

Days when I am inactive for other reasons (rain or injury or sickness…) it stands to reason…eat when I am at 0 and my body will get what it needs when it needs it. Stop when no longer hungry and presto…

It makes me think of when I was eating 0 to 5 in the year 2000. I had released weight (as I always do with this approach…why I ever walk away from it is beyond me…) and had a NASTY roller blading accident where I dislocated my ankle and broke my leg. I was laid up BUT GOOD for months…truly. I continued to release weight even though I was inactive. All because God made my body reliable and He continued to tell me when to eat and when to stop and enabled me to Just Do it!

Anyhow, I had to share with you all that I was SO relieved to realize this again in a VERY REAL way….what relief came over me! I don’t *have* to worry that my life has grown dependent on exercise like I allowed it to before. YAY!

Heidi