Image Courtesy: ME – It’s my daughter and her friend!
I chose this image to open today’s post because it sounds like such a great illustration of freedom to me.
Today, I am blowing the dust off the archives. 🙂 This video is from 2002. (Subscribers, please visit the website to see it.)
Here I share how I went from fat gram counting and exercise obsession to freedom as I began to trust my hunger and satisfied signals–even through a period of bed rest! I also talked about the hunger graph, one of the Thin Within tools available for you to try!
If you are interested in trying the hunger graph for additional accountability, you can download a copy from the Thin Within website here. When our Thin Within/God is Doing a New Thing app comes out (we are getting to the last stages of development) it will include, among other things, a hunger graph tool! I am excited about that!
How About You?
Do you struggle with fear any time you don’t get the activity that you are accustomed to getting? Are you free? Are you able to trust your body’s hunger/satisfied signals? Where are you in this journey? If you are just starting out, please share with us in the comments. I know there are many veterans here who would like to support you!
Heidi,
Thank you so much for sharing this video today. This is very timely for me. I’m currently working on the Foundation Week 5 exercises in my Thin Within Workbook and very aware that the hunger graph will be part of the exercises beginning Week 6.
I too have been very compulsive and obsessive about charts, graphs and lists. Trying to keep the charts and graphs perfectly accurate, and demanding that I never miss a beat, drove me crazy. Of course, whenever I couldn’t do it perfectly 100% of the time, I’d quit. When I scanned ahead in my workbook and saw the Hunger Graphs, my walls of resistance went up. No way was I going to get on that horse again.
What really resonated with me, in what you shared, were your observations that the Hunger Graph is a “tool of grace”. You didn’t “have to be black or white”. Observing your patterns helped you to correct, move on, and refocus by spending time with the Lord a half-hour before your problem time was upon you. Listening as you spoke, my attitude about the graph shifted. I am now willing to take this to the Lord and to learn to use this tool with His grace rather than seek perfection.
Exercise is not a problem area for me. I have physical limitations and God is helping me to rely on His wisdom as to what I can and cannot do at this time.
Right now, I am so thankful that whenever I fall (eat outside my boundaries), God is ready to pick me up, set me back on His path, and give me a big dose of encouragement, such as today’s video.
Hi, Sheila. I hope you are enjoying the Thin Within Foundation workbook study. How is it going for you using the hunger graph? Please know that not everyone can or SHOULD use it. And sometimes you can for a while, but that is it. Or sometimes you can’t for a while (without stumbling hard over dieting mentality unleashed!), but then can. Just listen to the LORD’s leading for you, Sheila, ok? I love that our “failures” with living according to our boundaries, when given to our great Redeemer, are transformed into victories as we allow him to use them to teach us about ourselves, about him and his grace, and to develop a plan for the next time!
I love endorphins. I love to exercise. But now I’m pregnant and I don’t know what happens when I’m pregnant, but I feel out of breath and I can’t exercise to my full potential–and I’m still in my first trimester! It is hard to not be able to reach full capacity, but I have to listen to my body.
So true…listening to your body IS vital! 🙂 Maybe your “full potential” right now is dancing gently in the living room to praise music or going for a walk! 🙂 I know God will direct you as he does in other ways, too. Hugs!