So what is up? Sunday I ate one meal to 6 and another one yesterday. Not only that, but I have had constant thoughts of food. In fact, last night, I obsessed about brownies! I haven’t experienced brownies being such a powerful draw in a long while.
I dug in my heels and refused to succumb to eating the brownie and ice cream (just a tiny bit…) unless I was at a zero. ALL EVENING I looooonged to be at a zero. I was LUSTING big time for that zero so I could have “My preciousssssss….” The zero never came and I actually considered several times having the stupid brownie anyhow just to “End the torment!” I realized that this was what I did over and over again in the past. I minimized the significance of indulging in “Just a tiny brownie and just a dollop of ice cream…” It isn’t even the food that is the issue here. It is my HEART. I didn’t want to harden my heart to the sweet voice of God in exchange for the insistent voice of the stupid brownie! Good grief! How is it that something like that could have so much POWER over me? :-/
I finally went to bed at 10pm (No, I didn’t eat the brownie), but no sooner did my head hit the pillow then hunger hit BIG time! AH! BROWNIE TIME!!!!!
That thought was followed by God stopping me dead in my tracks. My gentle, loving Shepherd laid it on my heart that while I could get up to go eat, that I needed to bypass the brownie. Why? Because brownies are evil? NO! Because brownies are not nutritious? NO! I had to bypass the brownie because I had to be master over IT instead of letting it own me! So, God convicted me that even if I ate (which I was free to do, even if it was 10:15pm by this time), it would be something other than the brownie. Ok, so I did not have a godly little attitude about that. More like “Wow, Lord…that is a total bummer…are you sure?”
I chose to fast that hunger to the Lord and go to sleep instead.
This morning, when I woke up, the first order of business in my quiet time with God was to look at just what has been going on with me! Why the eating to a 6 at Sunday’s lunch and again yesterday at lunch? And why the obsessive thoughts about the brownie? That isn’t freedom! So what is up?
God showed me in the quietness…in the stillness…the brownie has no power over me, but what did is feelings of rejection that I had at church on Sunday. I was deeply wounded and I hadn’t yet recognized that pain or given it a voice. I spent time this morning, sharing with the Lord the pain I felt about what happened on Sunday and then intentionally choosing to forgive the one(s) who I felt wounded by.
You know what? That act rendered a death blow to Brownie Obsession! LOL!
Funny how my emotions, even when they are not at the surface…can play a powerful role in causing food to seem like an answer when I am not hungry!
I was always athletic and as a chubby, if not obese, adult, exercise and working out was a GIVEN! There was my aerobics and strength training period where I obsessively began to chart and log every exercise, repetition, intensity, set, etc. Every step climbed on the stair climber, every class attended and each minute of “Quad Step!” I was working on being certified by ACE as an aerobics instructor. (I was “certifiable” all right! LOL!)
Then, something weird happened and I ended up in the hospital…I came out of there needing to do something different. Long story, but I began training for a marathon! Yes! Something different! I logged and charted and graphed my miles, terrain, hill workouts and ran the San Francisco marathon and trained for the Rock and Roll Marathon in San Diego.
An overuse injury resulted in me not being able to run and horror of horrors! The weight POURED back on my body! PROOF that I hadn’t dealt with my obsession with food. No wonder my husband calls that my bulimic period.
I have had video workout “phases” where I obsessed about that, gosh, I could go on and on.
Suffice to say, I have GOOD reason not to trust myself as I evaluate whether I really want to have a “program” of some sort for exercise. Since I released all my weight, I have never had a “program.” I used Dance Praise to work out for FUN! I didn’t log minutes, reps, or intensity. I just bee bopped along and praised the LORD! Perfect for me! Some problems with the computer program have caused that not to be a part of my activity these days.
It recently occurred to me that maybe I wanted to incorporate exercise into my life again…I mean something to improve my cardio vascular fitness. I live an active life, but I think God might actually want me to offer Him my fitness…I know that it could improve. I am quite strong. I don’t need to strength train. But I do feel like my heart health could be bolstered by doing something aerobic. Thing is…what could it be that won’t snatch me back into compulsion?
Simply, exercise used to be an idol–a stronghold. I have to be really careful now not to go back there again. I have released all my weight by living a relatively active life, but no intentional workout plan. This has been incredibly freeing for me.
Now, however, I can’t help but feeling like I should make sure my body is operating at maximum efficiency…you know, optimal health. I struggle with “pushing” myself still…I hope to find things that I can do that are FUN that I do just because I LOVE it not because I feel a sense of “I better or else I will get flabby again” or some such fiddle faddle.
One thing I am considering is Dodger. He needs to be worked with. We aren’t ready to ride on the trail together, but I think I could take him out walking, hiking and jogging on the trail. In fact, he and I used to do that together…so given he may go to my trainer’s in a few weeks, I would like to maybe get him out for a walk, jog, hike (we live in a very hilly location) several times a week! I think this would help me accomplish a couple of things. I just LOVE being with my horses and this horse is very special. (He is in a video with Danieland he was featured in Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul Volume 2.) I am so eager to have special one on one time with him. I could do that while helping him through some of his fears at being away from his herd buddies…and be active at the same time! It sounds wonderful! So…maybe I need to brainstorm things I enjoy doing that don’t feel like my old compulsive workout days…
1. Taking Dodger for walks 2. Dance Praise
3. I MISS ROLLER BLADING! I need to find a place where I can roller blade! Where we live we can’t do that. Bummer! Maybe I could out at the Omstead (where I often go to ride…they have a fire road that might work for blading on…) 4. Taking the dogs running…I used to train for marathons with my dog Samson…I haven’t wanted to start running where we live now, though. This is home of the 100 miler runs that some of my friends do…I am not kidding! And *I* thought training for a *marathon* was obsessive! LOL!
5. Mountain biking is something else that TONS of people do in this area. I would LOVE to do that, but I know I need to be fitter to manage getting UP the hills!
6. Kayaking. I live in river country…gives me something to consider! These things sound like fun!
Well, I am already out of ideas! Maybe God will show me as I just get started doing something fun…maybe one thing will lead to another.
Lord, you know that I want to have a temple (my body) that is in the best condition it possibly can be in (reasonably, Lord) for service to you. I want to be able to be fit enough not to worry about climbing any of the hills around here. I want to be able to have more energy and to know that I am doing my best to be in the best condition reasonably possible that I might serve you more effectively. You know that I fear returning to obsession. Please help me to remember that perfect love casts out fear. You are perfect love, Lord. If I rest in your love, I need not fear. I want YOU to be my guide and not to allow fear to be my guide…yet another idol in my life. Please be King in this and show me the way. Keep me from slothfulness, lethargy, laziness. Thank you for Dodger. I pray that he and I might bond as we go out on special walks together…Make it possible, Lord! In the precious name of Jesus, Amen.
On the Thin Within forums, I have been asked some things about my eating. When I mentioned that I have refined and adjusted my hunger numbers over time, one member asked me if I was eating more like to what would be a “4” on the hunger scale.
Here is my (edited) response to her question:
Well, no. I would have to say that I am not eating anywhere close to what I would have called a “4” in the beginning. Here is why: I weighed 250 pounds when I began. I didn’t know it, but I had 100 extra pounds of fat to release. It takes X amount of food to sustain 100 extra pounds of fat. It takes less than that to begin to release the extra fat weight. As I released weight, I found that it took less food to sustain my NEW weight…but I wasn’t done releasing weight yet and I knew it.
God didn’t even let me evaluate it that way at the time…he made the process of change always be about him…and my heart. It is as I look back now that it seems to be so obvious what happened physically!
At that time, I could tell that, even with the releasing of the weight that had happened so far (say 50 pounds), I still had a stronghold with food going on. I saw a subtle attitude that I had that “I am owed” food to a “5”….and God began to gently nudge me…”Release it to me, child”…
Anyhow, so it took less food to sustain my new size and less food to release more of my extra fat as I went along. God nudged me that I was still clinging to the food…And so on.
I found that my body is efficient and that even as active as I am, I don’t need much food at a sitting to stop being hungry….which is my goal. How much food do I need to stop being hungry? That is the place that God has led me *now* call 5. I didn’t call that a 5 before. I would have called that a 1 or a 2. (I know this sounds scary…if someone had said it to me, I would have quit right then and there…it has to be GOD’s doing in us…it isn’t anything I would have planned! Honestly!)
The cool thing is, I went from eating more food each time, but only 2 times a day (or maybe 3) to eating 4 to 7 times a day, but not very much food each time.
My body and my life have adjusted to eating that way just by heeding what the Lord has said to do (in his strength…honestly…)…but if I was to compare how MUCH I eat at a sitting now to how much I ate at a sitting when I weighed 250 pounds…no…I ate a lot more then than I do now.
My thinking has changed. I don’t have anxiety about not getting food, for instance. I am not fearful. Hunger doesn’t bother me like it did then. I also don’t have fear of regaining weight (that is a new thing that God has done in the past 3 months!).
Another thought that God has changed in me is I figure that if I don’t eat enough at this sitting–if I serve myself too little–…if I am hungry again soon, I can eat again! For instance, yesterday I had a funky new food for a meal. I ate to what I call a 5…and within an hour I was hungry again! No problem. I ate.
If you want to see photographs of my portions for a few days, you can check …but don’t freak! It may not be what God leads YOU to do now! What is right for me now, came after a year of God slowly evolving things…and it wasn’t intentional to do anything but to ask the Lord what His will is…and to ask for His strength to do it…to release my grip on things like “I MUST have ‘a sweet’ after every meal” and other lies I believed and built my life on.
Hope this helps…again, though, don’t use it to judge your own eating. It is totally personal and I would have FREAKED out if anyone had shared this with me a year ago! God does amazing things in each of us in HIS timing! I am thrilled to delight in what I eat…and I don’t feel deprived at all.
True confessions. I am currently praying about if I can have the freedom to develop some sort of routine workout program. I really don’t feel the freedom to just now. Sort of just doing whatever I am in the mood for is about all I feel the freedom to do…without turning my body (bleah) or self (yuck) or exercise into an idol and becoming ensnared again…I have come out of that in my past and don’t want to return to it. I am sure, in time, I might be able to do that in freedom…someday, but not today.
So below is my Busy Horsewoman’s Workout 1! LOL! I decided to have a little fun…Hope you enjoy!
It is a fascinating thing to “blog.” In fact it is fun to check the stats every day to see what visitors have stopped in…Have they been new visitors? Repeat visitors? Have they (you) browsed multiple pages while here? I so want to KNOW you! 🙂
My favorite thing to check is what is called “referrer.” It tells me where on the web the visitor came from just before landing at my blog.
For the past three weeks, I have noticed that the most commonly referring website after ThinWithin.ORG is Google. In fact, my guess is that 60% or more people come to this blog after doing a search at Google. Sometimes the search parameters are “Thin Within,” appropriately enough.
But of all the people that come from Google, I would say 90% of them come after the following (or words like them) have been typed into the search field…
“Is God Doing a New Thing?”
My heart has been stirred by snooping this way…by looking at the referring websites that have brought people here.
So many people want to know if God is doing a new thing. At first, I just assumed it was pastors preparing messages for the first Sunday of the New Year. I figured they might be looking for Isaiah 43:18-19 and just not know where to find it. So, thinking of Google as a sort of broad bible concordance, they have typed in “God Doing New Thing” and up has popped the results including my blog.
Two Sundays have come and gone since the New Year began, though, and the traffic from these “God is Doing a New Thing” searches has tapered off only slightly.
People are still on a quest to know more about the New Thing God is Doing.
I feel so moved. As the people of God, let’s stand up and be counted. Let’s testify! God says He IS doing a new thing. Do we believe what God says? We may not perceive the new thing…but He says He IS DOING it! Verse 18 encourages us to FORGET THE FORMER THINGS. DO NOT DWELL ON THE PAST.
Which are we doing more of? Dwelling on the past? Or looking eagerly for the surprise that God is about to reveal! The joy of God’s new thing that he is doing!
Let’s join Him in this new thing! There is a hungry world out there…they are using Google to find out if God is at work!!!! Let’s SHOW THEM THAT HE IS!!!! That He LOVES all of us! That He can flood full all the empty places of our lives…causing us to overflow with his abundance.
He IS making ways in the desert and streams in the wasteland!
Lord, I miss your will in a lot of things, I am sure.
But this one thing I know. You call me to be still and know you are God.
Be…
I am here, Lord. Thank you that you have brought me to this place, this time, this hour of my life.
Be still…
My mind races in a million different directions, running ahead of me trying to get a start on the day. I know the best start is here…at your feet, Lord. Calm the storms of my mind, the anxiety, the agitation, the busy-ness of my mind. You whispered “Be still” and the wind and waves ceased. I invite you to do that in me.
Be still and…
There is yet more. In the stillness, I sense a great divine “and…” It isn’t about me, about my will, my way, my quiet time, my prayers, my blog, my reading, my “wisdom,” my spouting off …There is an and that causes me to anticipate…YOU, Lord. I sense a need for reverence in this and…You are here…
Be still and know…
Yes, Lord. I see. You are here. There is quiet, there is stillness. Even as the dogs play by my side, eager for their day to officially begin with breakfast. Even so, there is a stillness, a knowing…it is a knowing too deep for me to capture with words and grasping to do so undermines my need to be still and know…for now, I stop my fingers on the keyboard, Lord…
…
It boggles my mind, Lord that you can be king over all creation…holding all things together, aware of everything that goes on in the universe and in every heart of every child of yours…nothing escapes your sight. You see me, Lord. El Roi…the God who sees…you see me in this stillness, in this quiet, in this knowing…Oh! I must hush with the thought of it…
Be still and know I AM…
ah…there it is… whatever my need, whatever my question, your answer is “I AM…” Not just in this still knowing, but in the turning lane, at the grocery store, on the phone, grading papers, kissing my Mom…in all the mundane moments that comprise life, you are I AM…
Be still and know I AM God…
King, Lord, Savior, Sovereign One…all for you, by you, through you, because of you, unto you, your glory, Lord.
I feel like the Lord wants me to show you…a friend with whom I feel some strange connection…my journals. Granted, not every single word of every single page…and probably not in order or with sense…but, well, there is something that the Lord wants someone to see.
I posted earlier today with joviality. Then I did a lesson that is wonderfully compatible with Thin Within–The Lord’s Table. Today’s lesson was on repentance. Oh…it was well-written and powerful and while the teaching is not new to me, the Lord used it to convict me powerfully afresh.
I can’t pretend I understand the connection with that and the journals. but here are two pages…you will have to go off the blog site to see them large enough to read…I hope that this vulnerability isn’t for naught. If God can take these tattered, shattered, broken pieces of my life from the past and use them to draw others…oh, Lord…so be it! The first is from Feb. 9, 1999. Click on it to see the page full size from Photo Bucket. The second is the facing page of the journal, written a couple of weeks later.
One friend asked me…what message do I share NOW. Is it the SAME as the one in the journal? Goodness. I hope it is clear from even a casual browsing in my blog here, that the message I share NOW, almost 10 years after these were written…THERE IS HOPE! GOD IS DOING A NEW THING…in YOU, reader…EVEN NOW! I share these journal pages because they show that I have been there. In fact, I was there for years. We don’t have to stay there.
What is the way out? I believe it is moment by moment, surrendering to the Lord. In the moment, taking captive our thoughts, our actions, our beliefs…and asking HIM to BE Lord in our minds that he will be Lord in what we CHOOSE to do NOW.
As Christians, we have the freedom to choose to say no to sin in the moment. When I wrote the journal pages that you see, I didn’t believe the significance of the moment. I was bogged down in all or nothing…and nothing was all I had…
My husband has released 11 or 12 pounds. 😀 But more…he has sure gotten smart, too! LOL! He has encouraged me with things to share here in my blog…thus the photos, for instance, of the portions and other things, too. Today, I share some things that come straight from HIS brain and a bit from his heart, too. Thank you, hubby, for your willingness to share with those who visit my (now it is OUR) blog! 😀
Years ago, before he carried much weight in his tummy, he would do this cute little giggle like the Pillsbury Dough-Boy on TV commercials. He has a round face anyhow, so he really is adorable. LOL! So, for this entry, he has the affectionate name of “Dough Boy.” 🙂
After we made our photographic series on our Anniversary Dinner, Dough Boy took his leftovers to work. Our daughter had eaten a fajita or two out of Dad’s leftovers, but Dough Boy had enough left for a wonderful lunch. He was looking forward to it. He got to work early, put the carryout box in the breakroom fridge, and went to his morning meeting. After the meeting, Dough Boy was ready for lunch and his fajitas were on his mind.
He went to the fridge in the breakroom. The take out box with, what HE calls, his “precioussssss….” was GONE!
After snooping around to try to discover the solution to this mystery, hubby discovered his boss had “cleaned out” the fridge, assumed the box was left from before the New Year holiday and THREW IT OUT! Oh! Hubby’s heart did break! He has mentioned this event repeatedly since then and always with a sad little pout referring to his “preciousssss……” (Did I ever tell you how much fun hubby is? He is so silly!)
Friday night, the family went out to Carls Jr. and Dough Boy ordered a Western Bacon Burger with fries. He shared the fries and wrapped up half his burger to take home. Good grief! Will wonders ever cease! 🙂
Then, yesterday, we had our weekly date–just he and I–and went to “Main Street.” I ordered a burger and fries. He ordered a taco and chips and salsa. I cut off about 1/4 of my burger and put the rest in the carry out (they are large burgers). The rest was for my daughter and I to share later. I had about 10 fries and the rest went into the carry out.
Dough Boy had some chips, salsa, and his taco. In the past, he would have had all of that *and* my burger AND all the fries. There would have been NO food left for us to take home.
Even so, when we got into the car Dough Boy said, “Oh…I am at a SEVEN!” He can’t believe how his stomach has adjusted to eating differently. It takes SO much less food to satisfy and eating slowly is so key when you eat so little.
Last night, at Neighborhood Fellowship Group, there were tiny brownies about the size of dice. I kid you not! How funny is that? Dough Boy commented on the way home how “bingeing” has been redefined for him. It used to be eating taco, chips, burger and fries. Now it is eating a taco after the chips. A lot less food. It used to be half a pan of brownies. Now it is one chocolate chip cookie and 2 brownie dice. LOL.
Dough Boy says that he feels God is doing a new thing in his heart and life, too. He says God has been showing him a lot of flaws in his life that he needs to take seriously and address.
I realize sharing these things has *seemed* rather silly and frivolous. I mean, I am using silly pictures, for instance…but if you knew the strongholds that have been in our lives…you would know that this has been a result of serious spiritual warfare…we rolled over and refused to fight. We did’t “struggle” at all. We lived for years, just letting the enemy have his way with us and with our home. Ok, so *I* may have put up a fight every so often…but as my testimony has indicated…it was only a matter of time before I bellied up again.
Hi, everyone. Please forgive this digression for just this entry (or that is my intent). This won’t become a political blog.
It is laid on my heart to share with you another new work that God is doing in my heart and life. Maybe it is that food is finally out of the way and so I can expand my vision–I don’t know. But for the first time in my life I care about our presidential nominations and who ends up in the White House next year.
I can’t believe it, but I have actually volunteered to be involved in the campaign and have donated money! My husband has applied to be a delegate. No other candidate for any election in any other year has ever caused the embers in our heart to burn for change as this candidate has.
Will you consider joining us? Mike Huckabee is the man who has our unflinching support. If you do some research about him (if you haven’t yet) I bet God will set a fire in your heart, too. No human is perfect, to be sure, but Governor Huckabee…he deserves some consideration and prayer as to whether he is God’s man for the job as next President of the United States!
Please watch some of his videos and read some of his position statements. (Here is one video that I am blessed to hear how unapologetically he presents his faith.)
His campaign is grassroots. He has no huge budget but is soliciting support from people like you and like me. I hope you will consider making a donation.
Aside from being a born again believer, Governor Huckabee votes according to his God-touched conscience. He doesn’t vote a “party line,” but evaluates the needs and does what he feels led to do. If you go to You Tube and check it out, there are a lot of video clips of ads, debates and so forth where he has been articulate, thoughtful, challenging and demonstrated an incredible sense of humor, commitment to the Lord and His work, and a willingness to take America forward.
I really believe this is someone that God can use to bring godly values to our nation again. It is my prayer, anyhow! Even if he *did* write a “diet” book! LOL! (He lost 100 pounds!)
