Right now I am involved in a study called “A Taste for Truth”  by Barb Raveling.  It’s a great way to learn to renew my mind and  fits nicely with eating “intuitively”, or 0-5.  A few days ago, I joined the discussion on the chapter regarding emotional eating. My good friend Deanna Burris, who is leading the class asked us some questions and gave some advice that I wanted to share with you.

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Do you remember the first time you ate for emotional reasons?

Gals, we have tools to use that will sidetrack our desires to eat emotionally today. We can renew our minds before we eat out of our emotions. If we miss renewing our minds before eating, we can renew our minds after and that will bring us closer to making this a habit.

Barb says at the end of this lesson, “When we stuff our emotions with food, we miss out on so much. We can change that by developing a habit of going to God to talk through all those hard situations in our lives that make us want to eat for emotional reasons.”

Share what you discovered about those “Hard Things” in your life as you worked through today’s Bible Study.

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Emotional eating came early in life for me.

I was put on a diet at 5 yrs old and wasn’t allowed to have sweets.  However, my sister was allowed to have them because she was skinny and I was not.

I remember feeling ugly and unloved while my sister was the favored one.

The first memory I have of emotional eating was probably when I was around 8 years old. My family was visiting my aunt’s house and she had a bowl of candy on her coffee table. At one point I was alone in the living room and so I saw an opportunity to eat candy. As I was eating it, I remember how good I felt and powerful and loved!  Thus began my pattern of sneaking food.  This is the beginning of my unhealthy relationship as food being my friend and comforter.

From the time I was a child, I learned that food helped ease the sadness and feelings of being unloved or insecure with myself. It made me feel like I had power when I would sneak food. I have learned now that I have done this into adulthood without even realizing it. As I used food to cope since early childhood, it became ingrained in me to respond to emotions with food.

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··· God Gives Hope! ···

God has opened my eyes to my emotional eating thru the book “HUNGER WITHIN”.  He continues to show me ways to STOP this behavior thru the study of the book “A TASTE FOR TRUTH”. Renewing my mind about my identity in Jesus helps me a lot. Scripture about God being in control and His love and provision also keep me feeling secure in Him and I don’t reach for the food. I have learned that food is a lier. It is certainly NOT my friend and DOES NOT love me back! I am learning with these tools God has given me that only HE truly satisfies.

He loves me right now, right here wherever I am on the journey.

Food is just a tool for nourishing my body.

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.God has more work to do with me regarding emotional eating.  Because of this, I am excited to announce that Deanna Burris and I will be offering a group study of Barb Raveling’s book “Freedom from Emotional Eating”.  We will start in mid September and end by the end of November.

This class is for people who already have the basics of Thin Within down and are ready for the next level.

We will not be discussing weight, diets or any jargon regarding good or bad food choices.  This way, we can be free to not be tempted to return to diet mentality while God is healing us from emotional eating.

Look for more information on the TW website soon.

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