NOTE: I posted three different things yesterday. Sorry to bog down the blog, but each seemed of value: 1.) Part 2 of the Group Study from HEAL Lesson 1. Feel free to respond here at the blog even if you don’t have the book! 2.) A post on dieting 3.) a video–If you have a young girl in your life, please share it with her.
On to today’s post (Don’t worry! I won’t be posting more today!…or I guess I should say, I don’t plan to!):
Hi, girls! Even if you are joining us late, feel free to use the blog here to record your responses. Many of us will receive email notifications that someone has posted to the blog and your comment will be read, prayed over, and possibly responded to.
- Continue to memorize Psalm 139, if you have chosen to do so.
- Read and pray over/journal through, respond to 🙂 Lesson 2: The HEAL Basics, on pages 35-48.
- This material describes the “nuts and bolts” of how we are challenged to eat. Begin to apply the principles presented here. Consider, journal, pray over how it feels to let go of dieting rules. Are you willing to truly trust your body and the God who designed your body? 🙂
- As you begin to do this, consider what are ways that you discover a “dieting mentality” rearing its ugly head through the week. For instance, you may try to diligently eat according to your body’s hunger and satisfied signals and feel like you are “failing” and are tempted to “Start over” or to “Quit.” These are thoughts that come from dieting. In the Lord’s economy, every single solitary moment given to him, every tiny little choice and babystep taken in a Godward direction, delights His heart! Continue to ask the Lord to show you when you are giving in to a dieting mentality, even in subtle ways.
I want to encourage us, as I did with the last study I did here, to try to focus on the Lord through this. The more we focus on our bodies, eating and food, the more it can actually drive us nuts and become a wall between us and the Lord! If we take captive constant thoughts about food, eating, and our bodies, and, instead, become intentional about praising God for his character or thanking him for things, we will find our journey transformed–WE will be transformed!
If you have a bathroom scale, I suggest getting rid of it or, at the very least, giving it to a friend to keep for you so you won’t hop on it over and over again “just to check.” I know from experience that jumping on a bathroom scale can actually DEFEAT all that you hope to accomplish. It is a tool that very often harms us, rather than helps. Pray about it, ok?
Have a blessed Lord’s day!
Hi Heidi,I haven't responded in a while, but I'm still reading your blog and LOVING IT!I especially enjoy seeing your picture of you "free". It is not only beautiful, but make *me* remember that *I* am beautiful right where I am right now.God is teaching me so much right now about loving me where I am and for who I am, RIGHT NOW.He is teaching me that having my heart and my focus is more important to Him than my number on a scale or even if I am eating 0-5 perfectly every time. He does want me to eat 0-5, but not so I can gain His approval, but because He wants me to be healthy and free from my own "disordered eating" and free from obsession with my body size and a number on a scale.Just the other day I realized that I don't eat 0-5 so I can please God. I don't even do it to obey (for then I feel if I "mess up", He would stop loving me….Weigh Down comin' back in my mind….). I do this because He loves me and wants me to be healthy. I do it because I want to be free of the roller coaster of dieting and body image worship….to TRANSFORM MY ATTITUDE by the RENEWING OF MY MIND.I don't even do this to be a "thin eater" because I have learned that in my heritage and lineage of family, we are stocky people who are tall, big built and not at all what I would consider "thin". Does that mean I am to be overweight or obese? No. This would be unhealthy and would be a result of over eating (another form of disordered eating that I battle)But, it does mean that I may not be able to maintain a size 8 body while eating "normally" or 0-5 eating. When I was maintaining a size 8, I had to be obsessed about counting points or calories and exercising regularly.Now, I try to walk about 3xs a week because it makes me feel good and I am eating 0-5 most of the time (no perfectionism here). After living this way for almost a year now, I have become more of a size 10-12 (leaning more to the 12). And you know what? God has shown me that it's o.k. to be this size. It is a healthy size for me. How freeing. I no longer obsess about whether I have eaten 0-5 perfectly each day because I am not back to the size 8 I was before.Well, I can't afford to do it anymore. Not only can I not afford the diet foods (low fat this and that), I can't afford the obessivness that came with it to maintain that size!So all that said…..Now I am pretending to pose for my picture with you in the "free" position! 🙂 Thank you so much for being YOU, sister!!In Him,~Deanna
Hi Heidi,I haven't responded in a while, but I'm still reading your blog and LOVING IT!I especially enjoy seeing your picture of you "free". It is not only beautiful, but make *me* remember that *I* am beautiful right where I am right now.God is teaching me so much right now about loving me where I am and for who I am, RIGHT NOW.He is teaching me that having my heart and my focus is more important to Him than my number on a scale or even if I am eating 0-5 perfectly every time. He does want me to eat 0-5, but not so I can gain His approval, but because He wants me to be healthy and free from my own "disordered eating" and free from obsession with my body size and a number on a scale.Just the other day I realized that I don't eat 0-5 so I can please God. I don't even do it to obey (for then I feel if I "mess up", He would stop loving me….Weigh Down comin' back in my mind….). I do this because He loves me and wants me to be healthy. I do it because I want to be free of the roller coaster of dieting and body image worship….to TRANSFORM MY ATTITUDE by the RENEWING OF MY MIND.I don't even do this to be a "thin eater" because I have learned that in my heritage and lineage of family, we are stocky people who are tall, big built and not at all what I would consider "thin". Does that mean I am to be overweight or obese? No. This would be unhealthy and would be a result of over eating (another form of disordered eating that I battle)But, it does mean that I may not be able to maintain a size 8 body while eating "normally" or 0-5 eating. When I was maintaining a size 8, I had to be obsessed about counting points or calories and exercising regularly.Now, I try to walk about 3xs a week because it makes me feel good and I am eating 0-5 most of the time (no perfectionism here). After living this way for almost a year now, I have become more of a size 10-12 (leaning more to the 12). And you know what? God has shown me that it's o.k. to be this size. It is a healthy size for me. How freeing. I no longer obsess about whether I have eaten 0-5 perfectly each day because I am not back to the size 8 I was before.Well, I can't afford to do it anymore. Not only can I not afford the diet foods (low fat this and that), I can't afford the obessivness that came with it to maintain that size!So all that said…..Now I am pretending to pose for my picture with you in the "free" position! 🙂 Thank you so much for being YOU, sister!!In Him,~Deanna
Wow Deanna's post really is encouraging to me. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I too love that free picture! It catches my eye each time I look at it…and imagine, that freeing is what process I am in now as well.
Wow Deanna's post really is encouraging to me. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I too love that free picture! It catches my eye each time I look at it…and imagine, that freeing is what process I am in now as well.
Hi, Deanna. Great to hear from you! yes, the Lord is showing me that the way I am now…well…wow…if I can be free AND maintain…I mean, that sounds so "diet" oriented and it really is a much different feeling than that. I can *live* here. I couldn't live in the size I was when I lost all the weight. I really believe I had made the size and the weight an idol…this was even more subtle than making thinness an idol. Yikes!You said this:And you know what? God has shown me that it's o.k. to be this size. It is a healthy size for me. How freeing. I no longer obsess about whether I have eaten 0-5 perfectly each day because I am not back to the size 8 I was before.And I REJOICE! I agree! Me, too! I am not the size I was when I "lost it all." But it struck me almost afresh, that I am ok…I really am. Right now, I am not living in fear! Wow.Thanks for writing. You have been on my heart!
Hi, Deanna. Great to hear from you! yes, the Lord is showing me that the way I am now…well…wow…if I can be free AND maintain…I mean, that sounds so "diet" oriented and it really is a much different feeling than that. I can *live* here. I couldn't live in the size I was when I lost all the weight. I really believe I had made the size and the weight an idol…this was even more subtle than making thinness an idol. Yikes!You said this:And you know what? God has shown me that it's o.k. to be this size. It is a healthy size for me. How freeing. I no longer obsess about whether I have eaten 0-5 perfectly each day because I am not back to the size 8 I was before.And I REJOICE! I agree! Me, too! I am not the size I was when I "lost it all." But it struck me almost afresh, that I am ok…I really am. Right now, I am not living in fear! Wow.Thanks for writing. You have been on my heart!
Thank you for these words, Heidi! I've been spending way too much time on other things the past few months…and am so glad to be back! Praising God with you that the Lord truly only cares about our hearts!
Thank you for these words, Heidi! I've been spending way too much time on other things the past few months…and am so glad to be back! Praising God with you that the Lord truly only cares about our hearts!