WLBS Review: Hopeless Eating, Good Food Eating, and Bad Scale Eating

Week 04 - Assignment Thin Within Book

Hopeless Eating – Do you struggle with the thought that I will never conquer this challenge? Do you feel like  eating and weight will always be a struggle for me? Barb shares in her study that truth journaling about this is crucial! Reason with me for a moment: Who is it you serve? What does HE say about your struggle? What does he say about YOU? By way of review (or new information if you haven’t yet seen it), I urge you to download, print out and speak out loud each day Who I Am in Christ. <– Click that link and you will see a pdf document that is filled with wonderful truth about who you are in Christ! It is so very difficult to speak this truth over your own life and to remain hopeless. Christ blew the LID off the grave so that hope might be victorious forevermore! If you like, review the video where I speak about hopelessness. It is here. Also, Truth Journaling is an invaluable tool to fight the lies with truth when we struggle to experience hope. We CAN get to the other side of the feeling of hopelessness. Let’s fight our way through it. Besides, will eating make it any better? It never has before. In fact, eating feeds the very hopelessness we want to combat!

What are some truths that can feed and fuel hope when it wanes for you? Share here so we can all benefit from one another!

Good Food – or Yummy Food – Eating – Do you struggle with thinking if it is there and I want it, I must eat it?  This is the mentality that just says there isn’t any deep hidden meaning going on here right now in my desire. I just want the food and there it is so I will eat it. To not give in to yummy food eating we can be proactive. If we know we are going to be in a situation where we will have opportunities for eating food that tastes good when we aren’t hungry, we can plan for victory! Some of Barb’s questions are so helpful to me personally. In fact, I think I have started thinking sort of like her! LOL! (In a good way!) Will eating this right now break a boundary? Will I have to learn to say no to my temptation to break boundaries? If I don’t learn that, what do I know is likely to happen? Given my history, do I have the ability to eat whatever I want whenever I want in the quantities I want for the reasons I want without it coming at extreme cost? In light of the TRUTHFUL answers to these questions, what will I choose right now?

How about you? What are some questions you can ask yourself in the moment when the food is there and you, simply, just WANT it!?

Bad Scale Eating We just completed a “Ditch Your Scale” Challenge. Why not start your own challenge? Can you not get on the scale for a week? Do you feel like the scale has too much power over you? Do you feel like one person posted, “Sure, I will give up my scale as soon as someone pries my fingers off of it!” Many of us feel that way. We have an unhealthy relationship with that device that is meant to be a tool, but we can’t seem to drum up the willingness to grow through this. We continue to seek approval of the bathroom scale. Let’s pray that God will help us to stand on His Word and on His promises. Let’s do what one person here at the blog said and choose to stand on the promises of God found in Scripture that says he who began a good work will carry it on to completion. She said she would choose NOT to “check on his progress” by stepping on the scale for two weeks. Does weighing yourself cause you to celebrate by eating? Does it cause you to comfort yourself by eating? Then it might be a good thing to evaluate if you should have a friend or family member take the scale for a couple of weeks and pray you through this.

What does God call you to do relative to the bathroom scale? If you are able to use it as a tool and not allow it to define what you will do next, then you may have a wonderfully healthy relationship with it. If, however, you give it the power to make you feel like a success or a failure, consider doing something radical! 🙂 What will it be?

Day 9 of the Ditch Your Scale Challenge

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First things first:

Winner of the contest this week is Doublejay4me!

CONGRATULATIONS! I will email you. You get to select from a Thin Within book, donated by Joe and Pam Donaldson of the Thin Within Company, a Hunger Within book, donated by Arthur and Judy Halliday (authors and founders of Thin Within) or a week of one-on-one coaching with me. This is our last week of contests until June! I hope you will all continue to post and encourage one another!

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We began our Ditch Your Scale Challenge 8 days ago. This is day 9. Have you made it this far? We have 5 days left to go!

I have to admit. I have NOT made it. Not at all! I am somewhat surprised, too! Maybe I need Kim to come and take this scale from me like she did the last one! 🙂 Oh, Kiiiii-iiim…LOL!

I leave on Sunday for a very LOOOOOONG trip and won’t be on a scale again during all that time (at least through May 9!), so I will have to deal with it cold turkey! I am going to be prayerfully evaluating what is going on with me to make me so dependent on the scale. While it isn’t like it used to be, it certainly has a feeling about it that I don’t care for! I have discovered that I have minimized any need for concern…which…er..concerns me. True confessions!

So, let me ask you: What are the challenges you have been facing staying off the scale? Anyone but me struggling with this? I started this challenge so cocky!

Have you tried renewing your mind about it? I must admit that it feels like there is SO much I am renewing my mind about these days that I will never get going on life each day if I keep renewing my mind about everything I have unworkable beliefs about! LOL! I need to renew my mind about renewing my mind! HA! Then I won’t make such a big deal out of it, I am sure. I can renew my mind when I am driving, when I am showering, when I am waiting in lines…it doesn’t have to be a big deal to be powerful!

What truths have you used to replace the thought that “I must weigh or else I will _____” ?

I love what one of our participants said…that she is choosing to stand on the promise that God will complete that which he began and that she will resist checking on His progress! I love that! Maybe I need to paste that ON my bathroom scale. Yes…that is a good idea.

What else can we do to cooperate with God in resisting the call of the bathroom scale?

Day 1 of the “Ditch Your Scale” Challenge!

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Today, let’s consider the scale that we want to give our attention since we aren’t giving the bathroom scale our attention.

The scale we WILL give our attention to is the hunger scale!

Let’s hone in on those hunger numbers or, if you would rather, what “0,” or physical hunger, feels like. At the other side, we will try to refine our “5” or physical satisfaction, too.

Bringing it home:

What can you do to evaluate more precisely what physical hunger is like for you? What about physical satisfaction? Is there room for improvement? Will you commit to nailing down your “hunger scale?”

I just did a search on Bible Gateway for “scale” and it is interesting the passages that came up. Other than referring to “scales” on fish,  scale armor,  or “scaling” a wall, the first reference is this one in Job 6:1-3:

Then Job replied:

“If only my anguish could be weighed
    and all my misery be placed on the scales!
It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas—
    no wonder my words have been impetuous.

I thought that was intriguing given that so very often when we get on the bathroom scale, it is as if our misery and anguish is there on that scale. Don’t you think?

Another verse found in Job 31:5,6:

“If I have walked with falsehood
    or my foot has hurried after deceit—
let God weigh me in honest scales
    and he will know that I am blameless—

These are about the only references in Scripture (that I could tell) to weighing people. The rest of the references seem to indicate that weighing is typically in reference to value for commerce or some other context. Never for the purpose of weighing our own bodies or looking for approval from God or anyone else based on that weight!

In fact, most of the references to scales used for weighing anything at all were with regard to “dishonest” scales!

When I consider these facts, I really have to praise my God. This is definitely one of those worldly things that I am tempted to give far too much “weight” to.

By contrast, here is a passage that speaks of what God DOES invite me to “stand on:”

Then the Lord said,

“There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 

When my glory passes by,

I will put you in a cleft in the rock

and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

Exodus 33:21, 22

I love this image of our God! He invites us to stand on a rock up near him. Isn’t that precious? Each time we are tempted today to stand on the bathroom scale, let’s instead, stand on the rock that is near our God. His glory will pass us by and we will experience his closeness! Let’s further invite him to weigh our hearts and help us to value his approval more than anything!

Are you with me? 🙂

Bringing it home:

If we are going to succeed in our desire to be free from the tyranny of the bathroom scale for two weeks, we will have to make provision for obedience. What will you DO to plan for your obedience? Will you give your scale to a friend or family member to hide? Who? Will you cover the scale with a sign that reminds you not to step on it? Will you put it in the garage? What is your plan? 🙂

Weighing In On The Scale

Truth Inventory ~ Part 1
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Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. – Psalm 139:23-24

As I sat before the Lord with this verse my prayer, asking the Lord, “Where am I now?” “Where do YOU want me to be?” “What must I do to get there?” He was faithful to point out some things. This entry shares just one of these things. 🙂

The very first thing, that he brought to mind had to do with the bathroom scale.

I have lived without a bathroom scale in my life for about three and a half months. God pointed this out to me as something that delights HIS heart! YAY! 😀 So I am thrilled to know that this is definitely something that I am on the right track about.

Choosing to live without the scale was not for the purposes of living without accountability, as some might think. It was to be free from ungodly constraints and obsession. During the two years that I was focused on what God called me to do in 0 to 5 eating, faithfully following his lead, releasing 100 pounds and keeping it off, I allowed the bathroom scale to define me. (Doesn’t this sound contradictory? It is, but there it is anyhow!) I was a slave to it, living in fear of “What if my weight goes up?!”

God has been teaching me during the past three and a half months that I am not defined by what the scale says each day or, even, by what my size is. This isn’t coming naturally to me and I have struggled for all I am worth (at times) to resist heading in to town to purchase a new scale! I remember saying to my husband how motivating it is to see the needle going down…gosh…the Lord wants me to find His voice “motivating!”

Time and again, God has encouraged me with “Won’t you let my voice direct you? Won’t you stand on *my* promises and *my* reassurances instead of a man-made arbitrary device to which you have bowed slavishly your entire life?”

So, God has confirmed that, though I have struggled with obedience in my eating and my self-perception because of more weight on my body than I would like, that I am, indeed, learning lessons that he wants me to really get. Now is not the time to quit by getting a new bathroom scale. I sense his leading in this. YAY!

I will continue to live without the scale!

As I have returned to godly boundaries, this has been even harder. (Go figure!) I want the instant gratification of seeing the scale nudge downward. Boy, the flesh can sure pitch a fit! God lovingly speaks to my heart, “How about the ‘instant gratification’ of ME whispering to you, ‘Well done, child’?” You see, this tendency to grasp at “instant gratification” — that which the bathroom scale seems to feed — is the very same tendency that fuels eating outside of godly boundaries. “I want that NOW! I don’t *want* to wait until I am hungry to eat more of that…” If I am really to be *healed* of the *heart* issue that is at the root of my overeating, one great place to focus is this tendency to “Give it to me now!” Any place where this mentality appears in my life, must come under close scrutiny if I want it eradicated completely. Does that make sense? This incessant drive to hop on a scale each morning, actually fuels the very same heart that insists I have more brownies, or another meal when I am not hungry.

So, living without the scale is a good thing. This is where I am and have been for a while and this is where God wants me to be. YAY! I am so glad that this “Truth Inventory” isn’t all about things I have sploogied about…done wrong. God is so gracious!

Now, along these same lines, what other truth must I face? This is the harder thing to swallow, but the same grace that spoke to me about the above, spoke to me about this as well. I have not been relying on the Holy Spirit to guide and direct me…or, rather…and this is REALLY hard to admit…I have heard his voice and chosen to disobey…to ignore Him. In fact, the bathroom scale would be much “easier” to obey or to sense approval or correction from! Can you believe it?

Here is the thing…The HOLY Spirit resides in me as a child of God in part to empower me to make HOLY choices! He wants to give me the desires and the strength to carry out the desires of God for my life. He requires that I surrender self to Him in order for this to happen, however. He requires this. He will not MAKE me make good choices. He offers me everything I need for life and godliness and it is up to me to embrace it and walk it out in my life.

So where does this put me now? I believe that I am learning invaluable lessons. God wants me to learn to do this thing without the bathroom scale. My evident weight gain over the last 4 months (since the start of our summer study…not much, but enough…) as seen in the way my clothes fit, tells me (as if I needed it to) that I have not been a submissive, obedient, loving child. I knew that already, though! I don’t need my body size to tell me that! In fact, I recall times in my life where I wasn’t obedient, but my size didn’t change…I had “gotten away with” eating outside of godly boundaries. If I were to depend on the scale to “weigh my heart” then it had lied to me during those times…just because my weight hadn’t gone up during those times, didn’t mean I was on target with honoring the Lord with my eating and drinking. I know the truth! God’s Spirit speaks it to my spirit and there is no doubt!

So I will continue to live without the scale. I have continued this week to delight in godly boundaries and feel the burden of my heart lifted. It is such a joyful place to be! Even if my body weight hasn’t changed a bunch, my heart is lighter and I am back where I need to be, willingly surrendering to the canopy of his grace, following the path of GOD’s provision, not grasping at what I want NOW.

I am learning delayed gratification…more…I am learning true satisfaction in a new way. Getting rid of the scale and keeping it gone is a big part of that for me. It has been a frightening step to take, but I am confident that it has been the right place to be…so I press on! AND I press IN to the Lord, to lean on Him, to listen to HIS voice and…to obey it. His boundaries for me are because He loves me.

There is joy here!

Scale Stuff Revisited

Well, about a week after I had “put away” my scale, I DID get it out again for a few days. I reasoned through the why of it…and came up with some really good reasons why it was ok…but after a few days, I decided I wanted to deal with it for sure. LOL!

So…I went on ebay and ordered a pair of jeans in my favorite style and brand…one size smaller than I have been wearing…and the ones I wear right now are baggy…not very effective for keeping on top of my size.

The jeans arrived and I have NEVER worn a size 10 in my life. They fit! In fact, on my birthday (Monday, the 15th), I wore them for part of the day. I don’t know that I would wear them in public yet, but I did wear them to meet with a friend at her house. When I went on a horseback ride, I changed as it is really miserale to ride in jeans that aren’t a bit “forgiving!”

All that to say…I put the scale away again when the jeans arrived over a week ago and haven’t gotten it out. I don’t feel the pull any more. I know that these size 10 jeans will give me a sense of if things go down a bit yet, stay the same and if I hop off the bandwagon, these jeans won’t fit at all.

Truthfully, though, God is showing me some important things as I prepare for my group on Wednesday nights. Leading others through the book is so encouraging to me! I love it! And God is doing yet MORE work on me.

In the chapter that addresses the bathroom scale (chapter 6), the contrast is made between focusing on the bathroom scale and focusing on the hunger scale. Truthfully, when I submit my will to the Lord and the hunger scale, eating between the parameters of hunger and satisfaction or 0 and 5, I have no question in my mind that leads me to want to jump on the bathroom scale! I mean, this is a no brainer. It is only when I know I have been eating outside of those parameters that I want to see if I have gotten away with things and “just how bad IS it” or something like that.

More and more, God is enabling me not to “fudge” in my eating like I was doing pretty regularly. It is becoming less of an issue.

That is NOT to say that my heart has been changed. I still LUST for a zero like the best of them and still WANT food and still MOURN when I can’t have it…I mean, really…it is like being a baby sometimes, the little temper tantrum I am prone to have as I “deny myself” yet again. I hope that there will be a time in the future when I won’t feel this like a denial, but just a normal way of life…I know there are lots of other areas of greed that the Lord wants to ferret out and eradicate.

I am thankful that He is growing me so much, even if, at times it is painful.