“I don’t care what my boundaries are…I wasn’t thinking about life on a day like this one when I ‘committed’ 0 to 5 eating.”
“Given what I am facing, surely God doesn’t expect me to just be ‘good’ after a day like today!!!”
“It’s just not fair. How come my sister can eat whatever she wants and never gain weight! It makes me crazy!”
“I am going to hang out on the boat this weekend with the ice chest, snacks, good friends, and just kick back. I’m not going to worry about my eating for a day! I have been good, after all. I deserve a break!”
Can you identify with these statements? Chances are, we all can.
In our society we are told that we deserve the best, we deserve all we can grab. Life should be fair! There is never a need to be sad or uncomfortable with so many options for making ourselves feel happy!
These are lies that we sometimes tell ourselves–lies that take us outside of our God-given boundaries of eating between physical hunger and physical satisfaction. If we want to really experience the victory that we have longed for, we have to be willing to recognize the lies when they appear and replace them with God’s truth. That is what our “Renewing of the Mind” bible study is about this summer. We want to change the way we think, because what we think, affects what we believe, and what we believe, affects our actions. Our actions over time establish patterns and it is those patterns that bring forth fruit in our lives…the results that we either rejoice in or are discouraged by–both in our character and outwardly.
If we want to choose a fruitful life that reflects the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives, we have to start with what we tell ourselves. How often do we tell ourselves we are entitled to “the good life?” Is this creating an unworkable belief that runs counter to realizing our godly goals?
Here is a 7 minute video on this subject (if you are an email subscriber, you may have to visit the website in order to see it):
I believe that if Justification is a primary reason we eat outside of our 0 to 5 boundaries, then Entitlement is its twin. Truly, if we could eliminate Justification Eating and Entitlement Eating, much of our eating outside of 0 and 5 would stop altogether!
Consider how wonderfully refreshing it is to live with integrity, acknowledging and praising the God of the Universe as he walks personally with you, inviting you into a life of discovery. He is sufficient! No, maybe not in the way we have come to expect in our world of drive-thrus, instant coffee, and microwave ovens. We think we are entitled to bigger, faster, and more. But our God IS huge! His glory fills the entire earth and he invites us to step up into intimacy with him–even as we train ourselves for godliness. It is SOOoooo worth it!
Assignment:
1.) Each week, I have asked you to evaluate if GOD has called you to a primary boundary of eating 0 to 5. If you aren’t convinced that this is something God is calling you to do, I believe you won’t be successful. You will find a million reasons NOT to eat 0 to 5. But if you know God is calling you to do it, if you have a conviction that is deep and abiding, then write it down in your journal and each time you reaffirm that this is, indeed, a conviction that comes to you from God, date it in your journal. I urge you to do this today, too–even if you already did yesterday.
2.) Evaluate if you need to adjust your secondary boundaries. Have you successfully lived with the secondary boundaries you established for yourself previously? It might be time to move forward…to add another one or tweak a prior secondary boundary. For those of you new to this, if you have noticed that you are unaware of physical satisfaction as it approaches, you can observe and correct–see if there are any trends as you look over the past week or so. Are your eating occasions outside of 0 to 5 (your primary boundary) when you are in the car? When you watch TV? Typically limited to one food in particular or when you are with a certain friend? If so, this provides the perfect opportunity to establish a secondary boundary to support you relative to that trend. If you are unclear what secondary boundaries can be helpful to you, post a question here in the comments section. Chances are, someone has dealt with the same challenge as you and has an idea for some supportive secondary boundaries!
3.) Visit this page at Barb Raveling’s website–read and do the bible study and journaling activities on the page. You can print her blog post out and then journal your answers if you like.
4.) What do you believe about entitlement? How has it been affecting your eating?
5.) In the video, I gave the example of my driving as another area of my life where I struggle with an attitude of entitlement. How about you? Where do you see an attitude of entitlement: “I deserve the good life.” “Life should be fair.” or “I shouldn’t have to suffer!” affecting you? What are God’s truths about these situations?
6.) In the video, I mention four steps that can help you eliminate an attitude of entitlement. Try one (or more) of the following and see if it helps you!
Create Truth Cards that remind you daily the truth about entitlement, what God’s view of this is, whether life should be fair or not, and all that comes to the one who is willing to suffer if God calls you to do so. Here is a video about Truth Cards.
7.) Share here with us what God shows you about “Entitlement Eating” this week. How can we pray for you?
8.) Recording of our online class from this week of study (it is a sound file only, so don’t expect a video):
Description:
“I deserve the good life!” “Life should be fair!” “I deserve to never be sad or uncomfortable and if I am any of these things, I will use food to make me feel better because it is my right!”
Many of us have experienced this. Some of us may even live with a sense of entitlement. If we do, chances are we will never be consistent in our Thin Within efforts to eat between the parameters of 0 and 5 (or hunger and satisfaction).
What is God’s view of this attitude? What are we to do instead? How?
Have you ever eaten something at a meal when you were at “The Perfect Zero,” only to feel what seemed like moments later like you had a HUGE blood sugar dive? I call this the “Crash and Burn” phenomenon.
I know many people are concerned about waiting for physical hunger for fear they will experience the “Crash and Burn.” For me, this isn’t potentially detrimental, though I know for some with diagnosed blood sugar issues, it may be. So please, if you are insulin resistant, pre-diabetic or have any concerns whatsoever about your blood sugar levels, do what your doctor would want you to do and ignore me!
For the rest of us who might use our fear of low blood sugar to justify eating when we aren’t quite at a 0, though, maybe there is something here that can encourage you or offer you strategies for success. In any event, I survived the experience!
For me, the Crash and Burn only happens when I feed The Perfect Zero with something very high in simple sugars…like fruit, for instance, or…as this case demonstrates, pancakes and syrup!
The Crash and Burn incident in the below sound byte happened to me last week. I decided to experiment a bit. In the following sound byte, I describe what happened, how it happened, and what I decided to do about it. (Forgive the echoing piece in the middle of the byte. I was using new software and didn’t know I had a setting messed up!)
The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time.
You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
The LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.
Psalm 145:15-19
How about you? Do you fear the Crash and Burn? Do you have medical reasons to be concerned or is it discomfort that you want to avoid? What are some strategies you can use to manage through these kinds of incidents?
NOTE: I hope you will join us for today’s webinar to talk about Justification Eating. Here are the specifics!
Please register for Justification Eating – The Lies We Tell Ourselves – Thin Within Support on Jul 5, 2013 4:00 PM PDT at:
We are learning how to renew our minds to support us on our Thin Within journeys. We want to break free from telling ourselves lies that cause us to eat outside of our God-given 0 and 5 (hunger and satisfaction) boundaries. Let’s talk about what we can do to SEE the lies and what we can to to take them captive while replacing them with TRUTH! VICTORY can be ours as we deal with this important issue.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Of all the situations and challenges we face in maintaining our primary boundary of eating within 0 and 5, probably the #1 on the list is “Night Time Eating.” If ever there is a time of day that we find ourselves “justifying” eating outside of physical hunger and satisfaction, it is probably 8 times out of 10, from the dinner hour on for many of us.
Here is a sound file that speaks to this. (If you are an email subscriber, you may need to visit the blog site in order to hear the file.)
How about you? Do you struggle with night time eating outside of your boundaries of 0 and 5? What can you do to structure tonight for success? Will you? 🙂
What do each of these statements, said in an attempt to justify eating outside of my boundaries, have in common?
They are all lies.
Most of the time we violate our boundaries, it starts in the seed of a lie. We may call it “justifying,” but it is, simply, lying to ourselves.
Since this study is about being transformed by the renewing of our minds, since we have been evaluating the lies that we believe and rejecting these lies and replacing them with truth, one of the best places to look is the tiny little “mistruths” we tell ourselves that erode our resolve to live according to our boundaries.
I have asked everyone participating in this study (and even those of you not in this study may want to do this) to evaluate: Are you convinced that God is calling you to the primary boundary of eating within the parameter of physical hunger and satisfaction? 0 and 5?
Many of us, in a moment of clarity, were convinced that God was calling us to this. We don’t want to lose sight of that. Anything we tell ourselves that minimizes that conviction should be scrutinized. Here is a video about this:
This week’s assignment:
1.) How about settling this question in your mind: Are you convinced that God is calling you to 0 to 5 eating or eating within the parameter of physical hunger and satisfaction? If you are convinced that this is GOD’s call to you, jot it down in your journal: “I know God is calling me to eat within 0 and 5” or other statement that reflects your conviction. Date it. If you did this last week, go to the place in your journal where you wrote it down and write today’s date with an affirmation that you are recommitting to 0 and 5. This is important. If we aren’t convinced that this boundary is what GOD is calling us to, then we will rationalize and justify a million reasons not to live according to it!
In a moment of clarity, when we aren’t tempted, we prayerfully welcome God to convict our hearts about the boundaries HE has for us. Whatever these may be, we want to establish a way of remembering this moment. It is important and will serve as a guiding principle for our lives!
2.) Evaluate your secondary boundaries that you established last week. If you are doing just fine with those, you may want to ask God to show you another boundary to add or to trade out or modify. Remember, secondary boundaries support you in maintaining your ability to abide by your primary boundary of 0 and 5. Jot down in your journal what your new (or revised) secondary boundaries will be.
3.) Go to Barb Raveling’s website and read and complete the study she has on Justification Eating found here by jotting the answers down in your journal. As when we did this study last spring, it will be helpful for us to remember that Barb isn’t a Thin Within participant. Please don’t be thrown off by her reference to “calories.” Keep focused on what God has led you to do and invite him to show you the benefit you can glean from her material! It is great stuff! We just have to skip over some dieting jargon from time to time.
4.) List in your journal 5-10 “small lies” you tell (or have told) yourself to justify eating outside of your primary boundary of 0 and 5.
5.) Beneath each lie you have exposed, write down the TRUTH in that situation. If you find this helpful, continue the process, stopping every 5 to 10 of these to be sure to write the corresponding TRUTH down for each.
6.) Journal: If you start telling yourself the truth about your eating, will it affect how diligently you follow your primary and secondary boundaries? Are you willing to do this today? If not, why not?
7.) What food or eating experience are you most likely to justify going outside of your primary boundary (of eating 0 to 5) in order to experience?
For example: I love to go out to almost any restaurant for Mexican food. I know that when I sit down to the meal, I will eat enough chips and salsa to no longer be hungry, yet I still want to eat some of the meal when it arrives. I tend to tell myself “I am still hungry” when the meal comes to justify eating as much as I would have if I hadn’t eaten any chips to start with!
7.) Strategize what you can do about this situation.
For example: I will ask the server to bring the chips with the meal and consider it part of my portion.
Or:
When the chips arrive, I will takego to the restroom and take a time out. This will cut into the amount of time that I will have eating chips and salsa before the meal arrives. I will use the time in the restroom to review my truth cards (if I have them with me) or to remember what is true about my boundaries and the joy I have when I live according to them. When I get back to the table, I will slow my eating of chips or intentionally have only 5 or 10 chips with salsa. I will remind myself of the truth that I rejoice in living within my God-given boundaries.
8.) List things that are true whenever you have broken your 0 to 5 eating boundaries. How do you feel when you break your 0 to 5 boundaries? What does it do for you? List what is true about breaking your 0 and 5 boundaries so that when you are considering breaking your boundaries with your justification, you can look at your list of how you feel *after* you have broken your boundaries and remember! You might want to add this list to your TRUTH cards. “When I eat outside of my boundaries, I _____________”
For example: After I have broken my 0 to 5 eating boundaries, I am filled with regret. After I have broken my 0 to 5 eating boundaries, I worry that I won’t stop. The joy of eating outside of my boundaries is momentary compared to the time spent frustrated with myself.
How is justification eating telling yourself a lie? What truths can you tell yourself when you are faced with a moment of decision about whether or not to give in to the temptation to eat outside of your boundaries?
Note: If you are just joining us, you can go to this pageand see what we have done so far. Come on along!
10.) As a final part of the assignment, consider posting here some of the things that God showed you about the lies you tell yourself and the truth to counter those lies…OR anything else that you may want to share with others. If you have a question feel free to post it here as well! 🙂
Many of you are taking the plunge with accountability partnership! I know it is a bold brave step! I applaud you! Thank you for stepping up and believing God for the NEW thing that he is doing!
Today, I want to provide some resources for you and your partner.
Here are some previous posts on Accountability here at the blog.
How to pick an accountability partner. This post goes through some considerations you might want to ponder as you select a partner. If you already have a partner, this post isn’t likely to be terribly helpful. 🙂
This postshares a glimpse into how accountability can work for you as I share how it worked for me with my partner.
You and your accountability partner will want to discuss what works best for you each. What works best for one of you might not for the other, but you could still be successful partners together. For instance, there are some tools at the Thin Within website that some of you can use and benefit from. Some of these, might cause the rest of us to go right back into “dieting mode.” I have experienced both extremes during my own journey, but I share these tools with you now in case they can be supportive to some of you:
Food_Log – While different from the usual “diet” food log, it can, nevertheless, trigger dieting behavior, so only consider using this after praying and sensing God’s leadership. Then, perhaps, try it only for a week (or less) and evaluate with the support of your AP (accountability partner).
Hunger_Graph– This link shows two pages. The first is a sample page of how the graph looks when filled out. The second page is the blank one. Again, only use this if you think God is leading you to try it. It can be a temporary tool that can help us focus, but it can also challenge some of us with dieting triggers!
Observation and Correction– Each time you practice the Key to Conscious Eating, you make a special mark on the screen indicating as much. 🙂 At the end of the day, if you don’t see many marks next to that key, then you know it is likely to be a key you want to work on. Some people use #1 and #8 as their primary boundary (0 and 5 eating) with #s 2-7 being secondary boundaries. It can be best to focus on only one or two of the secondary boundaries at a time.
No matter what you have decided about accountability, you probably want to be structured with your partner to talk about these things each week:
1. What successes have we experienced in our Thin Within journeys? (There should be something here each week. If there isn’t, please email me for input. It could be your partnership isn’t functioning quite the way it is intended and a little input can help.)
2. What successes have we experienced in our accountability partnership? (Hopefully, you are seeing some of these within the first week. These things might include “Our schedules are compatible,” “We both like to text a lot and that is working for us,” “My partner likes to text and that works for me, but she can also talk on the phone every 3 days which is my preference.”)
3. What challenges or hurdles have we experienced in our Thin Within journeys?
4. What observations and correctionshave we made?
5. Each of you will want to ask your partner: How can I best serve you in our partnership in the week ahead? If a partner needs more support, if a partner needs less, talk about these things and see if you can reach a happy medium.
Evaluate these things with a simple “Is this working for me?” approach:
Number of check-ins – does one of you feel like it isn’t frequent enough? Too frequent?
Nature of check-ins – does it feel like the emails are too long? Too short? No response?
“Venue” for check in – is the texting, phone calling, emailing approach work for you? Or do you need
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
– Galatians 6:2
Do you have an AP yet? If not, don’t wait any longer! Jump on board. Let’s have an updated response here on this post. If you still need an Accountability Partner, say so HERE on this post, ok? Then, please type out your email address like this: heidi bylsma at gmail dot com (no spaces) or harleys heidi at comcast dot net (no spaces). Then, if you see someone who intrigues you, go ahead and send them an email. No need to wait for me!
