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!
“Abundant Life” – The phrase brings to mind many things for each of us. For some, it might mean material wealth. For others, being surrounded by friends and family. For still others, it means good health and the freedom to serve others without restraint. Certainly, for as many different people there are on the planet, there would likely be definitions of “Abundant Life.”
The real question, though, is what did Jesus mean when he used the term? He said he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. If he came to give it to us, if we don’t know what it looks like, perhaps we won’t know if we have it. What if, for many of us, this is an untapped resource?
This week we look at a couple of facets of the “Abundant Life Gemstone.” To do this, we will evaluate our lives a bit inviting God, once again, to search us and know us and show us what we need to adjust. He provides the strength to do it. There is a great deal of joy in following his lead!
In the past, many of us were consumed with dieting, calorie counting, weighing, measuring, researching. The countless hours that we invested in the pursuit of “Thin,” actually may have diminished our ability to be sensitive to what God was calling us to do. We may have magnified our longing for thin so much that God became small in our eyes. Can you relate to this?
If so, we don’t need to condemn ourselves. We can, however, be intentional to be sure this no longer happens.
We want to invite God to show us what “Abundant Living” is for us. This will be individual. What it looks like for me, it may not look like for you. But one thing is certain…it will cause us to look more and more like Jesus and he was definitely “others oriented.” He was God focused and driven by a desire to serve people. This isn’t something we want to fabricate, but as we fix our eyes on Him, he will form a heart in us that cares about what He cares about. There is great joy in that place as we welcome his work in our lives, making us less and less myopic and expanding our vision outwardly.
One of the great things about the Thin Within (or HEAL) approach to eating and body image changes is that, while it may take some time and attention to have it be second nature, it will ultimately become second nature. It won’t require our constant attention the way counting, weighing, measuring did. It ultimately frees us to be consumed LESS with ourselves and more with the things that God intends for us!
Psalm 37:4 says Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desire of your heart.
We are made by God for a life that is filled with so much more than we often settle for. We think we are happiest when we cater to ourselves, but the truth is, we were wired for community, for service, to have a heart for others. We are going to experience a sense of purpose and joy when we live as God intends! THIS is abundant living!
What is the call of God on our lives based on this passage?
What are the promises offered to us when we pursue His will, His way?
Where, according to this passage, is our healing going to be found?
With the Lord, so much of life is sort of the opposite of what “makes sense” to us. Who would have ever imagined that by giving ourselves away, we would actually experience wholeness.
If we haven’t been living this way, now is a great time to make a shift! There is no condemnation for the past. We may have regrets, but God calls us forward! Let’s move forward into our future with him!
This week’s material encourages you to have a look at your friendships. Do you have supportive, loving, encouraging friends in your life and people that you can love and encourage to pursue Christ? Are there any toxic relationships or people in your life who are like that shouting voice in last Friday’s video–spurning you, criticizing you, mocking you for your faith or your approach to eating and weight? Maybe it is time to ask God to show you his will for these relationships. Are they a hindrance to abundant living? Are boundaries needed?
If you still are without an accountability partner, this website exists to support your journey and there are people who posted as recently as last week that they still would like to be partnered up. Remember this is how it works to get an accountability partner:
1. Visit the Accountability Page
2. Post a bit about yourself–how long you have been involved in Thin Within, your current life situation (kids, empty nest, single, etc.), what your availability is for a partner (daily, email only, etc.)
3. Look at the postings there and see if one sounds like a fit for you based on the bit of information that others have posted.
4. Send me a note to heidi bylsma at gmail dot com (no spaces) and let me know the name of the person you want me to send your email address to and that you are interested in partnering up with her.
There is no reason that, if you want an accountability partner, you shouldn’t have one at this point! If not here online, then get a friend in real life to join you for your journey! We are pressing on and in to know Christ more and to be more like him.
In the activities for this week is a challenge to be still in God’s presence. I highly recommend this activity. It is difficult for us to truly be still. But it is well worth working at it. Share with us what God does!
Let’s welcome what God wants to do in us so that we might experience the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. He gave his precious life so that we might experience it. We were made for so much more than what we often settle for!
Assignment This Week:
Complete the personal study portion of Lesson 6 in your HEAL book.
Post your thoughts, insights, questions, comments here so we can share in the experience together!
If you haven’t gotten an accountability partner yet, DO!
If you have an accountability partner, now might be a good time to connect with one another and evaluate how it is going, should you continue, in what ways you should tweak your partnership. Be honest with one another. If you are looking for more accountability, just share with your partner this is so. If your availability has changed, tell your partner that.
Evaluate your friendships, using the suggestions in the lesson.
Complete the “Be Still Before God” activity. Share with us what happened!
Come back here on Friday for the final “Group Session”
