by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 8, 2013 | Blog
I can hardly believe this is week 6 of Barb Raveling’s Weight Loss Bible Study! It has been going by so fast.
And it sure seems like a lot of you are experiencing some great breakthroughs. I have gotten to visit with some of you on the phone, in Skype, and in email and WOW! Your stories are amazing!
Please consider writing up a testimonial and sending it to me at heidi bylsma at gmail dot com. Let me know it is your testimonial that you would like posted to our Testimonials page (or you can just go there and post it in the comments, but I prefer to put it in the page itself!).
This week we get to deal with yet more pertinent issues related to the way we think that affects our eating. Here is a video about the first part of the week (the rest will come later this week):
If you are an email subscriber, please be sure to visit the blog site, as the emails don’t include the videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiFNBq5b7Is?rel=0&w=640&h=480
I am editing this post because God led me to do some renewing of my mind about “This is Hard.” I want to share this with you. You can make a list like this and then read it out loud daily for your own “renewing of the mind” experience:
This IS HARD. That is true.
BUT:
God will use this FACT and make me more beautiful – more Christlike inside and out through the hardship.
I will persevere
When it is hard, I am perfectly poised to see God show up.
In my weakness, he will be made strong and visible.
When it is hard, I get to see HIM as the Redeemer.
I CAN keep going when it is hard.
I HAVE to keep going when it is hard.
He never promises that Life will be easy.
I share in the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ.
THIS IS LIFE! Life IS hard!
This is training for more challenging things in the future.
As I just DEAL with it and GET OVER MY DESIRE FOR EVERYTHING TO BE EASY I will develop and grow and change and be a better person—the one that God has placed me on this earth to be.
When life is hard, when eating 0 to 5 is hard, I know that I am becoming more like Christ. I am being trained to BUCK up for things yet ahead in my life.
I can PRAISE my God through this trial and blow the lid off of my own piddly expectations! GOD IS GREAT and He will show me His glory!
Satan doesn’t get to have his way with me.
LIFE IS HARD and I can LOVE it that way because I KNOW that this is for my good and God’s glory.
Through this being so hard, I get to develop a deep dependency, a greater intimacy with my God!
This week, your assignment (and mine) is the following:
- Evaluate your renewing of the mind goal that you set earlier. Do you need to adjust it? Do you need to recommit to it? If so, do it! What do you need to think differently about?
- Early on, Barb challenged us to commit to three days of staying within our boundaries. How about doing it again this week? Can you commit to just THREE days? Three days of saying YES to God and the boundaries that he has set for you? 🙂
- Complete Day 11 – Following my boundaries – Losing Weight – is HARD Eating of Barb’s Bible Study.
- Complete Day 12 – Hopeless Eating of Barb’s Bible Study.
- Continue to journal about the questions Barb asks and share with our community here. I know we are in the final stretches, but let’s finish STRONG! If you aren’t at the pace that I am posting at here at the blog, go at your own pace! 🙂
What has been the most rewarding thing about this study for you so far? What has been the most challenging thing?
by Heidi Bylsma | Mar 30, 2013 | Blog
What can we do after we have broken our boundaries during holidays, vacations, or dining out? We can renew our mind. This is how I might do it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yyCBTQh5SQ?rel=0
(If you subscribe by email, you will need to visit the blog to see the video.)
What can you do to ensure you won’t give in to eating outside of your boundaries today and tomorrow? What will you do about the mistakes that have happened previously so that they don’t dictate what happens next?
by Heidi Bylsma | Mar 29, 2013 | Blog
When I saw this image, it totally reminded me of ME! She has that “I can TOO eat this if I want!” rebellious look about her. AND she is redheaded and freckled like yours truly. Do you ever feel this way? 🙂 I hope not! But if you do, I am in company with you. I praise God that he is at work in me, though, and the moments when I feel this way are fewer and fewer! YAY, God!
I want to cover a lot of ground today. This post includes:
- A Video about Overcoming Failure Eating
- Announcement: Who is the winner of this week’s drawing
- Updated Bible Study schedule
- Poll asking you for what you would like to study next.
Video About Failure Eating – If you subscribe via email. please visit the blog to see the video.
Even if you haven’t been doing the study with us, you can probably relate to a day when you gave in and ate outside of 0 and 5. You may have given up for the day, not even trying any more to maintain your boundaries. This is NOT uncommon! This short video is an option for what to do instead! I hope it helps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zhxwI2qF80?rel=0&w=640&h=480
Now, on to Blog Business! 🙂
Winner of This Week’s Drawing
The drawing this week is a bit…well…unusual. I prayed as is my practice and my hand landed on NATALIA! She won the week of coaching week before last. So, if Natalia would like one of the prizes, she will get one.
But it also seemed like I should reach in again…so I did. We have two winners. 🙂
The second winner is Lesley UK. 😀
CONGRATULATIONS!!! I will send you both an email and you can let me know which of the prizes you would like:
- A Thin Within book (donated by Joe Donaldson of the Thin Within ministry)
- A Hunger Within book (donated by Arthur and Judy Halliday)
- A week of One-on-One Coaching (donated by yours truly)
Schedule
This is what is ahead for the remaining weeks of our Weight Loss Bible Study:
- Evaluation: How are you doing? Use this worksheet to find out. Week 5 March 31-April 6
- Emotional Eating: “This will make me feel better.” Week 5 March 31-April 6
- Losing-Weight-is-Hard Eating: “I’ll start again tomorrow.” Week 6 April 7 – 13
- Hopeless Eating: “I’ll never get over this. I might as well eat.” Week 6 April 7 – 13
- Good Food Eating: Hey, that looks good. I should eat it. Week 7 April 14-20
- Bad Scale Eating: I didn’t lose weight. I might as well eat. Week 7 April 14-20
- Social Eating: She’s eating. I should eat. Week 8 April 21-27
- Preventative Eating? I have to write this one up if we are going to look at it, but I think it bears doing! Week 8.
Then I will probably have a wrap up during a week 9. A chance for us to debrief about some things and a looking forward to what might be next.
What Do You Want To Do Next?
What’s next? Well, let me know what YOU would like to see! 🙂 Here is a poll to help me figure that out. 🙂 This is the first time I have tried this “polls” feature, so here’s hoping it works!
[polldaddy poll=6998572]
Practical Questions:
You may see by now that I like to end most of the blog posts with a “bringing it home” set of questions. So let me ask you: What practical steps can you take today to maintain your 0 – 5 eating boundaries? What have you learned during the past month of our study that really stands out as something you can apply today? 🙂
by Heidi Bylsma | Mar 27, 2013 | Blog
What can you do when you have been here before…and you have typically caved–eaten outside of your boundaries of hunger and satisfaction? What if you can see it coming? How can you observe and correct? How can you prevent another “failure?”
I just can’t renew my mind too often! I need to wash my mind clean from all kinds of lies and line dry it to have a fresh start by putting PURE truth into it!
Sometimes, an attitude of entitlement or justification taints the way I think about food, eating, and how willing I am to minimize the impact of breaking through the boundaries that God has led me to establish!
My husband just left town for a few days and for as long as we have been married (nearly 30 years), when he is out of town I have some of my biggest challenges with desire eating–wanting to break my boundaries of eating only when hungry and stopping eating when I am no longer hungry. When he leaves, it seems to trigger a mindset of some childhood trauma or something–a sense of abandonment! I know that sounds silly.
Exactly!
If I just let myself feel what I feel about it, or, worse, if I tell myself I am being silly and beat myself up over being such a baby, I invariably end up reaching for food to “comfort” me.
Hosting the bible study by Barb Raveling is SO good for me! This time, I choose to renew my mind right now and each day Bob is gone. This is what it looks like for me to do that:
Lord, Bob is out of town and you know that means I get sort of careless or I abandon all resolve with eating boundaries. I want to inhale food outside of 0 and 5. This time, I will not do that. Instead, I will reach for you as my true Comforter. Food is a counterfeit.
The TRUTH, Lord, is that Bob hasn’t abandoned me. This isn’t my childhood. This is my husband who has always come home to me before, so his track record seems to indicate he will come home this time, too! And no matter what happens–even if he doesn’t, food can’t comfort me like you can.
The TRUTH is that while I was abandoned in many ways as a child, you never abandoned me. You were there all along.
The TRUTH is, Lord, you are with me and will never leave me or forsake me, even if everyone else does!
I know that reaching for food during these days when Bob is gone is not going to satisfy the emptiness that I may feel.
Lord, thank you that I have the freedom to eat any food I desire when I am hungry. The rest of the time, when I am drawn to food, what will really minister to my soul is:
- sitting still in your presence
- quieting myself
- opening your Word
- praying
- Adding to my God List
- praising–having a Praise-Feast (Praise-Fest)
- writing in my gratitude blog
- calling a friend
- taking a hot bath and letting wonderful Christian music sooth my soul as the hot water soothes my body
All the ice cream in the world won’t make my life better, my marriage more secure, or the trials and insecurities I face go away. I choose you, Lord. I choose your boundary lines.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
– Psalm 16:7
Thank you that I can set my mind not on earthly things, but on things above. What is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal. I choose to fix my eyes on the promise that you have an inheritance waiting for me, Lord. The boundaries that you have established for me are pleasant. When I am tempted to break them, I will turn to you. There will be joy in doing so. There will be a deep sense of satisfaction. You will be my Comfort and my Strength.
Amen
How about you? Are you facing a situation that often triggers eating outside of 0 and 5? Will you choose to renew your mind about your circumstances so that you can emerge victorious, capturing this moment for the Lord? 🙂
by Heidi Bylsma | Mar 26, 2013 | Blog
One of the best times for me to renew my mind is when I am on my way to a meal out or an event where I know I could possibly be tempted to break my boundaries. I use the drive time (when I am alone) to speak truth into my life and to recommit (out loud!) to honoring the Lord with my eating and drinking.
Sometimes I record these “sessions” so that I can share them with you in case they can be helpful, but when my husband heard the first of these recordings he asked me some questions. From his questions have come some thoughts–some preliminaries–that I want to share with you.
First, even though I have been at this diligently since 2006 (and less consistently since 1999), I still work hard at it. God uses it to cause me to pray to him, to lean on him in a very tangible way. This has built my intimacy with him in many respects.
Secondly, even though these recordings may sound like they are “a lot of work,” it has become my nature to pray this way, to speak truth into my own life this way. It isn’t as much work as it may seem because I experience an intimacy with God that infuses my life with a truckload of joy! Truly! It is my joy to lean on God this way.
Third, these are examples of what I call “renewing my mind on the fly.” I do it in the face of important challenges to my boundaries. The first of these was when I was on my way to meet a friend for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. The quality of that recording is minimal. I hope you won’t be put off by the “preaching” nature of the recording. I am preaching to ME. I do this because it is truth, and it is worth it to me. It works for me to remind me of truth:
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/84473041″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
The second recording is below. I renewed my mind on my way to a home fellowship group when I was feeling a lot of emotion and didn’t want to give in to eating dessert once I arrived.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/84984186″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
How about you? Do you have some potentially challenging situations before you today? Can you renew your mind “on the fly” before you arrive? What will you do to maintain your 0 to 5 eating boundaries?
