by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 15, 2013 | Blog
This week, we deal with two really important challenges to our 0 to 5 eating boundaries:
“Yummy Food Eating” – when the food is there and it is “yummy” and we want it, so there! (Yep, it really is that simple sometimes!)
and
“Bad Scale Eating” – when I get on the bathroom scale and am depressed that I didn’t get away with eating outside of my boundaries or jubilant that I did or am disappointed by unrealized expectations and want to eat to celebrate or medicate (depending).
Can you relate to either of these causes for eating?
So jump on over to Barb’s blog and do Days 13 and 14.
Below are my thoughts on “Yummy Food Eating” outside of our 0 and 5 boundary.
(As always, if you are an email subscriber to the blog, the video doesn’t show up. Please come to the blog to see the video! Thanks.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p40vD85fd1M?rel=0
This week continue with your renewing of the mind goal. I would LOVE to hear how this is going for you. Are you discovering that you are changing the way you are thinking by being proactive about what thoughts you will allow your mind to dwell on? Is it time to recommit to renewing your mind each day or more than once each day? I know it is for me!
Please complete Day 13 and 14 (links above the video). More to come this week on these topics.
Please share with us here any questions or thoughts you may have.
What can you do to be proactive about the temptation that “yummy foods” offer you?
by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 14, 2013 | Blog
Are weekends a challenge for you?
Is your routine disrupted and, while you start the weekend with wonderful intentions, do you find that pretty consistently, you fall into more chaotic eating patterns? Perhaps weekends have historically been a time of letting down your guard, throwing all caution to the wind!
I know for me, weekends signal me to “Celebrate!” which traditionally in my life has meant “It’s time to eat!” The whole mentality for me that weekends are a time not to work at anything creates a challenge with being diligent with 0 to 5 eating boundaries.
What can we do about this so we don’t end up the other side of the weekend, disappointed by our “failures?”
Preparation is our greatest ally for the weekends. If we expect the weekend to be disruptive, let’s take time to be with the Lord when the house is quiet. Let’s renew our minds about “fun,” about 0 to 5 eating being a good, godly, boundary that we can delight in, and call on His strength to help us. Let’s put on the armor of God found in Ephesians 6.
Know that there will be challenges to your resolve, but you don’t have to just let them roll over you like a tidal wave!
Consider the forms the challenges have taken in the past:
- A spontaneous family trip out for ice cream.
- A game night where snack foods abound.
- Nascar/other sports on the TV all day with people munching as they watch.
- One of the family members trying out a new cookie recipe.
One of the best strategies I know of is to plan ahead for all the fun. Then, I can plan my hunger to happen the same time as the fun.
For instance, we can plan the ice cream outing (or the cookie baking) ahead of time! Ask the family in the morning… “Hey, let’s go out for ice cream this afternoon!” Not only will it be fun to have the outing itself, but there will be joy all day at the anticipation. Spontaneity IS fun, but so is the joy in planning ahead! Once you have the plan for the ice cream outing (or going out to dinner…whatever it might be), you can plan your hunger so that you are at a “0” when it is time to go out. It is true that planning hunger takes some experience, but you can learn it in time. Just extend grace to yourself if you have never done that before. This is a process!
Let’s renew our minds about the connection of food with fun. The truth is we can enjoy the experience without the food. We can enjoy the laughter, the joy, the emotions, the hugs, cuddles, tickles of the family…just being together… without having to break our boundaries.
Let’s come out the other side of our weekends victorious. Let’s not shrug our shoulders, throw up our hands, and figure we can’t fight the disruption to our routines that often comes on the weekends. We can do this if we are committed to it!
If we do “mess up,” let’s observe and correct, rather than observe and condemn.
Invite God into your weekend. Renew your mind! Ask the family for their support. Plan ahead for the fun.
What can you do in your home life and family to ensure that weekends still provide fun without breaking your eating boundaries?
by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 13, 2013 | Blog
Today, I have a video AND a sound file for you. If you subscribe via email, please visit the blog as those links won’t come through the email subscription.
The sound file is 10 minutes long and you can download it and import it into iTunes if you like it enough. It is my renewing of my mind about how keeping boundaries–life–is hard and what are truths that I can believe to replace lies. There is hope in this place! I hope it encourages you and I would love to hear from you, if so (but not if not…LOL!). The sound quality isn’t as good as past audios because I used my old laptop instead of the iPad. Sorry about that. I won’t do that again! 🙂
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/86963587″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
I was so encouraged after doing Barb’s day 12 study on Hopeless Eating, that I also made a video. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwyEOW0ooIo?rel=0
The material we have been studying together is simply TOO good for us to blow through! I hope that if you have joined us late, you go back and DO this study. I have a page for you here. It lays a wonderful foundation for how to change the way we think–which is VITAL if we are to truly be transformed.
What will you do today to kindle your hope and to fight the fight? How can we pray for you?
by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 10, 2013 | Blog
This week, we look at Barb Ravelings Day 12 – Hopeless Eating.
Here are some thoughts about hope and hopelessness and how it affects our eating. 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=zpmy3APQLSc?rel=0&w=640&h=480
It is important when we are struggling with a sense of hopelessness to take our thoughts captive and replace them with truth. I strongly recommend truth journaling. It is a powerful means of learning to think differently.
What will you do today to conquer the subtle (or bold) influence of hopelessness that the enemy tries to settle on your life? What will you do to respect your boundaries when hope wanes?
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?
