I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
– Psalm 139:14
How would it transform your life if you were to believe God…I didn’t say “Believe IN God.” I really did mean: “How would it transform your life if you were to believe God?” What if you were to believe what he says about you in His Word? What if you were to believe that you are
fearfully and wonderfully
made?
Take a moment right now to imagine that.
Close your eyes and stop reading for a moment. And imagine…
I AM fearfully and wonderfully made. It is TRUE.
Are your eyes open again? 🙂 That’s ok. Now close them again and imagine knowing to the depths of your heart …
…I AM a demonstration of God’s creative and amazing power and love.
Can you rest in these thoughts for a moment? Can you allow the truth–what HE says is true–saturate your body, soul, and mind? Sit for a moment in this truth.
How would believing God that you are fearfully and wonderfully made affect other thoughts you have? How would it affect your actions? How would it affect the way you relate to your own body? To the food you eat? To the “failures” in your life?
What if what God says…really is…absolutely…
TRUE?
I believe that a lot of the difficulty we have with our eating, our obsessing about our weight, and other similar struggles is due in large part to what we believe about ourselves. If we really believed what God says about us, thoughts like these would evaporate:
– I am a failure and never will beat this.
– I will always be overweight and miserable.
– I deserve to be miserable.
– I am too undisciplined to ever lose weight.
– Even if I do manage to lose all the weight, I will never keep it all off – etc…add your own.
If we believed what God says is true about us in His Word, this is what we might think, instead:
– I struggle with saying no to myself about eating when I am not hungry, but God says I am more than a conqueror. I know if HE says it, I can do it.
– I have everything I need for life and godliness, so somewhere here I must be able to beat my tendency to overeat.
– God promises that he has given me a spirit of love, power and self-discipline.
– God says that he has called things that are not as though they are.
– What is impossible with man is possible with God.
– I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. – etc…add your own.
What is the difference between these two lists? The focus of the first is ME and my performance.
The focus of the second is GOD and HIS “performance.”
When we focus on The Lord…HIS provision, HIS power, HIS character, HIS promises, HIS performance, HIS declaration of what is true, then we know that we are in good hands. It may seem like we have to do this all on our own and that we are the failure or success, but the honest truth is GOD wants to do it in me.
In fact he says His grace is sufficient and that we can boast all the more gladly in our weaknesses, because when we are weak his power–HIS strength–rests all the more on us. Perhaps the reason we struggle so much with our eating is so that we can learn that we are NOT enough, but HE is.
How can I go from the mindset where it is about me and what *I* can do and turn it around, believe what God says…that this is about HIM and what HE can do in and through me?
Renewing my mind. Barb Raveling has taught us a lot about that through her study (see the “Weight Loss Bible Study” page link in the menu bar above the blog posts). It really is as simple as that. Like Romans 12:2 says:
Be not conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Journaling activity:
Write down what you believe and ask God to show you what is TRUE and what is LIE.
Whatever is a LIE, scratch out–put a line through it. Scrawl the word, “LIE” over it!
Then write next to each the TRUTH that you KNOW is from the LORD.
Finish the activity by asking God to help you reject lies–even familiar ones–and to replace with HIS truth–even if the truth is, at times, uncomfortable.
Practice saying the truth daily! Again, I suggest using this Who I Am in Christ file. This stuff is all in God’s Word and is an excellent way to bathe your mind (“brain wash”) with truth.
How will believing God and what He says about you–that you are fearfully and wonderfully made (and all the other great truths he says about you in his word)–affect you relative to eating, food, and body image?
Welcome to our launch day for our study of the Healthy Eating and Abundant Living book by Allie Marie Smith and Judy Halliday (the founder of Thin Within).
If you haven’t yet gotten the book, check it out here.
First, a video to talk about where we are going (email subscribers may want to visit the blog site so that you can see the video if it doesn’t show up in your email):
Three things that I hope you will allow God to really bring home to your life through your study:
You are fearfullyand wonderfullymade. (See Psalm 139:14) You might want to renew your mind about this. Use this passage to think differently about YOU!
For six weeks, consider committing to this path. Just a month and a half. That means you won’t quit. You won’t give up–even if you don’t do it “perfectly.” Just hang in there and keep on doing your lessons and showing up and sharing your thoughts here at the blog. Post here to encourage others. For six weeks…will you? 🙂 Pretty please? (Yes, I am shamelessly pleading!)
Step into the light…no longer hiding anything from the Lord. To learn the truth about yourself. He is gentle, kind and loving. We don’t need to run from truth (which we sometimes tend to do). Invite him to shine his light on your heart and life.
Assignment this week:
Can you get an accountability partner? 🙂 Prayerfully consider it.
Look over the HEAL principles on pages 9 and 10 (and if you haven’t read the introductory material yet in the book, you might want to do that).
Consider starting a GOD List (more details to come). You can find an explanation here.
Adopt the primary boundary of eating 0 to 5 — waiting for physical hunger (in Thin Within we call that “0”) and selecting any food you desire (no dieting rules, good food/bad food lists). Stop eating when you approach “5” — physical satisfaction. If you aren’t sure about when that is, serve yourself about half as much food and eat twice as slow as you typically do. 🙂 It will feel like you are eating just as much.
Complete the personal study and group study for Lesson 1–this is through page 29 of my version of the book (second edition) or up to the place where it says TWO: The HEAL Basics.
Complete the WHERE I AM evaluation included in those pages.
Renew your mind. Replace lies with truth in a practical way…with scripture memory cards, with Barb’s app, with a list you prepare ahead of time. We will be talking more about that in the next 6 weeks.
How this will work – Each Monday, I will post the new assignment and also a video to preview what we have ahead. On Fridays, I will post about the material we have studied…even though some of you may not have finished the week’s material…that’s ok. Please don’t feel like you have to quit because you aren’t at the same place. TRULY, it is NOT a problem. I know some don’t check the blog on Saturday and so want to have it available for those who do on Friday. If you don’t get to it until Saturday, that’s fine. Remember to go at whatever pace God leads YOU.
Even if you aren’t going through the study with us, it is my intention to make the content here at the blog relevant to both those who are doing the study AND those who aren’t. So please keep on visiting!
So, how do you feel about this new leg of the journey? What is God impressing upon your heart even now? How can we be praying for you?
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 forme? 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 Journalingis 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?
I dunno, but this lady looks nutty like I feel today. I saw this picture and there was something about it that screamed “ME!” Can you relate? For me, it is because of…well…have a look at this video (if you dare). It is more of a rant than a teaching video. Truly…it is Heidi letting her hair down if you will. SCARY.
See why I said I am this woman? She looks like she is prepared to travel. Like she is putting a lid on all her emotions…but they are ready to surface at any given moment. I need TRUTH to put my feet on the ground! I need TRUTH to keep me from freaking out when I travel at all, let alone for 16 days. I need TRUTH to keep me from letting my emotions run amok with me!
So, as I prepare this post ahead of time, I am preparing my mind for action–for obedience. Right now, as you read this, I am in New York. If you watched the video, you know how I feel about this! LOL! But I am preparing now (while I am still home writing this) for obedience. I am speaking TRUTH to my spirit daily as I prepare for the trip and the emotions and other stuff that all go with traveling!
Daily – I will wake up each morning to have a quiet time and first on my list after warming to Jesus’ welcome to the day will be to use My Affirmations about 0 to 5 eating list to renew my mind.
Because this list travels with me everywhere via Evernote, I will also pull it out mid-morning (before lunch) and mid-afternoon as a reminder about what is really important to me.
I will remind myself that vacations are a wonderful time to train myself to keep my boundaries no matter what happens in life. Life will be filled with all kinds of challenges and opportunities. I want to train myself for godliness, for obedience and that I can “celebrate” with means other than food and overeating!
I plan to shoot an email to my accountability partner each day that I have internet access.
I will ask God daily to open my eyes to His Wonders so that I might keep track in my gratitude blog. If internet access isn’t available, I will use my 1000 Gifts app on my phone to take pictures of the gifts God brings my way. It is pretty tough to give in to “entitlement” or “justification” eating (what typically travels with me on vacations) if I foster a humble spirit grateful to God for all his gifts and blessings!
What strategies will you plan to use when you next go on vacation or have a holiday? Mother’s Day and Memorial Day are coming up. What challenges might face you and what will you do to plan for victory? How will you make provision for obedience?
Emotional Eating Barb encourages us to make use of Renewing Your Mind Tools that she has at her website so that we can overcome the temptation to eat out of emotions. I have included that link here. Barb has written a full-length workbook called Freedom From Emotional Eating. While it is from a dieting perspective, I found it valuable when I went through it a few years ago. Please, though, if you are struggling with the dieting mentality, don’t run out and order this now. There is time later! But if you feel you have some distance and space from the dieting mentality and feel somewhat confident that your 0 to 5 boundaries won’t be derailed in favor of counting calories or points any time soon, then by all means, order her book!
Many of us are habitual…can I say this…drama queens! Ok, maybe you aren’t, but I know I have been. God is really working on training me to diffuse the drama rather than INFUSE the drama (with extra fuel). It is really helping! The video was just an example of a mild version of how dramatic I can be! Crazy, huh?
The truth is…TRUTH MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.
At the heart of emotional eating one simple truth diffuses my tendency to go to food:
Food won’t meet the need of my heart.
It just won’t.
What strategies will you use to diffuse emotions that might lead you to look for comfort in food? Please share with us any victories you have experienced recently and/or any questions or even prayer requests you have about an upcoming potential situation.
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Note: This is our final day of the “Ditch Your Scale” Challenge. Some of us bailed early. Some of us bailed mid-way through. Some of us made it all the way through. No matter what, let’s celebrate that GOD IS DOING A NEW THING and prayerfully ask him to show us the importance we place on the bathroom scale. If we are living according to His leading, eating 0 to 5 as he directs us, do we really need to be concerned with our weight? The truth is, we will land on a healthy size and stay there…without worrying about keeping ourselves “honest” with the bathroom scale. Just a thought. Would love to hear from you about this. 🙂
Hey, how is it going for you on our DITCH YOUR SCALE challenge? This is day 13! One more day! Did you make it? I am away from home on a trip right now, so I am not weighing myself. Unfortunately, I am dealing with the “vacation eating” challenges. I must renew my mind! I think I will do that. But on to what we are reviewing today:
Appearance Eating – In this bible study, Barb reminded us that focusing on weight loss is potentially detrimental to our success! (This is one reason why some of us may have needed to “ditch our scales!”) God may be at work doing a NEW THING that is a more lasting, valuable work and if we throw in the towel because we don’t see the results we want on the scale soon enough, then we may miss the blessing–AND the weight loss! If you want to review the video from this particular day, here is the link for that.I hope that, for those of you participating in the “Ditch Your Scale” Challenge, you were helped to see (well, I messed up on that!) that God is doing a new thing that is beneath the surface. What we see on the outside is not all that matters! In fact, it may not even be the most important thing at all. Do you need to renew your mind about that? I know I do. For me, here are truths I might need to rehearse again and again to combat a temptation to focus too much on appearance, weight, and size:
I am a 50+ year old woman and I simply will NEVER look like Barbi! And while looking like a teenager might be nice, it would be an unrealistic goal for this middle-aged lady. (I know this sounds silly, but I have to get that simple sometimes.
My value is not determined by what size or shape I am (or how much I weigh).
I am able to go on long walks in the woods, play tennis (singles and doubles) and enjoy doing all kinds of things physically. My body is amazing when I really stop to think about it!
My value is not determined by what size or shape I am (or how much I weigh).
God is at work doing a new thing from the inside out. He puts a premium on my character. Do I really want to have a different set of values (in a different order) than he does? No!
My value is not determined by what size or shape I am (or how much I weigh).
Oh, and did I say yet that my value is not determined by what size or shape I am or how much I weigh? 😉
What other truths could you add to this list?
Entitlement Eating – I really think Entitlement Eating and Justification Eating are twin sisters that wreak havoc with our 0 to 5 eating boundaries. If we aren’t able to deceive ourselves about breaking our boundaries via justification eating, then we most certainly DESERVE better than to have boundaries as restrictive as 0 and 5!!! NOT! LOL! But entitlement eating really convinces me that I…well…am worthy of this treat or that “prize” outside of my boundaries. I may be tired, stressed, have worked hard, put up with behavior of spouse, kids, or in-laws and so deserve to REWARD myself with food! NO! We want to renew our minds with truth about this:
God has called me to this (stress, challenge, difficult person, etc) and he wants me to meet the challenge in the strength that His Spirit provides.
I have no rights in Christ, but because of God’s grace and mercy I am given everything I need for life and godliness and I have been given every spiritual blessing in Him.
If I want to “reward” myself, how about something that will invest in my spiritual and emotional growth–something really beneficial? Like a hot bath with praise music playing or time on the back deck with my bible open?
A food reward is actually not a reward at all as when I eat outside of my boundaries it costs me spiritually, emotionally and physically.
A true reward would be something that God bestows on me. If I wait on him and his timing for a “reward” that HE establishes, then I will experience joy!
Failure Eating – If Justification and Entitlement eating are the twin sisters that wreak havoc with our 0 to 5 boundaries, then failure eating is a tag-along kid brother! No sooner do we “blow it” –usually due to justification or an attitude of entitlement–than we start beating ourselves up about our missteps and want to quit the entire thing. We reason “I didn’t stop at 5 so I may as well eat whatever now. I knew I could never get this Thin Within approach right! I am such a failure!” Then for a day, a week–however long–we give it up until we finally try again. This is one reason why Observation and Correction is such an invaluable tool. (I spoke about this in this post.) If we get in a routine of using the Observation and Correction tool, we will not let our failures or missteps define what we will do next. We will, instead, 1) observe 2) correct and 3) rejoice that God has drawn us back to his side! On this page, I have a video discussing “Failure Eating” in case it helps to review or you didn’t see it before.
Some truths that I use to renew my mind when I struggle with a temptation to throw in the towel (and honestly, I believe the longer you keep at this, the less this temptation will face you):
I may have failed in the moment, but I am not a failure.
God has declared that I am more than a conqueror. That is a FACT. I may not always live like this is so, but since God says it is true, I can believe it.
Do I really want to allow one misstep to define what I will choose to do next? No!
0 to 5 eating boundaries may not always be easy to follow…this is for a lifetime. Learning now how to start again immediately will serve me well for the rest of the days I am on this planet!
What other truths could you add to this list?
Which of these three–Appearance Eating, Entitlement Eating, and Failure Eating–challenge you the most? Can you anticipate a situation you may face in the week ahead when you will be tempted to eat because of this? What can you do to be victorious?
