I must start by sharing this happy realization. A few months ago, Heidi recorded a long winded 40-45 minute conversation with me about breaking free from dieting. The Lord has delivered me so far from dieting now that I can barely remember the details of how I broke free! Now, that’s freedom. But, I will use my journal to help me remember my steps because I want to encourage any of you who are still stuck, or partially stuck, in diet land to break free and leave it behind.
I was prepped from an early age to diet. I watched my mother and her friends diet, jazzercise, jog and talk about what they should and shouldn’t eat. While I did not follow an official diet until I was 31 years old, I knew that I should never eat chicken skin, fried food, chips, candy, ice cream, cream sauces, etc, etc. I knew the “rules” without following a particular plan. But, eventually I was tired of my extra 30 pounds, post-baby weight included, and I joined a popular dieting program. My type- A self jumped in with both feet and thus began my obsession with my weight, food, exercise and clothing size.
My mind became full of rules – about exercise and food – and I became obsessed. When I look back, I can’t believe the time that I wasted planning meals and workouts – and all of the attention I put on my body and not on the people who really mattered. I am the saddest when I remember hanging out with my kids and, while I looked like I was paying attention to them, my mind was really in food and workout planning mode. I thought I was happy when I was skinny, but I am now so thankful that I had health issues that caused me to gain weight and then forced me to stop exercising. God met me in that fearful place and revealed to me that I could live a life in freedom with Him. I am not exaggerating when I say that the first Thin Within workbook truly brought me to Christ and helped me to really understand who Christ is and what he did and continues to do for believers. I started to sense that freedom from dieting and exercising was possible, but the lies of the world kept pulling me back. It took almost 2 years for me to really see the Truth and to really commit to this way of life. And I am not looking back!
The breaking of my diet chains was multifaceted, but the most important part was prayer. I prayed every day, starting last January, to be set free from the bondage of dieting, over-exercising and body image issues. Then, in February, when I realized that had some heart issues that were contrary to godliness, I prayed Psalm 51:10: Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Let me stress, I prayed this every day, multiple times a day.
And then I found the “God is doing a new thing bible study” in March and began focusing on the renewing of my mind. I took notes and studied the scripture and made scripture cards. With daily study and prayer, the Truths of God’s word and character and love moved from my mind to my heart. And within a few months, I knew that I would never, could never, diet again. I wanted my mind and heart set on my Creator and Lord, my Abba, my Savior, my Healer, and not on the size of my clothes.
Do I backslide? Sure. Sometimes I try on an old dress and hope it fits. Sometimes I eat too much at dinner. Sometimes I think about carbs vs. proteins. Sometimes I think I should run a few more miles. But then quickly, and it happens faster and faster these days, I remember the Truths in the Bible and the freedom, peace and joy that I feel when I live in God’s boundaries and on His path. I can then leave the worldliness behind and focus on Him. I put on His armor (Ephesians 6:10-17) and let Him fight my spiritual battles.
Friends, if you have put trust and faith in diets or workout plans, you are not alone. It is what our culture asks of its people, especially women. But you can break the mold, you can live in freedom. I, who used to be obsessed with counting every morsel that I ate and evaluating its nutritional value, drank a milkshake for lunch last week! A full fat butter pecan ice cream milkshake! But, since I have the freedom to drink milkshakes any day of the year (although this was my first in over a decade), I only drank 2/3 of it. I was satiated. It was enough. God’s love and grace is more than enough for each of us – they are sweeter and more satisfying than any dessert imaginable.
~ Carrie (Not South Africa) 🙂
What About You?
Do the chains of dieting still hold you fast? Do you believe that God can call you to freedom without the use of a diet or restrictive eating plan and rigorous exercise that is harder on your body than you know you should do? Will you consider possibly renewing your mind with truth? God never intended for food to torment us or for our avoidance of it to become an obsession. Let us know how we can pray for you.
“Yesterday is history”… “Put your best foot forward”… “Leave the past behind”… “Today is the day”…
Well, tomorrow, that is…
“I’ll start tomorrow…” How many times have we said this for different situations in our lives? It’s not necessarily intentional because, of course, we ALWAYS have the very best intentions, right? But intentions don’t change anything. Action is where change begins! Why then is it so hard for us to exact change in our lives? What is it that makes it so hard to take that first simple step in the right direction?
It could be something as simple as a bad habit that we would like to break or maybe a positive change we would like to bring about in our lives. One of the most common examples of this is that common phrase that we use to excuse bad eating choices before beginning to eat healthy again…”Oh, I’m going to start TOMORROW.” Maybe you can relate to this, I definitely can! Why is it that we always want to start “tomorrow”? Why not NOW?
Apparently we want one more night with the frogs. In Exodus 8:8-10 there is a very interesting story about Moses and Pharaoh and the plague of frogs:
8 Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.” 9 Moses said to Pharaoh, “I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.”
10 “Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said.
Tomorrow?! I know that if I was faced with a plague of frogs, and was asked when I would like for someone to pray that they would leave, my answer would be NOW! However, this story shows our own mindset as we face moving forward in our lives. Just give me one more night with my bad habit, one more night with my addiction, one more night with mysin, etc., etc.
We don’t have to wait another minute; there is no need to wait until tomorrow. Change begins now. Take that step in the right direction now. We can leave behind the junk in our lives, whatever it may be, and not have to spend one more night with the frogs.
Don’t wait until tomorrow. Don’t even wait another minute. This is the moment…today. The time is now. Take hold of God’s promises for you and His very best for your life and move forward NOW!
What About You?
What is it that’s holding you back from making a commitment to eat 0-5 daily and experience freedom from the bondage of gluttony or dieting? For me, it was a little of both. I would just overeat because the food was so good, but also I would overeat because of the diet mentality. I was trying to eat the “good foods,” but wasn’t satisfied and would still go back and eat the “bad foods.” What I have learned though, is that it’s not right foods vs. wrong foods or good foods vs. bad foods. Instead, it is a heart issue. I was continually running to the kitchen instead of running to God. And I had to spend another night with the frogs over and over because of it.
It’s time to break the diet chains off of our minds by giving ourselves completely to God, completely committing every aspect of our lives to Him, including our eating. Food and the scale had both become idols for me, and I have lain both of them down at the feet of Jesus. I made the 90-day commitment, and I will not look at the scale until the end of those 90 days. Yes, I’m excited about how my body will change through this, but the most exciting part is what God is doing in my heart and mind during this time! And while I have made the 90-day commitment, I’m not stopping there, that’s just a milestone for me. I’m moving forward! Will you say, “I’m NOT spending one more night with the frogs!” and move forward into freedom as well?
~ Aprille Roberts is the women’s minister and worship leader at her church. Find her blog, “Chasing After the Heart of My Father” at praisemom13.blogspot.com.
Sugar. Many of us feel like it sets us off…that we can’t escape its clutches if we give in to having a cookie–even if we are hungry. We feel convinced–and our experience may bear this out–that one cookie will start the binge rolling and we will be powerless to escape it.
But I wonder…and I know this isn’t going to be very popular. But I am just thinking about…what if this is just another way I am blaming something else, someone else, for something I need to take responsibility for.
See, if sugar is the evil that I want it to be, I am a victim. And we tend to feel sad for victims and self-righteous toward victimizers, don’t we? If sugar is the evil that I want it to be, it is the victimizer and I am the victim…I am the one who we all can feel sorry for and sugar is the villain.
But is this *true*?
Does this really make sense?
Who made sugar cane?
When God made sugar cane, what did he say about it like he did about everything else in creation? He said, “It is good.”
What is really going on then when I give in to overeating sugary foods and laying the blame on “sugar is addictive?” Is that true? Really?
Maybe *I* need to own responsibility for my behavior. Would God have created something, declared it to be “good,” if it was intrinsically evil?
Maybe it is my heart that bears the burden of the problem.
It is important to know that I don’t mean this with the idea that we should condemn ourselves for our struggle to stop eating once we have started eating sugar. Not at all. I will keep “crowing” about Romans 8:1, Romans 5:8, John 3:17, and Ephesians 1 as long as I have breath! That God didn’t send his son into the world to condemn the world. That He demonstrates his own love for us in that while we were yet sinnersChrist died for us, that before the foundation of the earth–before I had a single godward thought–he chose me to be holy and blameless in his sight, that there is NO condemnation for those of us in Christ.
But if I am responsible for this tension that exists with sugar and myself, then I can, in the strength that Christ offers, admit my weakness and his grace will be sufficient for me. In fact, I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness because when I am weak, I am strong in the Lord. I know that John 8:32 says that knowing the truth sets me free. Laying blame on sugar doesn’t give me freedom. I might get charged up being all self-righteous as I claim a “no-sugar” stand, eradicating it from my life…for as long as I last adding it to a “bad food” list. But then the pendulum swings radically the other direction and I give in. Maybe that is the reason for the problem, in fact.
What if I establish a boundary for myself and just, simply, learn to say NO to myself if tempted to cross that boundary? Maybe I am supposed to learn how to live in the power of the Holy Spirit–the fruit of whom is self-control.
What if sugar isn’t the monster we hope it is? What if the darkness is in my own heart and I need a Savior to cleanse me, to strengthen me, to help me? What if I need to depend on the Lord to enable me to grow, bit by bit, to be sanctified…to show me how not to lust or covet for something outside of a godly boundary. What if I need Jesus more because I recognize that God declared that even sugar cane is “good?”
Seems like God wants a deep intimate relationship with me based on what I see in Scripture. Needing him as much as I do not to give in to eating outside of my boundaries ensures that I will develop that…if I will let it.
What about you? How do you feel about sugar? Have you felt like it is the villain in your life? IS it? Or is there a deeper work that God is interested in doing in your life?
Much of today’s post will be written by YOU in the comments! I hope you are ready to join in! 🙂
First, put on your holy imagination! Pretend we are on a picnic in the middle of nowhere…enjoying a crystal clear blue sky, the music of the meadowlark, the clouds drifting lazily by, and the majestic mountains in the distance. My living room wasn’t available this week!
Yes, I captured this week’s “group session”–our first for our study of Healthy Eating and Abundant Living–while on the road trip with my son! I was thinking of you non-stop as I drove over 4000 miles and so when I saw this view and the relatively quiet opportunity to record some thoughts roadside, I grabbed it!
So, please get your bible. Open to Psalm 139 because we will read it together! Just like we would in person! (If you are an email subscriber, you may have to visit the blog in order to view the video.) – In time, I hope to get better about lighting and all. For now, just know I was TOTALLY enraptured by the joy of being in that beautiful place, imagining you all with me and reading this glorious Psalm!
Are you beginning to believe what God says about you yet? That you are fearfully and wonderfullymade? 🙂
If we were sitting together…all of us…on a lovely picnic blanket under the azure sky, I would ask you the questions in our books:
What does “wonderfully made” mean to you?
And just because I am a maverick, I might also ask:
What does being “fearfully made” mean to you?
This blog and website has been a wonderful place for many of us to share in ways we don’t often with people face-to-face. But in person, I would ask a challenging question, suggested, again, by the authors of our book:
In what areas of your life have you been living in the dark?
Some of us are giving in to tickling the back of our throats again…
Others of us are using laxatives in order to move the (usually large quantity of) food through our systems quicker so as not to absorb it.
Some of us may be “riding the zero”…more than we know God would have us.
We hide our eating by sneaking fast food in the car and then coming home and having dinner with the family as if we haven’t just had a full meal.
Or it might be another way completely.
Jesus tells us in John 8:32 that knowing the truth sets us free and, although he was talking about his teaching specifically, there IS a principle that we can draw from this verse…and it is that running from truth or hiding from truth is not the way to freedom. Facing IN to truth is.
Here is another thought…your truth…is with a little “t.” What if you were to let God TRUMP your little “t” truth with His BIG “T” TRUTH? Your truth may be true (then again, it may not be), but God’s Truth supersedes and overrides and commands all other little “t” truth.
What do you think?
What scares you about living in the light?
Have you hidden your struggles with food and your body from God and others?
Have you visited the Accountability page here? Do you have a prayer/accountability partner yet? How is that going? What can I do to help you with that so that you no longer feel the need to hide, but have someone that is praying you through and that you can support, too.
One of the amazing things in God’s Word is the principle that when we minister to others, our *own* healing takes wing! We experience healing in deep places in our lives when we support, encourage, and minister to others (see Isaiah 58:8-12). Connect with someone and give it a try!
What are your thoughts about being knit together, stitch by stitch, in your mother’s womb? What does that say to you about the God you serve?
How can we pray for you in the week ahead?
Get your typing fingers going and chip in below! 🙂 I love seeing you minister to one another!
I think I will get the hang of making shorter videos. I need to take one question per video, I think! Then, maybe I would get it down to 5 minutes! (Each!)
These videos are parts 1 and 2 of questions that were posted by Angeli in an email to me. There is 20 minutes of footage (just over) here. So sorry they are so long, but I do think they have a lot of good content in them! I hope you agree.
These videos address:
Night time eating
Dealing with free food and snacks left out in the break room at work 🙂
Releasing the last 10 pounds
I hope there is something helpful here.
What other questions do you have? 🙂
and here is part 2…
What questions would you like addressed at this blog?
