The ancient mariners used the stars as their guides. Alone on the dark sea, a bright star or blazing constellation told the sailors which way to steer. True North was never hard to find. And if they made a wrong turn, they knew it immediately based on the position of the stars and the boat.
In ThinWithin, however, we often feel as if we’re steering without starlight. Let me explain.
Since my days as a child, I learned how to make choices according to right and wrong. There was moral certainty. There were immediate consequences. If my mother told me not to put my hand on the hot stove, I knew what was expected of me. And if I disobeyed, I immediately felt the pain of my bad choice. I knew my mother was right because I felt pain when I disobeyed. If she told me not to steal a toy from my brother, and I did, I got immediate consequences. So choosing right or wrong was all about avoiding unpleasant consequences.
Now that I am trying to live within 0-5 eating guidelines, however, there is no immediate, obvious consequence for disobedience. If I eat past my Spirit-led boundaries, nothing seems to happen. I don’t feel pain. No one sends me to my room. Likewise, if I skip eating when I am at a 0, nothing seems to happen, either. There are no immediate, obvious, painful consequences.
However, a much more powerful force is already at work, unseen.
In Thin Within, we are learning to be led by the Spirit. We are learning to listen for God’s still, small voice. We aren’t making choices based on consequences….we’re making choices based on listening. And that can be so powerful, because in our adult lives, there are precious few choices that are clearly right or wrong. There is so much uncertainty and opportunity. We make daily, important choices about love, life, career, children…most of which cannot be neatly categorized as right or wrong. Many of our choices don’t even seem to have immediate consequences. But we need to listen if we are to live our best lives, because choices have a cumulative effect.
That is the second, sneaky principle at work….our choices are cumulative. One binge might not change our lives, but a week, a month, a year of binges? They have the power to destroy so much that we hold dear. One slip past 5 might not matter, but a habit of disobedience can steal much more than our peace. (and our God-given weight!)
That’s why I am willing to wrestle with my self-will on a daily basis. I may not feel pain if I eat outside of my boundaries; but I can’t make choices based on pain and consequences. I want to make choices based on what I hear: “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21). I want to listen for the Lord, because He has such stormy waters to lead me through. He has places of beauty and rest ahead, too, and if I make my decisions based on what I feel, instead of what I hear, I might miss them.
And I don’t want to miss the best that God has for me. I don’t want you to miss the best God has for you, either!
What About You?
Are you tempted to “cheat” if you don’t sense any consequences ?
Do you feel pain of any kind if you disobey? Is it easy to ignore, or not?
If you train yourself to make decisions by listening to God’s leading, how would this impact your entire life?
In Thin Within we refer to “phases”…it isn’t just a one-size-fits-all, do-this-and-presto! sort of experience. The phases that are considered a part of Thin Within in the published material are 1.) The Freedom Phase 2.) The Discernment Phase 3.) The Mastery Phase. This may not paint the complete picture for all participants, however. Here is how one participant, who previously struggled with binge-eating, describes the phases during her own journey so far.
My Phases of Thin Within
1. Eating for hunger: Freedom. When I was first introduced to the Thin Within material, I was exhilarated. No weighing and measuring? I can eat sweets in moderation instead of bingeing on them? Really? I thought I was addicted to sweets and had to avoid them for the rest of my life. I tried to wait for hunger but unwisely let myself get too hungry. I wasn’t eating enough. I ended up replicating the starve/binge pattern that I had developed with my eating over the years. But it was an introduction, and I had hope that this approach could work for me. I just didn’t know how to work it.
2. Eating for satisfaction: Binge-free. With support from Heidi, I moved into phase 2. I started focusing more on eating for satisfaction. The binges stopped abruptly. It was a miracle. But I was still relying on calorie counting and meal patterns (three meals and two snacks) to help me feel safe and to regulate my overall food intake. I was able to have some flexibility around these old rules, but was afraid (and felt unable) to totally cast them off. I was on the path to freedom and incredibly grateful not to be bingeing. In my old mindset, this would have been “in recovery,” but I wanted more. I was on the path to freedom, but not there yet. I didn’t want to be self-regulating my food. I wanted to let go and let God more, but again, felt stymied. I didn’t know what to do to get to the next level (sounds like a video game, doesn’t it?)
3. Discernment: letting go of food restrictions. Phases two and three have been interwoven for me. At first, I was afraid that I couldn’t eat sweets in moderation, so I had only small amounts of sweets and that worked great. Then I tested my limits by eating pop tarts for breakfast and having bread sticks for a snack. I didn’t binge, but I did learn that “everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial” because the more I relied on eating sweets and highly refined carbohydrates, the more sweets and highly refined carbohydrates my body craved, and it felt wrong. I downsized my sweet intake back to where it had been originally: sweets as treats, rather than as staples, and that feels a lot better.
4. Mastery: Freedom in Christ. A whole new level of letting go. This is a prediction rather than a review. I’m not sure about this. I don’t know where I’m going. But I have hope. I’m not bingeing or restricting. I’ve been binge-free for over six months. I’ve learned that my body does not want sweets and highly refined carbohydrates in anything but small amounts. With phases 2 and 3 under my belt, I now feel more ready to let go in the way I tried to do when I started trying to implement Thin Within. Perhaps I’ve come full circle, but maybe it’s a spiral rather than a circle. Now I have freedom in Christ: I am less in charge and have to be more open to the Spirit’s leading. Maybe my meals will be regular and predictable, maybe they won’t be. God is in charge. Until now, I have relied on counting calories as a way to reduce my anxiety – not all of the time, but much of the time. Now I want to turn to God to reassure me that he won’t steer me wrong. One challenge here is that feeling of chaos is almost intolerable to me. I want to trust God, but my ongoing struggle has been not trusting God. So putting myself back in God’s loving arms on a moment-by-moment or at least on an as-needed basis is my directive right now. I am ok. God is with me.
How About You?
Can you identify with this person’s struggle? What phase are you in? What might it take for you to press forward to the next phase? What is God’s Spirit testifying to your heart right now?
Since January 11th, I have been going through a tough trial. It is taking me deeper and making me more desperate for God than ever. This has affected my eating. I feel like I am FIGHTING to do the right thing so often. And sometimes I just stop fighting…until I start fighting again…until I stop fighting again…until I…well, you get the gist, I bet.
I know that God peels back layer upon layer of stuff in my life…like the layers of an onion. Like Eustace in CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Aslan had to tear off the reptilian skin from Dragon-Eustace, ripping him clean of his scales…the pain of it all was necessary for him to be free of what bound him. Having gone through the transformation, though there may have been a grieving, there was also relief.
I feel a bit like Eustace. Will I welcome God’s new thing that he is doing, even in this? Or will I tenaciously cling to food as if by going through a hardship, being so sad, beaten up emotionally, etc., I deserve “this one vice?”
So, this week’s topic of emotional eating, coupled with hopeless eating, is something that is near and dear to my heart. Please don’t for one minute assume that what I share with you here is theoretical in my life. Far from it. Chances are, I have been in or AM in the trenches along with you. Or BOTH. Like with this week’s study topics, it is both. I have seen the truth of living these principles, but I need to be reminded.
Monday
Do you ever feel driven to eat? You give in and you are still driven to eat? And does it go on until you are just too miserable to keep going or all the food is gone? What causes this? For many of us, it is overwhelming emotions. I think sometimes we are trying to literally make ourselves so miserable physically so that we can’t FEEL our emotions any more. Or maybe we are trying to punish ourselves for something…like for “being so weak” that we feel hurt, or sadness, or pain, or anguish or guilt. Using food for these reasons won’t solve the problems. We know that with our heads, but we keep eating anyhow.
Can you add to your truth cards anything from this preliminary section?
Can you journal about the situation that is causing you to want to eat? Right now, take a few minutes to think back to the last time you ate out of emotion. What was going on? How did you feel? What did you do in response to the situation? If you ate, what did you eat? How did you feel as you ate? How did you feel after you ate? Did eating help?
Consider using some of Barb’s renewing of the mind tools if you aren’t already.
Read the “Journal About the Situation — Not the Food” and add any truths to your truth cards. NOTE: I love Barb’s material, including her Freedom From Emotional Eating workbook, but it *does* have dieting vocabulary in it. Please be aware of that if you decide to purchase it!
If you didn’t already, visit Barb’s other site at this link and go ahead and do the activities on that page. It is very helpful in moving through emotions that might lead you to eat outside of 0 and 5 boundaries.
If appropriate, add more truths to your truth cards.
Complete her emotional eating questions at the bottom of the page with an experience you had recently with emotional eating in mind.
Add anything to your truth cards that you glean.
Thursday
I love what Barb says. This is NOT hopeless as long as we keep fighting lies with truth. That is KEY! We have to be willing to do the hard work!
Visit Barb’s hopeless eating bible study page. Consider that Barb would write in her journal even after she had broken her boundaries. She shared with us in our first class that even doing this afterwards, she found it transformed her! Are you willing?
Complete her Hopeless Bible Study eating questions.
We can keep reading the latest greatest “non-diet,” “intuitive eating” material on the web, but there comes a point in time when we have to live up to the light we have been given.
Has that time come for you?
I get emails from people all the time…many are involved in the Thin Within Facebook Accountability Group, the regular Thin Within Facebook page, have frequented the Thin Within forums on an off for years, done all the workbooks, read Thin Within and Thin Again. Yet they still struggle with obedience. They still are frustrated by themselves. Maybe struggle implies more challenge then there has been. Some of us, don’t even put up a fight against the gluttony that sucks us in. We just roll over and give in to the desire.
What’s it gonna take to for us to stop it? To END THE REBELLION?
I guess another question would be “What’s REALLY holding you (me) back?”
With the way I have been this past week (and longer), I know what is in this Sound Cloud file holds the antidote for what I suffer from. I would wager might for you, too:
1. Have you read a lot of Thin Within material and done a lot of the workbooks or bible studies? Have you tried the online resources (of course you have if you are here at this website! LOL!). Do you really–in your heart of hearts–feel like you lack knowledge? Is there really anything more that more inspiration could offer you? Or is it time to live according to the light you already have?
2. Can you do what the audio suggests at the end…open to Psalm 30 or Isaiah 30 and pull out attributes of God or answers to this question: “What is God like and/or what has He done for people?” Can you praise him out loud for those attributes? Can you find three gifts that God has blessed you with in this moment, yes…even if your husband has just announced he is leaving, even if your daughter has admitted she is pregnant, even if you just got the news that you have cancer, even if your job is flushed because of your company’s “downsizing.” No matter what…can you find the gifts that God has offered you in this day, write them down and, out loud, thank him for them?
3. Are you willing to give THIS a try? Not another new bible study. Not another new accountability group, but the daily practice of praise and gratitude…and just see if it might not make a difference in the rebellion that has been living in your heart?
4. Do an experiment this weekend. Practice praise and gratitude this weekend. Build your God List. Use it for a Praise Fest. Keep a running list of the gifts God has given you. Speak these truths about God’s character and goodness OUT LOUD. See if, when you do this, you still have the same challenges in your eating…can you praise God at the same time you eat more food than he calls you to eat?
Let us know how it goes! Share your thoughts and insights here!
A frustrated dieter for years, you are finally taking the plunge! You have decided to give Thin Within a try. You are aware that the “freedom phase” — the beginning stage of Thin Within where you are encouraged to set aside all dieting laws and rules — is likely to be very challenging for you. You are aware at every turn that eating whatever you feel like eating can be tricky. It has been so long since you have enjoyed chocolate guilt-free, for instance. Regular dressing on your salad instead of fat-free has been unheard of until now. The idea sounds wonderful, but it is extremely frightening to trust this process.
You begin the day tentatively…some toast, an egg, and a bit of yogurt. You are hungry and the food actually tastes good…well, all except the toast–you know it would taste better with some butter, or at least some jelly, but you toss it out instead of risk it. You stop eating when you are no longer hungry and head into the day.
A few hours later, you sense hunger approaching. You finish the meeting with a co-worker and by the time you can break for lunch you are famished. Again, aware that you are allowed great freedom in your food selections, you nevertheless, “play it safe” with a salad at lunch. You want to reach for the regular salad dressing, but guilt overwhelms you. You are just positive that you need to be careful about things like this if you are to lose weight.
You pick up the kids and their friends after school. It’s the last day of class and they are in a celebratory mood! School is out for summer! They ask if you will take them by the grocery store to get the fixings for hot fudge sundaes. One thing these kids are is naturally thin eaters! Upon arriving home, they scoop themselves modest portions of ice cream, heat up some hot fudge in the microwave, topping the masterpieces with a smidgen of whipped cream, sliced almonds, and chocolate sprinkles. After enjoying conversation and their snacks around the dining table, they head to the TV room for a much-deserved movie.
Now, you find yourself alone in the kitchen. The refrigerator and freezer with aaaaalll those hot fudge sundae fixings stands there as if to say, “What are you going to do?” Your stomach is clearly empty–and no small wonder, when you consider what you have eaten today. The internal battle commences. Will you enjoy some ice cream? Or will you play it safe?
Prayerfully taking what feels like a large leap of faith, you scoop yourself a modest portion of ice cream, drizzle a tablespoon (or so) of hot fudge over it and forego the whipped cream and almonds altogether. Oh! Dare you really EAT this? Sure, you are hungry…but how on EARTH can you justify eating this? It is SO decadent and it really can’t be ok. Making a quick mental calculation for the premium ice cream and the hot fudge, you are just positive that this is an easy 350 calories if not closer to 500. “Surely, Thin Within can’t teach that I am not supposed to do the math!” You wonder how you could possibly lose any weight if you eat ice cream and hot fudge. You are just sure you need to learn to say NO to yourself. You are reminded of what the leader at your Thin Within class said only the night before about being willing, when you are hungry, to select foods you will enjoy. You know you would LOVE to have this sundae. So, you sit down, and try desperately to calm your mind.
You dig your spoon into the creamy ambrosia as hot fudge drips off the edge of the spoon. You savor the flavors slowly while an internal battle continues to rage. You can’t shake the guilt. “I can’t eat this! This is wrong! If I am going to do the right thing, I can’t eat this! This is so bad for me! I am abusing my body when I eat like this! I am such a failure. This can’t be ok for me–maybe for others, but not for me.”
You force yourself to finish eating the small sundae anyhow–after all, this is “freedom!” (“Thin Within says so!”) You, however, are plagued by guilt. It is a tremendous load on your shoulders. Even while you chastise yourself, something flips a switch inside of you. “That’s it! I have blown it! It’s over with now. I may as well GO for it!” Guilt guilt guilt and more guilt.
You get an edge–an attitude–you open the freezer door. Reaching for the ice cream you dig out a larger second portion and heat up twice as much hot fudge as the first time. This time, you heap a generous portion of whipped cream all over it, smothering it as if trying to smother your own guilt. Sitting down to watch an afternoon TV show while you eat you mindlessly inhale the second portion of ice cream. You find yourself back in the kitchen taking a spoon to the hot fudge. You hear the kids coming, so you steal away to the bathroom, hot fudge container and spoon in hand where no one will see….
You find yourself in the bathroom and, devastated, you sentence yourself, “I will never break free. I have to stop eating foods that trigger me!”
New Thin Within participants often share incidents such as this one. They explain that chocolate, bread, pasta, etc., “triggers” a response that keeps them stuck eating for the rest of the day once they have indulged in something not formerly on their “allowed foods” lists.
But I wonder…is it the actual food that does the triggering? Or could it, perhaps, be the thought that you are eating something that you are not supposed to be eating? Perhaps it is important to renew your mind about food before you eat it. If you haven’t informed your conscience and renewed your mind about the food, then no matter how permissible the food may be from God’s perspective, it isn’t from yours.Romans 14:23 says you may be condemned because you are defying your conscience. Maybe you need to inform your conscience.
But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat,
because their eating is not from faith;
and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Romans 14:23
So let’s inform your conscience just a bit together. Reason with me for just a moment.
Let’s say that you have a choice to eat either a salad with low-fat dressing or a half sandwich with chicken, cheese, and veggies.
There is no doubt that the salad has less calories than the half sandwich.
You feel compelled that choosing the lower calorie option is the better choice, even though you are learning how to eat the Thin Within way.
Consider for a moment, though: What are calories? They are fuel. So the salad offers less fuel than the half sandwich. What this basically means is that while you may be taking in fewer calories in the salad, you will run out of fuel sooner…and get hungry sooner, when you will then have to make another choice about what to eat when hungry or choose to deprive yourself when you are hungry. The person who eats the half sandwich may be choosing the option that is higher in calories…which simply means it has more fuel to offer. The way our bodies run, that just means that she won’t need more fuel quite so soon if she is eating according to physical hunger and satisfaction. She won’t be signaled that she is hungry quite as soon.
You see, there really is no benefit to eating the item that is less calorie dense when you follow the Thin Within approach.
When I was releasing 100 pounds using the Thin Within principles, I never ate a single salad (I don’t like vegetables). Instead, I ate pizza, desserts, french fries (from McDonalds…I know, this is appalling to many :-)!), etc. I honestly lost all my weight eating this way. When I tell people that, they often say “You must have exercised a lot.” Not while I was still releasing the weight I didn’t. I didn’t do much exercising in addition to normal life (with kids, horses and dogs) until much later, after I had released the weight.
But because I ate these foods according to physical hunger and satisfaction, it meant that I ate small portions and these foods, because they are calorie–FUEL–rich, sustained me. I didn’t need to eat very frequently or very large portions at all.
Some might feel that by eating those foods that are so high in salt and fat that my cholesterol would go flying off the charts. Consider with me again: When we are concerned about these things, it isn’t the thing (like fat) itself that causes these problems in our bodies. Just like it isn’t sugar itself. It is the quantity. When you eat the small amounts of ANY of the foods that you desire, you will not end up with high cholesterol or diabetes (at least it isn’t likely) or any of the other health problems that so many of us relate to eating “too much of the wrong thing.” Portions served in restaurants are HUGE. You can enjoy a bit of any food on the planet and discover that it doesn’t take much to satisfy you AND it will not cause your blood pressure to spike, cholesterol to go up or your arteries to clog.
Back to our triggering example that we began with: I believe that the reason many of us are “triggered” as we try to break free from dieting is because we haven’t informed our conscience about all of these things. We haven’t explained to our brains the truth about food.
The Truth is: No food is more righteous than any other.
Sure, it is best to have a variety of foods with a variety of nutrients–something Thin Within calls “beneficial foods,” but having steamed broccoli instead of chips and salsa doesn’t make someone a better person, a godlier Christian, or a skinnier person either. The key is why we what we eat, when we eat what we eat, and how much we eat. In the past, we were told “You are what you eat.” That simply isn’t true.
My husband and I go out to breakfast every so often at McDonalds. I get the sausage biscuit. He gets the yogurt and fruit parfait. The sausage biscuit sustains me for four hours–even when I play two hours of tennis. The yogurt holds Bob about two hours, as he sits at a desk at work. Which choice is better? 🙂 (Gosh, I am spoiled, aren’t I?)
Do you see what I mean?
So inform your conscience about food. See if doing so doesn’t eliminate any “triggering” behavior. I really believe it isn’t the food at all. It is the false guilt that kicks in when we think we have “blown it” and want to quit.
When you inform your conscience that you can enjoy the hot fudge sundae with freedom between the godly boundaries of physical hunger and satisfaction, I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that you won’t go binge crazy and gobble down another hefty bowl of ice cream *or* find yourself hiding out in the bathroom with the hot fudge and a spoon.
What do you think? Do you need to inform your conscience about food and give yourself a chance to truly enjoy the freedom you have? What might that look like for you? Can you create a list of true statements about food and use it to renew your mind about food?
