Thinwithin.org

Week 9 ~ “Why Should I Care?”and “YIKES! I Don’t Like My BODY! HELP!”

by | Aug 12, 2013 | Blog

Image Source: iStockPhoto

Image Source: iStockPhoto

This is a stream of consciousness video…but maybe there is something here that can encourage you. Obviously, I have my work cut out for me this week! Do you? LOL!

Carelessly grazing as we walk through the kitchen, dipping into the candy dish on the office-mate’s desk, or sucking on mints just because they are there…these are little examples of Careless Eating. Careless eating is what often leads to that sudden panic… OH MY GOODNESS! I have been eating TOO much and I must GET SKINNY NOW!

All those moments when we said, “It’s just one bite” haunt us when we reach for a pair of pants hanging in our closet that we haven’t tried on in a couple of months. As we go to slip into them we wonder if our “just one bite(s)” will have cost us anything.

How does God feel about “just one bite?”

Is it possible that “Just one bite” is how we got in trouble in the first place? Either God has called us to the boundary of 0 and 5 or he hasn’t. If he has, does “just one bite” have a place?

How might those “just one bite” moments affect your appearance? Will this matter to you?

Monday

1. I haven’t asked you to do this in a while, so it is time. Are you committed to 0 to 5 eating? Do you believe it is from God for you? Why do you feel convinced in your heart that this is so? Write in your journal your thoughts about this and the statement “I know 0 to 5 eating is a boundary from God for my life” (or something similar). Date it and sign it if it will help. We want to recommit to this!

2. Visit Barb Raveling’s Careless Eating Study at her blog. Can you relate to her illustration about the alcoholic at all? Barb says: We can learn a lot from the life of an alcoholic. Although we can’t say not even one bite, we can say, not even one bite outside our boundaries. What do you think about that? Journal your feeling about that. What do you think of her statement, “The minute we think it’s just one bite, we are in danger.”

3. Do all the Bible Study questions that Barb has for us on that page, including looking up the bible verses. Journal what you discover.

4. Add any truths you have come up with to your Truth Cards.

5 Are you willing to take the challenge? TELL US! 🙂 Get an Accountability Partner. It isn’t too late!

Tuesday

1. Return to Barb’s Careless Eating Study at her blog for part 2.

2. Barb challenges us to incorporate the “Careless Eating Questions” into our lives so that when we are tempted to eat outside of our 0 and 5 boundaries we evaluate by using those questions. You can do these now, even if you aren’t experiencing temptation. I recommend going through these questions today and journaling your response.

3. Jot down any truths you have come up with for your Truth Cards.

4. Share with us here in the comments any thoughts that God has laid on your heart, truths you have added to your cards, or new insights (or old ones) that you got from the questions or the bible study.

Wednesday

1. Visit Barb Ravelings “Appearance Eating Bible Study”. How important is it to you to lose weight? Ask God to show you just how fixed your heart is on the physical results you want. What if you could have God in all his fullness and beauty, but not be the size/shape you want? What then? Would he be enough?

2. Can you relate at all to my confession in the video? How so?

3. To what source are you looking for your happiness?

4. Is there any living you are waiting to do until you look a certain way? What would God have you do…today?

Thursday

1. Visit Barb Raveling’s Appearance Eating Bible Study again.  Complete Questions for your Journal numbers 1 through 5 and journal your answers.

2. Share here anything that God impresses upon your heart. What you share may encourage another person who visits and reads the comments–even if they don’t post. Consider it a ministry to others that you do in faith! (It ministers to ME! LOL!)

3. As you consider a person in your life that you feel requires you to be a different size or shape, it might be helpful to do some forgiveness work. When I do forgiveness work, it includes “telling on them to God.” Think of being a colossal tattle tale…you are God’s precious little child running to him to tattle on whoever it is. Pour it all out. What did they do to you? How do you feel about it? Tell your Heavenly Abba (Daddy) and then leave it with him. Ask him to help you to forgive…to choose to trust it all to His care.

Friday

1. Visit Barb Raveling’s Appearance Eating Bible Study yet one more time. 🙂 Complete questions 6 through 10 and journal your responses as time allows.

2. What truths can you add to your truth cards…or, if you aren’t yet creating a deck of truth cards, what truths is God speaking over you?

3. Share with us here how you feel God leading you to approach your desire for weight loss (Barb’s question 10).

4. If you haven’t done so as a part of any of the other questions in today’s assignment, you may want to reaffirm your confidence that God is calling you to 0 to 5 as your primary boundary. What are the secondary boundaries he is calling you to? Write these down to affirm them and date it.

5. How are you doing with your summer study?

6. How are YOU? 🙂 I care!

Fear….

by | Feb 2, 2007 | Uncategorized

So many things are hitting me.

I am feeling like this really will happen this time. I will reach my God-given size…and not just because I have mechanically applied the physiological aspects of 0-5 eating. God is really transforming me INSIDE (within) and out.

For some reason the 35 pounds I have lost seems like it was ALL really significant–like half from my tummy and half from my bottom. My profile looks different…when I accidentally see my reflection, now, I don’t cringe…I don’t freak. I look *different*…Almost…well, “normal.”

So what is my fear? How many times have I lost weight….a bizillion. And then gained it again. A bizillion. Just since having kids, I have lost over 210 pounds (not counting the latest 35) and gained it back…

I remember after I lost 110 pounds with Weight Watchers and made a huge monumental decision to break free from my fear of gaining the weight back…and I got rid of all my biggest sized clothing. (And the smaller sizes between that biggest size and where I was). I struggled with doing this for a long time before taking those large sized clothes to Good Will. When I did it, I hooted and hollered and celebrated! I was FREE!

I regretted it within two years. I had no clothes that fit as I gained back the weight and had to go out and *buy* the bigger sizes. That was awful.

Today I had the thought hit me, “I will probably gain all this back again just like I always have.”

Well, nuts, if that isn’t from the pit of hell, I don’t know what is. But I also am a realist…this thought has history supporting it as fact. However, on the other side of things, I also know that because this is so different this time…since God really is making me different “within” that former history doesn’t have to be repeated. I can truly FORGET what is behind and press on! So there!

So…I am going to do something different. No, I won’t get rid of the big sized clothing. I guess that says something….

Instead, though, I am going to type up little notes to pin inside the pockets. If I ever wear those jeans again, I will find that note. I know myself well enough to know that I will HAVE to read it…I am like that. In that note, I will point out how wonderfully easy and quick God has been making this. I will put my testimony of seeing God work, transforming me…and the way He is also calling me to be restored in ministry at the same time as well….

I think that it could matter. I know that the worldly thought that kept me from starting this sooner was that it would take “such a long time” to release weight. Well, that isn’t true at all. Not only that, but eating this way has felt GREAT.

Yes, there have been times I have stumbled. Around Christmas, I went bonkers. I still manage to eat beyond the place God has told me to stop many times. I am in process….

I will just slip a reminder in the pocket of those pants.

Who knows? Maybe when I finally DO get the courage and overcome my fear to give those jeans away, I will have forgotten about the note pinned in them and some unsuspecting thrift store shopper will find the note…and get hope! LOL!

Do I sound nuts?