This week we have had the opportunity to look at the freedom we are invited to experience in setting aside dieting rules, dieting laws, dieting “Good Foods” and “Bad Foods” lists and dare to trust the God who created our bodies fearfully and wonderfully.
Is Psalm 139 beginning to take root in your heart? Do you believe you are fearfully and wonderfully made?
In the material we studied this week, what resonated for you? If you aren’t doing the book or your book hasn’t arrived yet, share what rang true for you or was impressed upon you here at the blog or in the comments. So much wonderful discussion has been going on! I would love to hear from you about it!
Have you been a “die hard” dieter in the past?
Are your dieting thoughts affecting you even now as you try to set them aside?
Do you have an accountability partner yet? If you go to the Accountability page here at the website, post your information and if you see someone you might like to connect with in email, please send me an email. Please don’t post to me in the comments on that page, as I probably won’t see it in a timely manner. Shoot me an email instead.
Turn to page 36 and have a look at the HEAL pyramid. You will refer to that during this video. If you don’t have the book, I think you will be able to visualize the pyramid just fine as I describe it. You will want to have your book or a journal to write down responses to the questions as we go through.
FOUNDATION – Relationship with God. When you get to the spot in the video, turn off the video, pray, then write down what God is leading you to establish as a goal for this level of the HEAL pyramid. What goal will you have for your relationship with God? We would love to hear in the comments, too. What action steps will enable you to realize your goal?
Second Level – Relationship with FOOD. Again, when you get to the spot in the video, stop, pray, and then write down what God is leading you to establish as a goal for your relationship with food. What action steps will enable you to realize your goal?
Third Level – Hunger/Fullness Eating. In the video, I indicate when to stop. Then pray and jot down what God wants for you in this area of your life. What action steps (or perhaps secondary boundaries) will enable you to achieve this goal?
Tip top level – Beneficial Food Choices. I urge you to approach this category with caution. If you have a history of obsession with dieting, it may not be time for you to establish a goal for this area. You want to learn to trust the Lord that you can eat anything between the parameters of 0 and 5 or hunger and satisfaction.
I hope that you have experienced God’s personal leading as you have established your goals in each of the areas of the HEAL pyramid. Please feel free to allow God to lead you to adjust these as we continue.
I would love to hear what your goals are! Let us know in the comments which area of the HEAL pyramid and what your goal is. If you like, share your action steps, too. In fact, you could use this for your accountability with your partner, too, if you like.
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?
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. 🙂
Below is a video that I made to help people understand what it means to renew the mind…what it is, how to go about doing it and why!
I hope it helps you.
Thanks again to Barb Raveling for her help in understanding how to practically apply the wisdom of Romans 12:2!
Summary:
Renewing the Mind is, simply, thinking God’s thoughts after him.
First, choose a renewing of the mind goal. Why? Because it is our thinking that causes us to act. If we want to act differently and see different fruit in our lives, we need to start where actions are birthed–in our thoughts! What do you want to think differently about? The scale? Your body? Food? Your marriage? Your job? Probably, for our study coming up, you will want to select something that has to do with food, eating or weight, but it is your choice. Maybe you are an emotional eater, so you need to think differently about processing emotions. Maybe you don’t feel like you trust God. You might want to renew your mind about God’s character. So first thing, you want to pick a renewing of your mind goal.
Secondly, select times of the day when you will proactively choose to think God’s thoughts about whatever it is. First thing in the morning is a good idea for most of us since it might set the tone for the entire day. If you struggle in your marriage, you might also want to plan a renewing of your mind session for just before you see your spouse. If it is about food, you might need a mini-renewing of your mind session before you eat each time you eat! Let’s dive in and do this for all we are worth. Give it just a few weeks of diligence and hard work and you will be amazed at how you are impacted! You can also renew your mind in the middle of giving in to behaviors that are counter to your godly goal or after you have given in. It is best to plan a time before that happens, of course! But even if you “blow it,” you can renew your mind about whatever it is after the fact and it will help!
Thirdly, select strategies for actually thinking God’s thoughts after him. In this video, I share some ideas for that, but it is by no means comprehensive. You can use Barb Raveling’s I Deserve a Donut app. You can read scripture or review memorized verses. The bible is clearly where God shows us his thoughts, so it is a safe place to land to find things to think about for renewing your mind. If you want to be more specific, you can do what I have done. On an index card, piece of paper, on a file in your laptop or your cell phone or iDevice :-), you can create a file or jot down a list of TRUTHS about whatever it is that you want to think differently about. Then, each of the times that you renew your mind, you would read those things…preferably out loud. Pray over them and ask God to work them deeply into the soil of your heart and mind.
Also, in the video I say one of the things I like about 0 to 5 eating is that it is easy. Then I talk about Barb’s app and mention that 0 to 5 eating is hard. What I mean by that, is when I am tempted to stray away from it, THEN it is hard. That is when I need to stop myself from whining about how “hard” it is. It is always going to be hard to obey. But the principles are easy, simple, and doable!
I hope this helps clarify what renewing the mind is! 🙂
In fact, whatever the addiction, bad habit, or temptation…we often try to stop thinking about whatever it is just so we can be FREE!
But the more we try to STOP thinking about these things, the more we actually think about them. The more we feel ensnared.
Let me illustrate the point this way:
Do NOT think about a pink elephant.
(I know, I have used this illustration before…just work with me! LOL!).
Seriously…do NOT think about a pink elephant. NO PINK ELEPHANT thinking!
What are you thinking about?
Chances are, you are thinking about a pink elephant!
This is true with our eating. When we are trying not to give in to eating a hot fudge sundae when we aren’t hungry, the more we try not to think about it, the more we think about it, until we are overcome and we give in.
So, my theory (and one that has worked for me and others in the classes I have led) is that if we intentionally change what we are thinking about, we will experience the victory we long for.
Not only that, but if heart hunger is really what is luring me to food, then it seems like I need to feed my heart with heart FOOD to experience satisfaction.
Changing my focus from me and what *I* want and to the LORD is a great way of dealing with all of this! By focusing on the Lord, I stop thinking about pink elephants and hot fudge sundaes. 🙂 By focusing on the Lord, my heart is filled up on what it longs for…intimacy with God.
This is what the “God List” is for. It is to take the focus OFF of ME and on to God and to fill my heart up on what it really is missing…intimacy with God. God has placed a heart hunger within me to draw me to HIM. If I keep on feeding this heart hunger with physical food, not only will my heart continue to starve for what it was created to long for, but I will get BIGGER (physically). This starves my heart and over-feeds my body!
If you want to know more about the God List, view this video.
More on the God List and what to do with it next week! 🙂
