It was a bit of a slow fade for me over the holidays. So, today, I am declaring war on apathy! Will you join me? Right now, there are no foods in the house that I am likely to give in to eating outside of 0 and 5. This is a temporary “THIS MEANS WAR” stance….I mean for a week or so. Also, I am journaling my way through two sets of questions in Barb’s I Deserve a Donut and Other Lies That Make You Eat book…one set in the morning and one set at 5pm (or so) each evening. I am renewing my commitment to check in DAILY with my accountability partner. THIS WEEK I MEAN BUSINESS. Not only am I getting back in the saddle, but I am GOING SOMEWHERE!
How about you?
What is your plan to take back the Land the Lord wants as YOURS? Why rest in apathy until January 6th when you can get a running start? (Ugh…mixing my metaphors! LOL!)
Do you ever wonder why you can’t beat this? Why you keep doing yet another study about food and weight? Why you can’t just SHAKE loose of this challenge, this relationship with food, this weight?
The answer may be as simple as focus.
Let me illustrate:
Right now, don’t think about green gorillas.
No, really. Don’t think about green gorillas.
You aren’t, right? 🙂
Sit there for 30 seconds without a single thought of a green gorillas.
You aren’t thinking about green gorillas, are you? 🙂
LOL!
Ok, be honest…what are you thinking of?
If you are like most, if someone says “Don’t think about green gorillas,” that is precisely what you think about. When we try NOT to think about something—either a food that is off our “diet foods” list (when we were on diets), or a food we want to eat and are free to eat, but when we are not hungry—we can’t help but to think about it! Diets tell us what we can’t have and can’t think about. The more we try not to think about or not to want these things, the more we think about them and want them until we become overwhelmed and give in, sometimes after we have already eaten the dieter’s version of whatever it might be.
Read Colossians 2:20-23 in your Bible or below:
Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world,
why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules:
21“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?
22These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.
23Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship,
their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body,
but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
Please take a moment and underline descriptive phrases in this passage in your bible that are used to describe the mentality that Paul is confronting. Two are done for you.
Now write down what you underlined in the passage above:
_____Rules________________________________
_____Destined to Perish with Use_____________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Which of the above descriptive words and phrases could also be used to describe a prescriptive way of managing weight or, which of the words above fit in describing “diets?” Circle any that apply.
What can’t diets do according to this passage?
Did you notice all those “do nots” in the passage? When told DO NOT, what do we do? Do you find it true that, often, you end up doing the very thing that you are told NOT to do! (Just like not thinking about green gorillas?)
Most often in worldly programs we are challenged to merely be “self controlled.” With these programs, we have often found ourselves eating foods that, while “good for us” don’t match up with what we really desire—they don’t satisfy. We have tried desperately to conform ourselves to an outward standard while resentment builds deep within. We are told not to eat this or that and, often, we give in to what we wanted in the first place.
God’s way of freedom from the chains that bind us, the coping mechanisms that constrict us, the addictions that hinder us, is for us to experience freedom from these outward restraints, to have our hearts and minds renewed and to transform us from the inside out! As our hearts are transformed, our choices will be as well. Moment by moment, our choices, when built one upon another, will radically alter externals—our appearance and behavior. We can walk in freedom!
This is why I have been crowing about renewing our minds for so long (and I will continue to do so!). We have to be willing to do the work it takes to change the way we think.
God has created us to experience joy in life—even in something as mundane as eating! We can praise HIM for his marvelous creativity in making mangos, asparagus, ice cream sundaes, and cheese enchiladas. Eating was never intended to torment us, but to bless us.
Dieting has caused us to be focused on ourselves, on our food, on our weight, on our size…on everything ME. Some of us have “done” Thin Within the same way we have done dieting—with the focus all on ME, MYSELF, and I. The focus has been on the externals…on my appearance, my behavior, my food, my exercise…ME. In embracing these approaches, however, we have done nothing to change our hearts in a positive direction. In fact, often, we come out of our experiences with these programmatic ways of handling food with an even deeper fixation on food or our bodies.
This is forming and shaping our hearts…not just our bodies (if physical changes happen at all). Do we really feel that the way we are becoming more self-absorbed is God-honoring and worth it as long as we lose weight? I hope not!
Let’s be intentional…and choose to take a radically different approach. Let’s allow our King to have our heart, our focus, our desires. He is going to do something major in our lives so it stands to reason that we want to have our focus in the right place.
How About You?
Are you ready to “do” this differently than you have done diets or Thin Within in the past? Do you want this to really be the last time you have to “start over?” Are you ready to do the work that is involved? If so, I strongly encourage you to go to the Renewing of the Mind Bible Study page here and do these studies (again if you have done them already). Do that and/or do a search on the blog for “Truth Cards.” I believe you will be SO blessed as you work on the way you THINK and on where your focus is. When we stop thinking ME ME ME and start thinking GOD GOD GOD some amazing transformations begin to take place. Honest. 🙂
I am preparing to go on a true vacation—one where I won’t be owned by my cell phone or email…even though these are things I love as I get to talk to wonderful people like you all! My husband and I are going to Grand Cayman on Saturday and will be gone through the 22nd of September. After I return from that trip, I have a lot more traveling planned before October 17th when I get to stay home for a few weeks.
What that means is this blog will reflect my absence. I will schedule posts, but some will be re-runs, some will be Truth Card suggestions, bible verse devotions, and some will be references to other posts elsewhere that I think would be incredibly valuable and I want to share them with you.
Since I am trying to get a lot done this week, I am beginning now to cut back on time I spend preparing blog posts.
Today’s recommendation is to an online magazine article, “Breaking Up With Your Ideal Self.” It is written by Allie Marie Smith who wrote the Healthy Eating Abundant Living book with Judy Halliday and who runs the Wonderfully Made ministry. I hope you will visit her article and be blessed. Then come back here and give feedback!
What About You?
Can you relate at all to Allie’s admission that her real self and ideal self have been separated by an ever increasing chasm?
How have you responded to this, if so?
Do you let your ideal self rob you of the joy that could be yours today?
What could you start to do today to stop this tendency?
Finally, Allie asked the question: How are you going to live your one valuable and irreplaceable life as the real, completely un-ideal you?
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!
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 Studyagain. 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.
Image Courtesy of Daniel Bylsma Weather in Wells, Nevada
If you are like I was, you have dieted for years on and off and had “success” on and off, but have lost and gained the same weight. Even if you have been a Thin Within participant, this may be your experience with it, too–it was mine! Until 2006, that is.
There are a number of things that made a difference for me (three of them are mentioned in an audio link that I send you when you subscribe to my newsletter…what a shameless plug!). But I can summarize those three by saying the single key was a general shift in my mindset.
So…What made the difference for me so that I released the weight and then have stayed a healthy weight since?
And, more importantly, what will make the difference for you?
If you are doing the HEAL study with us, then you may have read the section entitled Breath of Fresh Air on page 15 (of the latest edition).
Even if you aren’t doing the study…the truth is the same! What you can do to experience a different, permanent result this time is, simply:
Change Your Focus
Think about it…in the past experiences with dieting or Thin Within, whether you were successful or struggling, what did you focus on? Was it, perhaps myweight, mysuccess, myfood, myeating, my body, mydeprivation…MY MY MY ME ME ME? 🙂
Think about it for a moment in another context… When you “fell off the wagon” was it perhaps mystress, mylack of support, mytrials, mylack of self-discipline, my busyness?
Oh…shoot! **I** quit!!!
The solution to the problem of being caught in this cycle, again, is to:
Change Your Focus
Ok, I know I said that already. I want you to believe me. 🙂
So maybe you buy it, but you want to know what should you change your focus TO?
Bear with me on this one, too.
Simply… Change your focus to…God.
HIS power
HIS provision
HIS will
HIS way
HIS love
HIS character
HIS performance
HIS actions and activity
GOD GOD GOD!!!
So, howpractically can you do this?
Here are some tools you can use that will make all the difference in the world. In fact, these tools–no matter what I am going through–if I shift the focus from ME and “How ever will *I* make it?” to “God is strong enough, mighty enough, loving enough, caring enough to do ANYTHING!” I find that nothing is impossible.
This really is all about HIM, even if it FEELS like it is all about “me” (or YOU in this case!).
Like Allie and Judy say in the HEAL book, To experience authentic healing and restoration, we need to focus on something bigger than ourselves.
God.
Here are the tools for you to try. And you just knew I would challenge you to choose one of them today!
Each time you hear yourself saying “I will never be able to…” recognize it as a lie and one that is about YOU and trade it for a God-thought, “God, you are more than able to perform anything!” Write them down…keep track. One column is LIES and you cross those out as you go and the other column is TRUTH and you make those phrases big and bold and biblical!
Develop a God List. Take a moment each day to jot down aspects of God’s character and his deeds. Here are some places where you can learn more about that: YouTube Video, How to Create a God List, Sample God List. You can use the inside of your HEAL book or, even better, a larger journal, or, for you techno-geeks (like myself), you can keep it in Evernote on your iDevices and computer! It is always at the ready that way!
Create a play list on your mp3 player or iPod that has songs that specifically state the truths about God and his character. I will be sharing some ideas for songs you can include here at the blog from time to time. Or you can have a look at my other blog to see the songs there that I have recommended for a similar play list.
Memorize scriptures specifically praising God for His character. Put post it notes up around your car, office, kitchen, wherever would help to keep you remembering that this is *not* about your will-power, but about God’s work in you. HE is able and more than willing.
Keep a growing list of gratitudes–things that you are thankful for. These are gifts that God has blessed you with. It’s different than the God List. The God List is for keeping a list of what God is like. The list of gratitudes is a list of the gifts that he gives you personally. The idea is that you take note throughout your day of things he gives. Have a look at my online gratitude blog to see what I mean (I don’t keep it up to date like I need to!). In fact, YOU could start an online gratitude blog and share the link with us here!
Set the timer on your watch to go off every hour (I have been known to set mine to go off every 20 minutes…I am desperate!). Each time it goes off, I breath a prayer “All for your glory, Lord,” or “Jesus, help me honor you,” or…well, whatever you choose. Check in with the Lord this way and use your timer to remind you!
When we focus on the Lord, something happens…the attitudes of entitlement and justification that seem to cause us to reach for food dwindles. We are kept in a humble place. Instead of insisting on “my rights” we turn to the Lord and think “For your glory!” We also aren’t so prone to “failure” eating, since we understand that this isn’t about MY performance, but about God doing a work in me that HE will complete. It takes time to create a thing of absolute perfection…God will take my entire life and do the finishing touches on it when I go through the door to heaven and not one moment before!
When I focus on him, I am not so prone to engage in “Keeping Boundaries is Hard” eating, either. Gosh, in fact, if you were to go through all of the different types of eating that Barb’s study had us look at, I bet a BUNCH of them would disappear if we took a proactive approach to focus on and exalt God instead of thinking of ourselves quite so much. Dieting does, by definition almost, insist that we be myopic…self-focused. Let’s transform our experience! Let’s try something radical!
Who is with me? Will you start today? Right now?
What tool will you begin with (or continue, or restart) today so that your focus is more on the Lord and less on you? Be sure to check in here again and tell us how it went. I can’t wait to hear!
